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Abstract This essay analyzes the status of the audience as a theoretical construct. It discusses the contributions and liabilities of recent critical revisions of models of audience drawn from political economy, post‐structuralism, feminist reader‐response criticism, cultural studies, and postmodernism. The essay argues against the usefulness of a unified conception of audience effects. Finally, it develops an epistemological framework for reconstructive theorizations of the concrete structures and practices studied as audience issues. A critical exchange follows the essay.
Martin Allor (1988) studied this question.