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This paper begins with a broad question: How do cultural producers attempt to understand their audiences? Using the case of the U.S. motion picture industry, this paper explores how notions of "the audience" are socially constructed by decision-makers working in the world of commercial film production. Drawing on a wide range of data, including archival sources, interviews with Hollywood decision-makers, as well as particpant observation at a Hollywood talent firm, at a entertainment research firm, and at entertainment industry conferences, I argue that Hollywood film production is increasingly involved in processes that are epistemic. New, "scientific" understandings of audiences within the Hollywood film industry have intensified over the last several decades, stemming largely from this world's increasing reliance on market research. I briefly explore how these epistemic processes are productive, generating new audience categories and dividing media consumers into distinct groups that are seen as having definite properties. Examples of a few of these categories are identified, including those involving particular demographic groups, as well as the recent birth of the "mobile" and "customizing" movie consumer. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recognizing that the spatial anchoring of social networks continues to erode in general, a recent ethnographic study of five neighborhoods in Hollywood (Los Angeles) has revealed that place still matters a great deal in the everyday experiences and practices of urban residents. In this paper, I present a newly developed model of four "natural" zones of local community that emerged from the communal orientations, neighborly interactions and daily activities of local informants. I differentiate between (1) "micro-communities" which thrive in sub-sections of residential blocks, for instance courtyard apartment buildings, (2) "block communities" that are distinguished by mutual identification and the development of traditions among their residents, (3) "walking-distance communities," i.e. vernacular and partly institutionalized versions of what is often called neighborhoods, and (4) "geographically-anchored symbolic communities," larger habitats that foster the locals' collective identification with "peers" and provide for the fulfillment of various practical needs. The paper concludes with comments on the interconnection and functional equivalency of these identified zones of local community in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]