audiences (like Australian Big Brother or Malaysian Idol). Glocal Marketing ... adopts global branding formats. Then .. audience reception is informed by local ' ...
EBP3083.3 The Active Audience The Consenting or Critical Consumer
The Nationwide Active Audience Research David Morley's research (with Charlotte Brunsdon) on the British early evening current affairs and news programme Nationwide (1980) initiated ‘active consumer’ screen studies of television (and subsequently the Internet) Criticism of Morley - he emphasised the conclusions reached by the active audience or consumer, ignoring their cognitive-expressive processes of ‘reading’ (how they got there)
The 1980 audience research ... In Morley's focus groups (discussions after seeing an episode of Nationwide), viewers gave narrative accounts of watching television. They ‘decoded’ this ‘encoded’ visual text. Audiences drew on experience of their wider lives (particularly as members of a social class) to make interpretations of the current affairs programme (eg. its images of trade unions). Audience-Consumers accepted, resisted, negotiated programme accounts of society.
Academic response to the active (interpreting) audience thesis ... Morley's work, while criticised for ignoring wider influences (eg. ethnic) on audience reactions other than social class, can be seen as influencing the development of studies which regarded screen audiences as actively interpreting marketing. Supposedly scientific (or positivist) accounts of audience reactions to TV as a quasi-physical passive observable response to visual stimuli were now problematic. Where are people interpreting? Is TV’s influence like an irresistable force? (only for the positivist and psychotic)
Engaging with the active audience and consumer .... Since Morley's work on Nationwide (1980), three decades of media studies have increasingly emphasised how audiences actively sponsor a meaning for the programmes they watch ... or Internet pages they visit. Viewers from different social groups (class, ethnic, gender, generational, national) invariably reach a variety of conclusions - see work by Ien Ang and Liebes and Katz.
Screen Reception Studies Screen Media Content/ Consumer Mental Content are Distinct Consumption of media marketing narratives, whether those of cinema, television, Internet, cellphone is characterised by viewers' capacity for crafting meaning. Consumers interpret (add to, make sense of, identify with, criticise, use) the ‘narrative sketches’ they see on media and marketing screens throughout their everyday lives.
Beyond the viewer as passive vessel for TV narrative flow. Screen reception is examined as a process resulting in sometimes significantly innovative readings of content by audiences, citizens and consumers. The now defunct image of the 'passive and malleable' mass audience (like a lump of clay) has been eliminated Most importantly, watching TV is no longer seen as a process in which consumer behaviour is causally determined by branding or marketing screen content
Consuming Programmes is not Cognition-Free Consumers' reactions to programmes are cognitive, containing the interpretative awareness which allows them to construct a meaning for events on screen. Asian responses to Western television show value-laden interpretations being made of others' popular programmes, from soap operas to talk shows.
However .... There are limits on active audience & consumer responses imposed by persuasive content and the circumstances of its viewing as a story on screen. Marketing (though it can be criticised) can strongly persuade (e.g. with Coca Cola scenarios in Pasar Seni). Also, we cannot interpret where we do not have the ‘cultural capital’ (eg. Bahasa, Mandarin or Tamil) to do so.
Glocal TV & Marketing Glocal TV .... adapts global formats to address local audiences (like Australian Big Brother or Malaysian Idol) Glocal Marketing ... adopts global branding formats. ! Then .. audience reception is informed by local ‘cultural capital’ (eg. Malaysian Chinese, Iban, Indian, Malay) allowing identification with character narratives.
