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Soc. 118 Media, Culture & Society

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

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Soc. 118 Media, Culture & Society

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

  2. 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”

  3. 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

  4. 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:

  5. Born down in a dead man's townThe first kick I took was when I hit the groundYou 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 jamAnd so they put a rifle in my handsSent me off to VietnamTo go and kill the yellow man[chorus]Come back home to the refineryHiring man says "Son if it was up to me"I go down to see the V.A. manHe said "Son don't you understand" [chorus] I had a buddy at Khe SahnFighting off the Viet CongThey're still there, he's all goneHe had a little girl in SaigonI got a picture of him in her arms[chorus] Down in the shadow of the penitentiaryOut by the gas fires of the refineryI'm ten years down the roadNowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to goI'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. Bruce SpringsteenBorn in the U.S.A.

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. Interpretive Resistance and MTV

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. 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 Decoding Media and Social Position

  15. The Pleasures of Media:Celebrity Games

  16. 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

  17. Video Presentation:

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