Download Active Audience Theory and more Essays (university) Mass Communication in PDF only on Docsity!
Active audience theory is “pointless populism” (Seaman, 1992). Critically discuss. The 1980s was a decade that saw the rise of a huge amount of ethnographic research methods studying the viewing practices of audiences. As a result of these studies, theorists such as John Fiske, David Morley and Stuart Hall began, with varying levels of validity, to discuss the notion of the active audience. This concept implied that a message could no longer be understood by an audience as some kind of package (Alasuutari, 1999). The idea that an audience can negotiate with a media text and not simply believe and take in the ideologies behind it anticipates a certain amount of sophistication amongst an audience. The active audience theory therefore provides a much more optimistic outlook on the culture industry than the notion that audiences are simply passive dupes, who receive and accept dominant ideologies fed to them by mainstream media. In his paper titled 'Active audience theory: pointless populism', William Seaman argues that “the active audience approach has tended more to mystify rather than to clarify, to rationalise a set of practices rather than explain them” (309: 1992). Seaman's paper criticises some of the work of scholars such as Morley and Fiske. His notion of “pointless populism” (1992) represents a false celebration of the active audience. In this paper, I will argue that, although Seaman raises some relevant arguments, his views are mostly far too extreme. I will then look into work regarding similar issues from other scholars and assess the relevance of these issues alongside the work of Seaman. Seaman's examination of audience theory, although mostly controversial, does present a few interesting and valid ideas. For example, he says that “members of subgroups can interpret texts as an affirmation of their prejudices” (1992: 301). It is a hugely relevant and significant point, and perhaps one that scholars such as Fiske rather ignore , that an oppositional reading of a text from a particular subculture may have negative effects on a society. An example of this would be, using
Seaman's idea, confirming a particular subculture's negative prejudices towards another subculture. As Seaman suggests, the consequences of these mediated effects could lead to violent conduct within a society. “Often the poor are the most productive consumers – their creativity is not determined by cost” (Fiske, 1989: 35). Here, the main point that Fiske is making is that mass culture can be oppositional and thus productive in their acts of consumption. However there is little consideration as to whether these oppositional acts are a good thing for society. Fiske simply describes these acts as “creative”, with little acknowledgement of what they actually might be. Seaman's idea, that meanings in texts can affirm the prejudices of members of particular subcultures therefore becomes an important issue when looking at audience theory, as it offers a fresh insight when looking into media effects. Similarly, Seaman (1992) goes on to suggest that a plurality of readings in texts can result in some readings affirming, encouraging and even amplifying certain prejudices. Seaman provides the example of racism in popular culture to highlight this process, presenting the idea that in 1992, there was one form of racism that remained acceptable in US media, anti-Arab racism. He says, “Whether in soap operas, situation comedies, political cartoons, romance novels or Halloween costumes, the 'crazed Arab terrorist', the 'Middle East madman', and the 'oil-rich sheik' have become ideological icons of truly mythic proportions” (Seaman, 1992: 309). For Seaman, the fact that “many people in the US accepted, and even celebrated, the deaths of 200,000 Iraqi soldiers and civilians in the Golf War and its aftermath” (1992: 309) demonstrated the idea that racist ideologies in US popular culture were having negative effects on audiences. It is important to note here that some members of the US public may have had pre-conceived prejudices towards Arabs before they passively accepted racist ideologies that were fed to them, in Seaman's view, through popular culture. According to him, “The media effects approach, in this sense, comes at the problem backwards, by starting with the media and then trying to lasso connections from there on to social
'Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure'. Seaman is extremely critical of the whole process of ethnographic research, “One constructs an interpretation, a narrative or scenario that is consistent with the 'facts' presented from the 'field investigations' and the scenario's plausibility is allowed to rest solely on its coherence with those 'facts' (Seaman, 1992: 302). Morley's (2006) paper titled 'Unanswered Questions in Audience Research', assumed by many as a response to Seaman's paper, acknowledges the flaws in ethnographic methods. “Ethnography is a fine thing, but it always runs the danger of descending into anecdotalism” (Morley, 2006: 8). Here, Morley accepts that because methods are mainly ethnographic, producing qualitative results, the findings are flawed. “It is a real puzzle as to why so few people ever use numbers in contemporary audience research” (2006: 8). Morley's view on ethnography is consequently extremely open- minded; he is clearly able to accept the flaws in the method that Seaman similarly recognises and thus criticises. Morley shows an acceptance that other methods, perhaps providing quantitative data, are clearly required before making bold statements surrounding the active audience theory. Despite Morley's disregard for certain ethnographic methods, his claims about the active audience remain the same: “It is quite another thing to imagine that there is anything to be gained by returning to simple- minded models of media power which fail to grasp Fiske’s entirely correct argument that, in crossing over into the popular, any ideology pays a price for its hegemonic reach – in so far as, in the very process of becoming popular, it is inevitably ‘made over’ into something other than its propagators intended.” (Morley, 2006: 3) Seaman criticises ethnographic methods to help disregard the claims that scholars such as Morley made. The fact that Morley similarly criticises ethnography in a later work, but continues to support the notion of the active audience, brands Seaman's specific point here irrelevant. Perhaps the most significant differences of opinion between Seaman and Fiske, with regards to audience theory, are centred on ideology. Seaman sees ideology as a tool for manipulating and
controlling audiences. He would suggest that it would not be a completely ludicrous understanding of the possible influences of television images in our society to think that media texts control viewers minds, and that television is “a network of boundaries restricting available information, views and images” (1992: 307). Seaman's extreme dismissal of the active audience theory therefore explains his support of the notion of “pointless populism”. Conversely, Fiske would suggest that “in the negotiation between a text and a subject/reader, the balance of power lies with the reader” (Fiske, 1987: 66). These two scholars offer contrasting extreme stances on the power of ideology, and it is therefore vital to look at other scholars work before coming to definite conclusions on the subject matter. In his book titled 'The Sublime Object of Ideology', Slavoj Žižek (1989) introduces the notion that the media acts as the cultural wallpaper to our lives. Žižek presents the concept of enunciation, an idea that there are filters preventing us from recognising the deeply ideological nature of our most familiar experiences. This idea, that the media's manipulating ideology is everywhere is reinforced by Baudrillard (1994) when he suggests that the real is no longer real. “It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real” (Baurdrillard, 1994: 2). Baudrillard suggests that mediated signs are ever-present in society and thus, like Žižek, he believes that the media consequently become a wallpaper to shape our lives. What is important here, when referring back to Seaman's ideas, is the notion of false consciousness. In the eyes of theorists such as Baudrillard, Žižek and Althusser, we as an audience are most susceptible to ideology when we are unaware of its manipulation. As Althusser (1970: 100) highlights, “The tenacious obviousness of the point of view of production alone or even of that of mere productive practice are so integrated into our everyday 'consciousness' that it is extremely hard, not to say almost impossible, to raise oneself to the point of view of reproduction”. In the eyes of these scholars, we live in a society that is constantly open to media texts, a society where, according to Baudrillard, “the real is no longer real”(1994: 2). For
Seaman's more pessimistic take would be shared by scholars such as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Adorno and Horkheimer's view of mass culture and society clearly differs from that of Fiske's. It is possible however that the 45 year gap between when these scholars were writing explains the difference in opinion. Adorno et al (1999[1944]) present the idea that consumers simply appear as statistics and advertisers can categorise and divide them into large groups. This idea presumes that mass culture lacks originality and that audiences passively accept the ideologies fed to them through the means of a media text. I find this viewpoint somewhat bleak as it implies a lack of culture and sense of individualism. Having said this, Adorno et al were writing at the time of the Second World War when propaganda was a successful technique used to manipulate masses time and time again. Nowadays, as Fiske would point out, mass culture has much more of a sense of individualism and Adorno et al's views come across as dated. It could therefore be said that Seaman's notion that audiences remain passive is not only an extremely pessimistic one but also a false and dated look on the culture industry. As Fiske would recognise, audiences can now be seen to show more resistance to mass culture. Another of Seaman's key points in his criticism of the active audience theory is the critique of the choice of the word 