Mode of action perspective to engagements with social media: articulating activities on the public platforms of Wikipedia and YouTube / Seija Ridell -- At the crossroads of hermeneutic philosophy and reception studies: understanding patterns of cross-media consumption / Tereza Pavlíc̆ková -- Cultivated performances: what cultivation analysis says about media, binge drinking and gender / Andy Ruddock -- Motivations to participate in an online violent gaming community: use and gratifications in an ethnographic approach / María T. Soto-Sanfiel -- Imagined communities of television viewers: reception research on national and ethnic minority audiences / Alexander Dhoest -- Exploring media ethnography: pop songs, text messages and lessons in a British school / Caroline Dover -- Film audiences in perspective: the social practices of cinema-going / Philippe Meers and Daniel Biltereyst -- Talking recipients: an integrative model of socio-emotional meta-appraisal (SEMA) in conversations about media content / Katrin Döveling and Denise Sommer -- Parasocial relationships: current directions in theory and method / David Giles -- From semiotic resistance to civic agency: viewing citizenship through the lens of reception research 1973-2010 / Kim Christian Schrøder -- For and against participation: a hermeneutical approach to participation in the media / Lars Nyre and Brian O'Neill -- Using the domestication approach for the analysis of diffusion and participation processes of new media / Corinna Peil and Jutta Röser -- Creating, sharing, interacting: fandom in the age of digital convergence and globalized television / Mélanie Bourdaa and Seok-Kyeong Hong-Mercier -- Conclusion: exciting moments in audience research: past, present and future / Sonia Livingstone.

A collection of essays that provides an overview of research on the social uses of media. Drawing on long traditions in both cultural studies and the social sciences, it brings together competing research approaches usually discussed separately.