Abstract
This chapter provides a detailed overview of the unique methodology adopted for the Hobbit Audience Project. It begins by outlining the key insights from previous research on Tolkien fandom and audiences for Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy that helped inform the project’s core questions and research focus. Then, it explains the rationale for conducting a large-scale longitudinal investigation of transnational receptions of the Hobbit trilogy, focusing in particular on the potential to make contributions to theory-building. To that end, the chapter also outlines the Composite Multi-dimensional Model of Modes of Audience Reception, which provides the theoretical framework for the project, before detailing the specific methods employed to gather data, including Q methodology, conventional questionnaires and interviews.
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Barker, M. (2006). I have seen the future and it is not here yet …; Or, on being ambitious for audience research. The Communication Review, 9(2), 123–141. doi:10.1080/10714420600663310.
Barker, M. (2009). Changing lives, challenging concepts: Some findings and lessons from the Lord of the Rings project. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12(4), 375–393. doi:10.1177/1367877909104244.
Barker, M., & Mathijs, E. (Eds.). (2008). Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s world audiences. New York: Peter Lang.
Barker, M., Mathijs, E., & Trobia, A. (2008). Our methodological challenges and solutions. In M. Barker & E. Mathijs (Eds.), Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s world audiences (pp. 213–240). New York: Peter Lang.
Blumler, J. D., McLeod, J. M., & Rosengren, K. E. (1992). Comparatively speaking: Communication and culture across space and time. Newbury Park: Sage.
Brayton, J. (2006). Fic Frodo slash Frodo: Fandoms and The Lord of the Rings. In E. Mathijs & M. Pomerance (Eds.), From hobbits to Hollywood: Essays on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings (pp. 137–154). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
Brown, S. R. (1977). Political literature and the response of the reader: Experimental studies of interpretation, imagery, and criticism. American Political Science Review, 71(02), 567–584.
Brown, S. R. (1980). Political subjectivity: Applications of Q methodology in political science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Chin, B., & Gray, J. (2001). ‘One ring to rule them all’: Previewers and pretexts of the Lord of the Rings films. Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media, 2.
Creswell, J. W. (2015). Revisiting mixed methods and advancing scientific practices. In S. Nagy Hesse-Biber & R. Burke Johnson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of multimethod and mixed methods research inquiry (pp. 61–71). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davis, C. H., Michelle, C., Hardy, A. L., & Hight, C. (2014). Framing audience prefigurations of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: The roles of fandom, politics and idealised intertexts. Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 11(1), 50–87.
De Kloet, J., & Kuipers, G. (2007). Spirituality and fan culture around the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Fabula: Journal of Folktale Research, 48(3/4), 300–319. doi:10.1515/FABL.2007.023.
Denzin, N. K. (1970). The research act in sociology: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods. London: Butterworths.
Esser, F. (2013). The emerging paradigm of comparative communication enquiry: Advancing cross-national research in times of globalization. International Journal of Communication, 7, 113–128.
Esser, F., & Hanitzsch, T. (2012a). On the why and how of comparative inquiry in communication studies. In F. Esser & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of comparative communication research (pp. 3–22). New York and London: Routledge.
Esser, F., & Hanitzsch, T. (2012b). Organising and managing comparative research projects across nations: Models and challenges of coordinated collaboration. In I. Volkmer (Ed.), The handbook of global media research (pp. 521–532). Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Flick, U. (2017). Mantras and myths: The disenchantment of mixed-methods research and revisiting triangulation as a perspective. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(1), 46–57. doi:10.1177/1077800416655827.
Geraghty, C. (2008). Now a major motion picture: Film adaptations of literature and drama. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Granelli, S., & Zenor, J. (2016). Decoding ‘the code’: Reception theory and moral judgment of Dexter. International Journal of Communication, 10, 5056–5078.
Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. doi:10.1037//0022-3514.79.5.701.
Green, M. C., Brock, T. C., & Kaufman, G. F. (2004). Understanding media enjoyment: The role of transportation into narrative worlds. Communication Theory, 14(4), 311–327. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00317.x.
Green, M. C., Chatham, C., & Sestir, M. A. (2012). Emotion and transportation into fact and fiction. Scientific Study of Literature, 2(1), 37–59. doi:10.1075/ssol.2.1.03gre.
Hall, A., & Zwarun, L. (2012). Challenging entertainment: Enjoyment, transportation, and need for cognition in relation to fictional films viewed online. Mass Communication and Society, 15(3), 384–406. doi:10.1080/15205436.2011.583544.
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language: Working papers in cultural studies (pp. 128–138). London: Hutchinson.
Holland, K., Warwick Blood, R., & Thomas, S. (2015). Viewing The Biggest Loser: Modes of reception and reflexivity among obese people. Social Semiotics, 25(1), 16–32.
Jerslev, A. (2006). Sacred viewing: Emotional responses to The Lord of the Rings. In E. Mathijs (Ed.), The Lord of the Rings: Popular culture in global context (pp. 206–221). London and New York: Wallflower Press.
Kuipers, G., & de Kloet, J. (2009). Banal cosmopolitanism and The Lord of the Rings: The limited role of national differences in global media consumption. Poetics, 37, 99–118. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2009.01.002.
