Research Group Audiences & Mediated life

The research group Audiences & Mediated Life (AMLife) is a multi-disciplinary and internationally oriented research group focused on the study of audiences in mediated societies. The name of the group is a reminder that many, if not all, aspects of our life are mediated by media, communication and technology, and hence our role as audience is vital for the conduct of everyday life and society, with far-reaching implications for democratic, public and private life. The research group recognizes the everyday as an important site of study, for through it are media, communication and technology appropriated, used and given meaning.

AMLife is dedicated to developing an audience-based agenda and perspective on current topics and debates, as well as to advance theoretical, methodological and empirical accounts of the concept of audience and emphasize its role in research on media, communication and technology. The group’s current interests reach broadly to processes of news consumption, media reception, cross-media uses, publics of cultural institutions, users of social and digital media and datafication of audiences.

The group provides teaching at the Department of Communication and Arts at both Bachelor and Master levels in the area of media studies, social media, digital media, and teaches about the implications of audiences, conceptualized in a variety of ways (citizens, consumers, users, produsers, etc.) for a variety of communicative contexts, including strategic communication.

News

Media Researcher: Inequality and lack of media consumption cause division

06 November 2023 | News

Social inequality often plays a greater role in the fragmentation and societal division attributed to social media, according to a new PhD project.

CfP: Data reflectivity: new pathways in bridging datafication and user studies

19 April 2023 |

Deadline for abstracts: 26 May 2023 / Expected date of print publication: June 2024
Special Issue of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies

A digital visitor to AMLife demonstrates how flexibility and creative work solutions can be useful long after the pandemic.

27 June 2022 |

Miguel Varela is many things – a consultant in international relations and community development, an adjunct professor, a photographer, and as of early 2020, a PhD student in cancer communications (University of Valladolid, Spain). In late 2021, he was also a visiting scholar in the AMLife research group – with a modern twist. Miguel carried out his entire international visit online.

Pinboard

Meet the researchers

From left to right, on the first line: Troels Fibæk Bertel, Susana Tosca, Josephine Lehaff, Julie Vulpius. From left to right, on the back: Sander Schwartz, Chris Peters, David Mathieu, Fabian Holt, Kim Schrøder, Morten Fischer Sivertsen, Niklas Chimirri, Leif Hemming Pedersen.

Read more about Meet the researchers

ARTICLE

Facebook comments challenge the Danish Parliament

Comments and interactions on social media platforms contain invaluable data that politicians can use to investigate the masses and find out what the voters think. However, they are actually not as easy to decipher as one might think. A researcher from Roskilde University is trying to make heads and tails of it.

Read more about Facebook comments challenge the Danish Parliament

ARTICLE

When Game of Thrones becomes a common language to talk about serious issues

In a changed media landscape, pop culture references become a common language - one that is moving beyond the fictional entertainment universes and gets used as a framework to talk about everyday life or serious subjects, shows the research of Associate Professor Susana Tosca.

Read more about When Game of Thrones becomes a common language to talk about serious issues

ARTICLE

There is potential in digital testimonies - but how great is it?

The intention behind citizen-driven election monitoring is to contribute to transparency and a peaceful democracy, but as an approach, it has some barriers. This is revealed by the research of Roskilde University Associate Professor Norbert Wildermuth.

Read more about There is potential in digital testimonies - but how great is it?

Contact

David Mathieu // Research Group Leader // Associate Professor // mathieu@ruc.dk

Susana Tosca // Research Group Co-Leader // Associate Professor // stosca@ruc.dk

Researchers

Researchers in Audiences & Mediated life
Audiences & Mediated Life is envolved in a number of research projects:

A New International Order in Cultural Life? An Institutional Perspective on the Music Field in Northern Europe

This project, run by Fabian Holt, will develop new sociological theory and methodology to analyze the changing outlook and functions of cultural institutions in northern Europe, in particular within the music field, from the perspective that cultural institutions are evolving in new international processes of digitalization and centralization of ownership.

DataPublics

The project, headed by Jannie Møller Hartley, examines what the ever-increasing amount of data available in our society means to Journalism, and thus sheds light on the changes in the relations between the news media and the news users.

If you liked that, you will love this. The aesthetics of sameness and repetition in contemporary media culture

The goal of this book project by Susana Tosca is to scrutinize repetition and sameness in a media cultural context, as an overarching category that constitutes a fusion of aesthetic and market strategies.

Beyond the Here and Now of News

This project, led by Chris Peters and Kim Schrøder, aims to understand the conditions that make news matter. It investigates the emergence, disappearance and (re)formation of news repertoires in everyday life and across the lifespan in order to provide fundamental insights into what underlies people’s shifting patterns of use.
is to scrutinize repetition and sameness in a media cultural context, as an overarching category that constitutes a fusion of aesthetic and market strategies.

Online theater and new audiences

The project is a collaboration between Applaus, Iscene and Susana Tosca. We research the online theater performances in Danish cultural life during the Corona Pandemics. The aim of the project is to find out what kinds of formats have been possible, and what kind of audience experience they have facilitated.

Media, Security Crises and Youth in West Africa

The Independent Research Fund Denmark – Humanities has granted DKK 1.2 mill. to an international network of researchers, including Norbert Wildermuth, who will explore how young people in West Africa navigate streams of information in crises of security, health, and migration.

Trust in datafied media and technologies

This project, developed by David Mathieu, Jannie Møller Hartley, Sander Andreas Schwartz and Norbert Wildermuth, looks at citizens’ appropriation and interpretation of datafied media and technologies in the context of their everyday life, with a focus on issues of privacy, trust and agency.

Find additional about projects at Roskilde University Research Portal

Publications

Digital Audiences and Evolving News Repertoires
Peters, C., Schrøder, K. C., Vulpius, J. & Lehaff, J., 2025, Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies. Eldridge II, S. A., Cheruiyot, D., Banjac, S. & Swart, J. (eds.). 2nd ed. London: Routledge
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
A cultural policy of the future? On visions and rationales in contemporary Danish Cultural Policy
Lindelof, A. M. & Bille, T., Aug 2024.
Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › Research › peer-review
"Aqua's Aquarium" authored by C. C. McKee
Holt, F. (Editor) & McKee, C. C., 2024, New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 168 p. (33 1/3 Europe).
Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review