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Lecture for JN2042 International Journalism Theory, School of Journalism and Media, University of Central Lancashire
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News audiences
JN2042 Journalism TheoryUniversity of Central Lancashire
November 2013
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and the audience
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and audiences
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and audiences
An all-powerful media pouring its messages into empty heads?
Media effects theoriesWhat the media does to the audience
Focus on:• power differences between media and audiences• media ownership and controlExamples:• Weather forecast• UK: MMR vaccination scareProblems:• Over-emphasis on negative
effects• Simplistic transmission-
reception, cause-effect model
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and audiences
An all-powerful media pouring its messages into empty heads?
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and audiences
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and audiences
All-powerful audiences using the media for their own purposes?
Uses and gratifications theoriesWhat the audience does with the media
Focus on:• ‘agency’ or power of the
audience• How audiences use
media to create their own identitiesExamples:• Liverpool Sun boycott• GoggleboxProblems:• No analysis of media ownership and power inequalities• No explanation of media influence
Journalists
What’s the connection?
and audiences
A middle way, between all-powerful media and all-powerful audiences?
Kalyango (2012): • 'less educated citizens who consume state-owned media are most
likely to legitimise the regime’ – evidence of media influence?• More educated citizens are more likely to reject government
media messages – evidence of audience power to oppose media messages?
Van der Wurff (2011):• People interested in politics, or with good knowledge of the
topic of a news item, were more likely to receive a diverse range of news
• Readers of popular newspapers, e.g. Evening Herald or Irish Daily Mail less likely to get diverse news
Mix of influences – from the media, from the audience
By the way …
“A general assumption, shared by media policy-makers and scholars, is that exposure to a variety of sources increases the likelihood that audiences receive diverse ideas. Only a few studies have investigated this assumption for aggregated audiences. This study provides a first test at the individual level” (Van der Wurff 2011, p.333)• Analysis of literature: Identifies taken-for-granted
assumption, with little evidence• Identifies gap in literature: Previous research has looked
at average response – nothing so far on individual response
Journalists
How do we explain the connection?Explanation = theory!
and audiences
The sceptical view: There is no connection
minimal communication between the two sides -- consuming media is like watching a spectacle (Scollon 1998)
Journalists talk to each other,Audiences talk to each other,
Journalists try to make stories mean one thing (encoding)Audiences try to understand stories in their own ways (decoding)3 ways audiences decode media:• Dominant reading – following BBC journalist’s intended
meaning• e.g. this Iran agreement is good• Oppositional reading – against journalist’s meaning, • e.g. this agreement is bad, the West has been tricked by Iran• Negotiated reading – audience selects different elements, • e.g. deal will probably fail but the process of talking is
positive, successful deal would isolate Israel
Stuart Hall: encoding/decoding
(Hall 1973)
Stanley Fish: Interpretive communities
• Different groups of people – communities – interpret the same media in different ways
• Members of interpretive communities talk about media and come to an agreed interpretation
• Communities can differ by nationality, religion, politics, personality etc.
(Fish 1976)
David Morley: Not all audience members have the same power
Asked viewers of Nationwide TV programme about their understandings:• Found that viewers’ social class, age, gender,
race etc. affected their interpretations
(Morley 1980)
Conclusions
• The big question: what impact does journalism have?• It’s complicated: depends on …
– the story– how it’s presented– the news organisation– the individual news consumer – communities of news consumers
• Journalists often support dominant groups in society – but audiences have the power to reject these frames/angles, or to reinterpret them, or use them in unintended ways.