Travels in nowhere land: Ethnography and the “impossible”; audience

This article addresses recent trends in ethnographic studies of media audiences. While much of this rethinking of ethnography has been necessary and useful, it also has the potential to paralyze research of this sort and to continue building an ever‐more‐abstract theoretical narcissism. The future of cultural audience studies lies not with more abstraction, but with attempts to improve ethnographic practice. In particular, it is argued that feminist practice, while contributing to the discussions that have rightly problematized the field, is leading the way to a more productive and practical ethnography.