Soc. 118 Media, Culture & Society Chapter Eight: Active Audiences and the Construction of Meaning

OVERVIEW  Meanings: Agency and Structure  Agency and polysemy  Structure and interpretive constraint  The Active Audience  Individual interpretation  Collective interpretation  Collective action  Decoding Media and Social Position  Class and gender  International readings of American TV  The Social Context of Media Use  The pleasures of media  Video presentation: “Merchants of Cool”

Active Audiences and the Construction of Meaning  Research and debate focused on how media messages “cause” behavior  Examples: drugs, sex, violence  Earlier effects research  Can we understand effects simply by knowing content?  Audiences seen as passive receivers  Consuming media uncritically  Current perspective on effects  Views audiences as active “readers”  Autonomy and personal power  Audiences have relationship to the messages

Meanings: Agency and Structure  Does media impose its meanings on audiences?  As if there is a singular meaning to texts  Audiences come from different backgrounds  Used in the interpretative process  There may be multiple meanings from the same texts  Destabilizes the meaning of media  Exploring interpretive strategies of real people  Examples:

Bruce Springsteen Born in the U.S.A. Born down in a dead man's town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground You end up like a dog that's been beat too much 'Til you spend half your life just covering up [chorus:] Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A. I got in a little hometown jam And so they put a rifle in my hands Sent me off to Vietnam To go and kill the yellow man [chorus] Come back home to the refinery Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me" I go down to see the V.A. man He said "Son don't you understand" [chorus] I had a buddy at Khe Sahn Fighting off the Viet Cong They're still there, he's all gone He had a little girl in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms [chorus] Down in the shadow of the penitentiary Out by the gas fires of the refinery I'm ten years down the road Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A.

Agency and Polysemy  Polysemy  The notion of multiple meanings  Because audience members have different interpretations?  Because texts are structured to allow different meanings?  John Fiske  Media contain an “excess of meaning”  Lots of raw material available for interpretation  Humor and irony provide for ambiguity  Media texts are “open”  Can facilitate "reading against the grain"  Makes divergent readings possible  Audiences as interpretive "free agents”  Are meanings of texts unlimited?  Meaning is neither given nor entirely open

Structure and Interpretive Constraint  Media uses familiar themes and images (genres)  Audiences are likely to have similar experience in interpreting  We experience media as a part of our lives  Our social location, background, interests give us interpretive framework  Historical and cultural circumstances influence us  Some meanings are easier to construct  Drawing on widely shared cultural values  Then no competing or alternate meanings considered  Who we are influences how we interpret media  But does not fully determine

Active Audiences: Individual Interpretation  We engage in interpretative activity when we consume media  Does not require any special skills  Producers construct texts with intended meanings  No guarantee of how they will be received  Interpretive resistance  Audiences may resist the imposition of preferred meanings  Active reinterpretation in contrary, subversive ways  Resistance and Identity  Interpretation of MTV videos (examples:)  Images of female sexuality and male pleasure  Routinely dismissed as negative portrayals  Teen fans reinterpreted as signs of girl power

Interpretive Resistance and MTV

Active Audiences: Collective Interpretation  Audiences interpret messages socially  We engage with media in social settings  Watching TV, going to movies or concerts, listening to car radio with others  Or we engage with media individually  Later becomes part of social relations  Interpretive communities  Media consumed in context of everyday life  Meanings generated through interaction with others  When and where do people consume the media?  How is it used?  Media in the background of experience

Active Audiences: Collective Interpretation  Case study: watching TV with the family  TV embedded in social relations at home  Shapes what and how we watch, meanings assigned  Gender differences  Potential site for power struggles  Men  Either very attentive or don't watch at all  Rarely admit to talk about watching  Women  Watch as part of other social activities  Common to talk about watching

Active Audiences: Collective Action  Audiences can try to change media  Making formal demands  Collective action  Protests, boycotts, lobbying, publicity campaigns  Examples from Chapter 3 on media and politics  Activists can produce and distribute alternative media  Facilitated by new technology

Decoding Media and Social Position  Stuart Hall—encoding-decoding model  Messages are constructed using “codes” or conventions  Audiences use familiarity with conventions to “decode” messages  Gender, class and TV  Middle- and working-class women use different criteria  To evaluate programs and identify with characters  Working class women expect realism  Critical of stereotype: the independent and sexy working woman  Middle class women do not expect realism  Defend or identify with the stereotype

Decoding Media and Social Position  International Readings of American TV  What do popular programs mean to viewers outside U.S.?  What lessons do international audiences draw about life in U.S.?  Case Study: “Dallas”  Compares decoding of 6 different ethnic groups in 3 countries  Based on focus groups  Russians (Isreal)  Explained message rather than action or characters, used critical statements  Moroccan Jews (Israel)  Retell episodes scene-by-scene  Arabs (Israel)  Retell episodes scene-by-scene, more involved, made moral judgments  Kibbutzniks (Israel)  Focus on characters, used critical statements  Americans  Focus on characters, used critical statements  Japanese  More critical than any other group, did not connect to their own lives

The Pleasures of Media: Celebrity Games

 Consuming media is fun  Entertainment  Celebrity watching industry  Media dedicated to celebrities  Josh Gamson: Study of celebrity games  Gossip  Sharing information  May be real or manufactured  Detective work  Players scrutinize celebrity appearances and entertainment reports  May or may not find truth

Video Presentation: