Active audiences and reflexivity: how film audiences form in northern English regions

While there are a plethora of approaches to studying the audience, including reception studies, historical studies, behavioural approaches and cultural studies, this article focuses on the way in which people seek to join venue-based audiences for diverse film. In doing so, we argue that people engage reflexively with film and film venues in forming audiences. This includes a sensibility towards audiencehood that reflects the venues, film programmes, and experiences of being part of an audience. This article draws on the How Audiences Form (HAF) project, which looked at engagement with independent and specialised film in three northern English regions. The paper examines the selection of film based on particular interests using established independent venues and the variety of audience experience using film clubs. In the context of uneven regional provision and unequal access to diverse film, we argue that out of this emerges a ‘reflexive audience’, in which people reflect on the difficulties of accessing film culture and begin to create their own audience experiences. This goes beyond the relationship between audiences and film/text and situates audiences within their social geographies and what matters to them in terms of film experiences