Mapping for change: A manifesto for teaching audience research to (future) professional practitioners

This article will address how qualitative audience research, as forged in Cultural Studies over the past almost half century, can empower practice-based researchers and professionals by teaching them how to listen well. Listening well refers to more than the deeply culturally gendered quality of paying others real attention; it refers to the scholarly skill of analytically hearing across different kinds of audience materials and how they speak to shared themes, hopes, desires and anxieties. Professional practice is (over)burdened by a need to continually deliver, and deliver quickly. Unsurprisingly, professional practice becomes stronger when occasionally slowing down to allow for ‘listening well’ to what is at stake for others. It strengthens the quality of a work product. It accords with (self) reflexivity, it invites thinking about what ‘knowledge’ is and strongly suggests that theory and theorisation need to be part of the collective skill set of professional practitioners. Audience research in the Cultural Studies tradition is attuned to the voices of others. It uses voice to make sense of how audiences understand the world, and what is at stake for them. It facilitates the building of bridges and, importantly, to map for change.