Abstract
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The themed section of this important issue of MIA, edited by Katrina Aveyard and Albert
Moran, is concerned with the history of film not as text, but as a set of social, cultural and
industrial practices. The articles drawn together under the rubric ‘Cinema-going Audiences
and Exhibition’ develop arguments about a range of diverse factors that have a bearing on
the circulation and consumption of film over time. For example, as Aveyard and Moran
point out in their introduction, in Australia film screenings initially were incorporated
into touring shows and variety acts in the early 1890s, before they found a home in
dedicated cinema venues. This early competition for attention is now mirrored in the fact
that these days cinemas have to contend with a vast number of new challenges for the
audience’s attention, including the increasing sophistication of home viewing technologies
that have rendered the cinema-going experience less compelling. Watching movies is not
just something we do, if we ever did, only in the front stalls – if we could get to them.