'interaction' when referring to the relationship between an audience member and the specific text at hand. Seaman is quite openly dismissive of what the word implies, “'Interacting' suggests the viewer has some 'effect' on the television programme, clearly this is not taking place” (Seaman, 1992: 306). Seaman acknowledges that “the viewer may interact with the television when they switch it off or on” (1992: 306), but fails to recognise the significance, or 'effects' of these actions. Switching a television off, choosing not to 'take part' in the specific day's viewing practices, is an example of 'doing nothing'. As Corrigan states, “The main action of British subculture is, in fact, 'doing nothing'” (1993: 84). Jefferson and Hall (1993) discuss how youth subcultures resist dominant culture through rituals, in this instance, the ritual can be seen as
switching the television off, or, 'doing nothing'. Ultimately, if large numbers of people are not viewing mass audience programming, designed to produce maximum profit, the producers will have to change and develop the content at hand, meaning that the simple act of 'switching off' or, in this instance, not switching on at all, does in fact have an extremely significant effect on the television programme. Seaman fails to recognise the significance of this, and the effect that it will ultimately have on the producers of the television programme in question. It can thus be said, that by criticising the term interaction, Seaman fails to recognise the significance of what effect viewers can potentially have on television programming. A development of Seaman's criticism of the notion of interaction is his idea that television programmes are simply audio-visual signals, that cannot be altered by the viewer. He uses this idea to further criticise the active audience theory and add weight to his overall argument, that active audience theory is simply “pointless populism”. “The text, in its concrete manifestation as an audio- visual signal, is not altered by the viewer” (Seaman, 1992: 306). In his paper titled 'Encoding/ decoding' Stuart Hall (1980) speaks about how audiences can interpret or decode texts in varying ways. Hall introduces three hypothetical positions for decoding; the dominant hegemonic position, the negotiated position, and the oppositional position. Hall's three hypothetical positions, particularly the oppositional position, show that he believes texts can have differing effects depending on the viewer. In the eyes of Hall therefore, Seaman's method of simply looking at a text as an audio-visual signal that is not altered by the viewer would be seen as basic and incorrect. Hall describes his oppositional reading as “detotalizing the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize the message within some alternative framework of reference” (1980: 138). It can be said that different audience members have different frameworks of reference from which to base their readings of a particular text. These differing frameworks of reference will ultimately provide alternative decoding, in the method described by Hall. I would therefore suggest, like Hall, that it is
References
Adorno, Theodor and Horkheimer, Max (1999[1944]) 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception'. In Simon During (ed) The Cultural Studies Reader (2nd^ edition), pp. 31-41. London: Routledge. Alasuutari, Pertti (1999 ) Rethinking the Media Audience London: Sage publications. Althusser (1970) 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)' in Žižek, Slavoj (ed.) Mapping Ideology, London: Verso. Baudrillard (1994) Simulacra and Simulations, USA: The University of Michigan Press. Corrigan, Paul (1993) 'Doing Nothing' in Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (2006) [first published in 1993] Resistance Through Rituals, Oxon: Routledge. Council on American-Islamic Relations (2005) 'Critical Reaction to 24', at http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_reaction_to_24_(TV_series) (accessed: 1 December 2011). Fiske, John (1987) Television Culture, London: Routledge. Fiske, John (1989) Understanding Popular Culture , New York: Routledge. Ganutlett, David (1998) Chapter 10: 'Ten Things Wrong With the “Effects Model”' in Dickinson, Roger, Approaches to Audiences: A Reader, 120 – 130, London: Arnold. Hall, Stuart (1980) 'Encoding/decoding' FROM: HALL, S, Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Culture Studies, 1972-79, 128-138. London: Routledge. Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (2006) [first published in 1993] Resistance Through Rituals, Oxon: Routledge. Morley, David (2006) 'Unanswered Questions in Audience Research', at http:// www.compos.org.br/seer/index.php/e-compos/article/viewFile/76/76 (accessed: 2 December 2011). O'Donnell, Marcus (2008) 'Jack Bauer: The Smart Warrior's Faustian Gift', at http:// marcusodonnell.com/files/MIA-JBFinalEdit2008.pdf (accessed: 1 December 2011). Seaman, William (1992) 'Active Audience Theory: Pointless Populism', Media Culture and Society, 14, 2: 301-311. Stevenson, Nick (1996) Understanding Media Cultures, London: Sage Publications. Žižek, Slajoj (1989) The Sublime Object of Ideology, London, Verso.
