Film consumption has changed dramatically in recent decades. The rise of the multiplex has reconfigured the public experience of cinema. At the same time, movie viewing has grown exponentially in domestic and mobile spheres, driven by increasingly flexible access to content and the diversity of screens this material can now be delivered to. While the history of movie watching in theatres has been relatively well traversed, the more recent and highly popular practice of viewing outside cinemas remains significantly under theorised. This article takes up the issue of this critical neglect. It suggests that the practice of watching movies needs to be conceptualised in more integrated manner and that theories successfully applied to understanding digital, Internet and mobile media may be considered equally relevant to film.
AllenR (2006) Relocating American film history: the ‘problem’ of the empirical. Cultural Studies20(1): 48–88.
2.
AveyardK (2011) What the country tells us: the place of the ‘rural’ in contemporary studies of cinema. Media International Australia139: 124–132.
3.
AveyardK (2015) The Lure of the Big Screen: Cinema in Rural Australia and the United Kingdom. Bristol; Chicago, IL: Intellect Ltd.
4.
BarkerMMathijsE (eds) (2008) Watching the Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s World Audiences. New York: Peter Lang.
5.
CorbettK (1998–1999) Empty seats: the missing history of movie-watching. Journal of Film and Video50(4): 34–48.
6.
CorbettK (2008) Bad sound and sticky floors: an ethnographic look at the symbolic value of historic small-town movie theatres. In: Fuller-SeeleyK (ed.) Hollywood in the Neighborhood: Historical Case Studies of Local Moviegoing. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 233–248.
7.
CouldryN (2012) Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Malden, MA: Polity.
8.
Dinsmore-TuliU (2000) The pleasures of ‘home cinema’, or watching movies on telly: an audience study of cinephiliac VCR use. Screen41(3): 315–327.
9.
DochertyDMorrisonDTraceyM (1987) The Last Picture Show: Britain’s Changing Film Audience. London: British Film Institute.
10.
EllisJA (1992) Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television and Video. London: Routledge.
11.
FitzgeraldLWilliamsM (eds) (2013) Mamma Mia! The Movie: Exploring a Cultural Phenomenon. London: I.B. Tauris.
12.
GivenJ (2015) Owning and renting: speculations about the past, present and future acquisitions of audiovisual content by consumers. Studies in Australasian Cinema9(1): 21–38.
13.
IvakhivA (2013) Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature. Waterloo, ON, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
14.
JancovichMFaireLStubbingsS (2003) The Place of the Audience: Cultural Geographies of Film Consumption. London: British Film Institute.
15.
JonesJ (2011) ‘When the movies started, we all got along’: Generation Y remembers movie night. Media International Australia139: 96–102.
16.
JonesJ (2013) The VHS generation and their movie experiences. In: AveyardKMoranA (eds) Watching Films: New Perspectives on Exhibition, Movie-Going and Reception. Bristol: Intellect Ltd., pp. 387–385.
17.
KlingerB (2006) Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies and the Home. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
18.
KuhnA (2002) An Everyday Magic: Cinema and Cultural Memory. London: I.B. Tauris.
19.
LotzeKMeersP (2013) ‘They don’t need me in heaven … there are no cinemas there ye know’: cinema culture in Antwerp (Belgium) and the empire of Georges Heylen 1945–75. In: AveyardKMoranA (eds) Watching Films: New Perspectives on Exhibition, Movie-Going and Reception. Bristol: Intellect Ltd., 223–244.
20.
McCabeJAkassK (2007) Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and beyond. London: I.B. Tauris.
21.
MaltbyR (2011) New cinema histories. In: MaltbyRBiltereystDMeersP (eds) Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 3–40.
MooresS (2004) The doubling of place: electronic media, time-space arrangements and social relationships. In: CouldryNMcCarthyA (eds) Media Space: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age. London: Routledge, pp. 21–37.
StaigerJ (1992) Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
32.
StaigerJ (2005) Media Reception Studies. New York: New York University Press.
33.
TaylorC (2004) Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
34.
VerhoevenD (2014) Film, video, DVD and online distribution. In: CunninghamSTurnbullS (eds) Media and Communication in Australia, 6th edn. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, pp. 151–171.
35.
WassonH (2007) The reel of the month club: 16 mm projectors, home theaters and film libraries in the 1920s. In: MaltbyRStokesMAllenRC (eds) Going to the Movies: Hollywood and the Social Experience of the Cinema. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, pp. 217–236.
