Keynote mapping historical film audiences : revisiting new cinema history and audience research

Mapping historical film audiences: Revisiting New Cinema History and audience research Film audience studies - arguably the oldest and one of the most prolific fields within media audience and film studies - are often reduced to a history of competing paradigms, theories, concepts and methodologies. This balkanisation or fragmentation of the field has proved unproductive because film audiences are inherently multifaceted: they are real and constructed; discursive and/or material; active, passive and everything in between; consumers and citizens; massive as well as individual, atomised and part of larger social and cultural ensembles. A similar observation applies to the study of historical film audiences, a rich and evolving field that has become central to the development of New Cinema History over the past two decades. This keynote reflects on the progress made in researching historical film audiences within the New Cinema History framework and calls for greater creativity in uncovering and synthesising the diverse traces and sources that shape our understanding of past film and cinema experiences.