About

The 'Audience Responses to Television Finales' Survey is designed to examine the expectations and opinions of audiences surrounding the finales (of individual seasons and/or whole series) of long-running television dramas. 

 

In its current form the survey focuses primarily upon 'high-end' (Nelson, 2007) American television drama, including 'cult' (Hills, 2002; Jones and Pearson, 2004)  shows as well as those more usually identified as 'quality' (Thompson, 1996; Akass and McCabe, 2006).  Depending on its overall success as a research tool and upon its findings, it may be adapted in order to investigate other forms of serial narrative (sitcoms, soap operas, reality television series, film franchises, video games, etc.), or else become the basis for cohort studies of the audiences of specific television shows.

 

Preliminary conclusions from the early stages of this research will be presented at the 2014 Edinburgh International Film Audiences Conference.  The paper presented there will also be freely available from this site, along with further information about any expansions upon this initial research.

 

 

 

Dr Martin Zeller Jacques is a lecturer in Film and Media at Queen Margaret University.  His primary research interest is serial narrative in contemporary media, an area which encompases previous research into television narrative and superhero adaptations for film and television.  He also maintains an active research interest in gender and sexuality in contemporary media.