Description

• Title:
  Researching the experience of an audience which doesn’t exist. Methodological challenges
• Creator:
  Sitkiewicz, Paweł
• Description:
  When a researcher deals with a film audience, it is easier to study the one that exists and is still active. In this case, social sciences and the humanities supply practical tools and relatively easy access to all kinds of data. It is much more difficult to capture experiences, emotions, and rituals of the audiences from many decades ago, working with an impermanent human memory, unreliable personal or press sources. The article discusses the basic methodological problems related to the researching film audiences that no longer exist (especially from the pre-WW2 years). It turns out that the difficulties are not only in how to read the sources and how to evaluate the data. The cinema historian confronts more serious challenges. Do we have access to other people’s experiences without personal contact? Can research focused on subjective and mediated feelings capture an objective image at all? What may result from research with so many unknowns? The article, based on the author’s many years of experience in researching cinema-going, is a proposal on how to respond to all these questions.
• Object availability:
  free access
• Rights:
  Prawa autorskie (c) 2023 Paweł Sitkiewicz;
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.pl
• Date:
  2023.01.05
• Type:
  info:eu-repo/semantics/article;
  info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion;
  Artykuł recenzowany
• Language:
  Polish
• Source:
  Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication; Vol. 32 No. 41 (2022): The Special Issue: Film distribution and audiences; 183-197;
  Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication; Tom 32 Nr 41 (2022): The Special Issue: Film distribution and audiences; 183-197;
  2720-040X;
  1731-450X
• Format:
  application/pdf
• Publisher:
  Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan
• Relation: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/i/article/view/36850/31605
• Subject:
  history of movie-going;
  film audience studies;
  social film history;
  cinema memory
• Identifier: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/i/article/view/36850
• Data provider:
  Platforma Otwartych Czasopism Naukowych UAM
• Can I use it?:
  seek permission
• Type:
  text