Media Representations and Audiences

7 Key excerpts on "Media Representations and Audiences"

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  eBook - ePub

  Representing the Environment

  • John R. Gold, George Revill(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3 Representations in context

  This chapter:

  • examines strategies for studying the audience’s consumption of environmental representations;
  • considers the contexts in which representations are produced;
  • explores the concepts of cultural politics, ideology and discourse;
  • provides a range of basic approaches for the study of the discursive role of representations in society.

  Audiences and the media

  The media occupy a central place in any study of environmental representations. Traditionally, ‘media’ meant the ‘media of mass communication’, by which technologically based systems transmitted content (or messages) through print, broadcasting, posters or film to remote and scattered audiences. More recently, though, the idea of what constitutes ‘media’ has expanded dramatically. If media transmit content in symbolic form to an audience, then architecture, clothes, recorded music, food packaging, jewellery and skin tattoos are legitimately media. Moreover, many new media no longer conform to the established model. The convergence of television, computers, wireless technology, digital networks and mobile telephones brings patterns of use that bear little resemblance to the ‘fireside’ consumption of early radio and television programmes.

  The word ‘consumption’ needs clarification. We stressed the importance of the audience’s active participation in shaping the meaning of environmental representations at the end of Chapter 2 . In this context, it might seem that media research has much to offer, given that audience studies have preoccupied media researchers since the 1920s (McQuail, 1997). Sadly, however, the findings of that research have proven continually disappointing. Researchers have often attempted to trace direct and measurable audience response to communication, usually finishing by either showing no discernible effects or recognising that any effects are very difficult to assess and quantify. The problem lies partly with conceptual understanding and partly with methodology. In terms of the former, researchers reluctantly accept that the media do not function in isolation and that, in most circumstances, any impact that they might have is itself mediated

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  The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies

  • John D. H. Downing, Denis McQuail, Philip Schlesinger, Ellen Wartella, John D. H. Downing, Denis McQuail, Philip Schlesinger, Ellen A. (Ann) Wartella(Authors)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  This diversification suggests the value of 1. returning to the investigation of the mass audience, 2. introducing a more elaborate vocab-ulary for discussing and describing audiences in general and mass audi-ences in particular, 3. interrogating the sociocultural rights and privileges audience groups draw on to challenge the media, and 4. again addressing the diverse tactics that the institutions that finance the media industries adopt to minimize the impact of audience agency on the smooth operation of the media. ENGAGING WITH MEDIA Being an audience involves engaging with media. There are four dimensions to this engagement: a media time/space loca-tion is defined, people gather, media mate-rials are presented, and a mediated event occurs. Elsewhere, I have discussed these components as four separate definitions of the word audience because in everyday talk, each may be used separately to refer to audiences. The definitions emphasize either the people involved—who the people in the audience are and how they have come together—or they emphasize aspects of the audience event that is occurring— who is holding audience with whom and what is happening (Nightingale, 1996, 2003). Audiences are complex mixtures of people and mediated events, but they are often defined primarily as groups of people or events. The people dimension of audience is dominant, for example, when we talk about audiences as the public, as markets, and sometimes even as communities. As audience publics and audience mar-kets, people are thought of as aggregates of individuals. As audience communities, people are thought of as group members. By designating people as markets, publics, or communities, we are referring to their sociocultural status beyond the program or text and outside the mass communi-cation process. The event component, by 230 • Audiences, Users, and Effects contrast, is dominant when the sociocultural significance of an audience event of actual media use is examined.

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  Media Studies

  A Reader

  • Sue Thornham, Caroline Bassett, Paul Marris, Sue Thornham, Caroline Bassett, Paul Marris(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • EUP

    (Publisher)

  This is not to suggest that experience, representation and lan-guage form a closed circuit. Cultural representations may be challenged by the flow of experience and events, and direct experiences can be a powerful source from which to counter dominant representations. [. . .] Conclusion Engaging with questions about media effects is an important part of sociologi-cal inquiry. We cannot afford to dismiss inquiry into media influence as ‘old-fashioned’ or doomed to failure as it confronts the complexity of text–audience A SOCIOLOGY OF MEDIA POWER 415 relations. Cultural representations and media power matter. It matters if boys are encouraged to frame their interactions with girls in one way rather than another when trying to make sense of developing sexual relationships. It matters if ‘victims’ are encouraged to blame themselves and to accept, rather than challenge, the abuse perpetrated against them. It matters that people know about AIDS and sexual violence, and have an idea how to protect them-selves and each other. It is important that there are positive images of those who are isolated and stigmatised. Media representations can literally serve as a life-line in the face of suicidal despair, or constitute a powerful barrier to seeking help. Cultural debate and intervention must include engaging with the production, content and reception of such messages. [. . .] The research studies discussed in this chapter not only have direct practical significance, their findings also suggest some challenges to orthodox theory and concepts. I wish to highlight five concerns in relation to some key concepts within media/cultural studies. First, it should be noted that the ability to deconstruct media messages and develop a critical reading in a research setting is not necessarily the same as being able to reject the message conveyed via the media on a day-to-day level.