Liebes, T., & Katz, E. (1990). The export of meaning: Cross-cultural readings of Dallas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Livingstone, S. (2012). Challenges to comparative research in a globalizing media landscape. In F. Esser & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The handbook of comparative communication research (pp. 415–429). New York and London: Routledge.
Mathijs, E., & Jones, J. (2004). Big Brother International: Formats, critics and publics. London: Wallflower Press.
McKeown, B., & Thomas, D. (2013). Q methodology. Newbury Park: Sage.
McKeown, B., Thomas, D. B., Rhoads, J. C., & Sundblad, D. (2015). Falling hard for Breaking Bad: An investigation of audience response to a popular television series. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 12(2), 147–167.
Michelle, C. (2007). Modes of reception: A consolidated analytical framework. The Communication Review, 10(3), 181–222. doi:10.1080/10714420701528057.
Michelle, C. (2009). (Re) contextualising audience receptions of reality TV. Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 6(1), 137–170.
Michelle, C., & Davis, C. H. (2014). Beyond the qualitative–quantitative divide: Reflections on the utility and challenges of Q methodology for media researchers. In F. Darling-Wolf (Ed.), Blackwell companion to methods in media studies (Vol. 7, pp. 1–23). Research methods in media studies. New York: Wiley.
Michelle, C., Davis, C. H., & Vladica, F. (2012). Understanding variation in audience engagement and response: An application of the composite model to receptions of Avatar (2009). The Communication Review, 15(2), 106–143. doi:10.1080/10714421.2012.674467.
Mikos, L., Eichner, S., Prommer, E., & Wedel, M. (2008). Involvement in The Lord of the Rings: Audience strategies and orientations. In M. Barker & E. Mathijs (Eds.), Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s world audiences (Vol. 3, pp. 111–128). New York: Peter Lang.
Morley, D. (1980). The nationwide audience: Structure and decoding (BFI Television Monograph No. 11). British Film Institute.
Morley, D. (2006). Unanswered questions in audience research. The Communication Review, 9, 101–121. doi:10.1080/10714420600663286.
Press, A. (1991). Women watching television. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Rae, N., & Gray, J. (2007). When Gen-X meet the X-men: Retextualizing comic book reception. In I. Gordon, M. Jancovich, & M. McAllister (Eds.), Film and comic books (pp. 86–100). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Schrøder, K. C. (1986). The pleasure of Dynasty: The weekly reconstruction of self-confidence. In P. Drummond & R. Paterson (Eds.), Television and its audience: International research perspectives (pp. 61–82). London: British Film Institute.
Schrøder, K. C. (2011). Audiences are inherently cross-media: Audience studies and the cross-media challenge. Communication Management Quarterly, 18(6), 5–27.
Stam, R. (2000). Beyond fidelity: The dialogics of adaptation. In J. Naremore (Ed.), Film adaptation (pp. 54–76). London: Athlone Press.
Stehling, M., Finger, J., & Jorge, A. (2016). Comparative audience research: A review of cross-national and cross-media audience studies. Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 13(1), 321–333.
Stenner, P., & Marshall, H. (1995). A Q methodological study of rebelliousness. European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 621–636.
Stephenson, W. (1953). The study of behavior: Q-technique and its methodology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Tager, M., & Matthee, H. (2014). Dexter: Gratuitous violence or the vicarious experience of justice? Perceptions of selected South African viewers. Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 40(1), 20–33. doi:10.1080/02500167.2014.868366.
Tal-Or, N., & Cohen, J. (2015). Unpacking engagement: Convergence and divergence in transportation and identification. Annals of the International Communication Association, 40(1), 33–66. doi:10.1080/23808985.2015.11735255.
Thompson, K. (2003). Fantasy, franchises, and Frodo Baggins: The Lord of the Rings and modern Hollywood. The Velvet Light Trap, 52(1), 45–63. doi:10.1353/vlt.2003.0020.
Thompson, K. (2011). Gollum talks to himself: Problems and solutions in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. In J. Bogsrad & P. Kaveny (Eds.), Picturing Tolkien: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (pp. 25–45). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
Turnbull, S. (2008). Beyond words? The Return of the King and the pleasures of the text. In M. Barker & E. Mathijs (Eds.), Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s world audiences (pp. 181–190). New York: Peter Lang.
Van Ommen, M., Daalmans, S., Weijers, A., de Leeuw, R. N., & Buijzen, M. (2016). Analyzing prisoners’, law enforcement agents’, and civilians’ moral evaluations of The Sopranos. Poetics, 58, 52–65. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2016.07.003.
Wasko, J., Phillips, M., & Meehan, E. R. (Eds.). (2001). Dazzled by Disney? The global Disney audiences project. London: Burns & Oates.
Watts, S., & Stenner, P. (2012). Doing Q methodological research: Theory, method and interpretation. London: Sage.
Yin, R. (2010). Analytic generalization. In A. J. Mills, G. Durepos, & E. Wiebe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of case study research (pp. 21–23). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Zenor, J. (2014). Reading the President: Audience reception of The West Wing. In J. Zenor (Ed.), Parasocial politics: Audiences, pop culture, and politics (pp. 9–18). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Michelle, C., Davis, C.H., Hardy, A.L., Hight, C. (2017). Researching Audience Engagements with the Hobbit Trilogy: A Unique Methodological Approach. In: Fans, Blockbusterisation, and the Transformation of Cinematic Desire. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59616-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59616-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59615-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59616-1
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)