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  Political Communication

  A Critical Introduction

  • Heather Savigny(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  54 Chapter 3 Who are the Audience(s)? Introduction If there was no audience to read, listen, watch and consume media, then media would struggle to function or, indeed, to exist. This claim makes audiences central to the process of political communication. Not only in the communi-cation of formal politics, the actions of political elites (as discussed in Chap-ter 4 ), but also in the sense that the existence of an audience and its relations to media implies a negotiated political relationship. Communication relies on a receiver; and so media rely on audiences. In order to make sense of the way power may be distributed and operates we need, therefore, to also understand what is meant by the term ‘audience’. Indeed, this is an ontological question as we need to begin by asking, is there such a thing as ‘the’ audience? To suggest there is a singular audience assumes that there is an homogenous group that exists ‘out there’. We might, therefore, think that there are multiple audiences with differing interpretations of the same content. Moreover, these multiple audiences may use different media platforms and bring different beliefs and behaviours to the media content that they consume. This matters because if media rely on audiences, then surely media will need to respond to audience demand. It is often assumed that audiences comprise the masses (again imply-ing a homogeneity) but if media audiences are elites, what does this mean for the masses? As such, the ways audiences are positioned, constructed and communi-cated to are of central concern in this chapter (and throughout the book). An underlying premise throughout is that each act of communication con-stitutes political action; power relations are reinforced, negotiated, recon-structed and sometimes challenged.

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  Diversity in U.S. Mass Media

  • Catherine A. Luther, Carolyn Ringer Lepre, Naeemah Clark(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Unlike the scholars from the Frankfurt School who entirely dismissed popular culture, Williams and his cul- tural studies cohorts recognized the prospect of popular culture playing a part in counter-hegemonic efforts. The individual who followed in Williams’ footsteps and became well known for his work in cultural studies is Stuart Hall. Hall also responded to the struggles of Theoretical Foundations of Research in Mass Media Representations 24 minorities and the underclass and concentrated on studying how popular culture was part of the hegemonic imposition of elites, but also how it could be used as a form to counter elite hegemony. 30 In particular, he focused his research efforts on the intersections of media, class, gender, and race. He was interested in deciphering how mass media construct social identities through representation. The Concept of Representation Representation is the forms of language that are used to convey ideas that are gen- erated in society for purposes of communication. It is thought to be key to our understanding of the world that surrounds us. As defined by Hall: Representation is the production of meaning of the concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between concepts and language which enables us to refer to either the “real” world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events. 31 Language as used here does not merely refer to words, both written and verbal, but rather any entity which functions to help people to communicate with each other. Language might be musical notes, visual images, or nonverbal signs. The concept of representation provides insight into the source of meanings and why they exist by connecting language with the concepts that we associate with the language. There are three theoretical approaches to representation: the reflective, the inten- tional, and the constructionist approach.

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  Audience Analysis

  • Denis McQuail(Author)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  The question of media effects lies outside the scope of this book, but it is important to draw attention, however briefly, to the wide implications of reception theory for the study of effects. New audience theory proposes that not only the significance of the media experience as such but also the meaning derived from media content is very dependent on the perceptions, experiences, and social location of audience members (Jensen, 1991). Audiences “decode” the meanings proposed by sources according to their own perspectives and wishes, although often within some shared framework of experience (Hall, 1980).

  This certainly applies to the complex and ambiguous messages of fiction (e.g., the lessons drawn by women readers of pulp romance fiction—Radway, 1984). It is also true of the normative judgments about aesthetic or moral quality of media content, as discussed below. We cannot assume that even basic “factual” information will be understood as sent. The evidence for the seemingly poor or faulty understanding of news is overwhelming (e.g., Gunter, 1987; Robinson & Levy, 1986), although this is sometimes mistakenly attributed to deficiencies on the side of sender.

  Reception analysis of news (e.g., Graber, 1984; Jensen, 1988) makes it clear that frameworks for understanding news depend very much on the social position and outlook of the receiver, who is both able and strongly inclined to fit the “facts” as reported into local and personal frames of interpretation and relevance. The audience for news is always busy constructing and developing cognitive and evaluative versions of “real” events in line with its own perspective on the world.

  Media Use as Social Pathology

  The various media have acquired a complex set of definitions that connect them to other aspects of personal social experience. On the one hand, they are an almost inevitable accompaniment to everyday life, requiring us to adapt our social habits (such as eating and conversation) to the fact of their existence. On the other hand, they are a valuable and varied resource for helping us to handle social situations and personal difficulties (Pearlin, 1959). With respect to the latter, we can think of media as a means of establishing a certain mood, of cheering us up, taking us out of ourselves, stimulating various feelings, helping us to remember and reflect as well forget. There is certainly evidence of media being consciously used for such purposes (Zillman & Bryant, 1985).

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  Balance and Bias in Journalism

  Representation, Regulation and Democracy

  • Guy Starkey(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  When negotiating meaning, some competing perspectives cannot be reconciled: as in the polarization of the popular and mutually exclusive descriptions of unorthodox combatants as to some, ‘terrorists’ and to others, ‘freedom fighters’. Using audiences in media research These problems are particularly acute when choosing ‘typical’ members of an audience for any kind of academic study of their reactions to media texts (Gunter, 1987: 301–6), for producers hoping to validate their own work in the manner described by Burns (1977: 137) and also when ‘representatives’ of an audience are to be incorporated into the product itself, such as when compiling letters pages, editing online fora or producing broadcast debates (Amber, 2000: 149–50). The invisibility of mass media audiences presents those who would work with them with particular difficulties that do not apply to other groups in the cultural sectors: for instance visitors to a museum, cinemagoers and in short anyone who enters premises to see a play, an exhibition or some other literary or artistic work. They can be seen, phys-ically counted and if necessary surveyed in some way that promises high levels of validity in the data collected. By contrast, listening to, viewing and reading the output of the print and broadcast mass media normally occurs away from the point of exhibition, being transmitted or distributed over great distances to audiences who cannot be seen or even individually counted (Starkey, 2004c: 3–6). Broadcasters have consistently disagreed over the size and nature of audi-ences to their services, often routinely producing contradictory audience figures to sell advertising time or to justify public funding spent on their output. In the UK, the BBC and the commercial radio sector established a single company, Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR), to produce a ‘gold standard’ survey from 1992 on which they could both agree, and its findings 73 In the Eye of the Beholder

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