Watching Television Viewers
Daniel Chandler
Key Differences in Viewers' Interpretations of TV
This is my attempt to offer an amalgamated list of key differences in the ways in which viewers interpret
the same televisual material. It is based primarily on research findings by Allport & Postman (1945),
Buckingham (1987), Graber (1988), Liebes & Katz (1993) and Livingstone (1998).
- Inaccuracy of comprehension and recall (Livingstone 1998)
(this assumes that we can agree on an accurate summary or a 'preferred reading')
- Levelling: certain details are omitted
- Sharpening: pointing-up of a limited number of details
- Modification: changing details (including transposition: changing sequence)
- Importation: adding details
- Assimilation: making aspects of a story more consistent with what is seen
as the principal theme
(Allport & Postman 1945, Newcombe 1952, Graber 1988)
- Inferences (from the application of relevant social and textual schemata) about
- Participants: agents and objects involved in actions;
- Actions: nature of agents’ behaviour;
- States: preconditions and outcomes (including existence and properties of objects, and spatial,
temporal and logical relationships between elements);
- Circumstances: locations in time and place of agents, objects and states;
- Causation: causes and consequences of actions or events (including goals - states of affairs that
agents seek to bring about, and plans - methods to be employed);
- Themes: themes underlying sequences of events (including motivation).
(Chandler 1995, Graber 1988, Livingstone 1998)
- Character evaluation: positive or negative (Livingstone 1998)
- Moral and ideological judgements (Buckingham 1987, Liebes & Katz 1993; see also references to Hall's model
below)
- Explanatory social frameworks: general social rhetoric (Livingstone 1998)
- Critical distance/involvement (Buckingham 1987, Liebes & Katz 1993, Livingstone 1998)
- Focus of account (Liebes & Katz 1993, Livingstone 1998)
- 'linear' (or 'distributive'): focusing on a sequential story line;
- 'segmented' (or 'indexical'): focusing on the attributes, feelings, emotional problems, motivations and
relationships of one or more of the characters;
- 'thematic' (or 'paradigmatic'): focusing on a theme, message or 'moral'.
(Liebes & Katz 1993)
- Complexity of account (Livingstone 1998)
One can also relate viewers' interpretations to Stuart Hall's sociologically-based framework.
Stuart Hall stressed the role of social positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by
different social groups. In a model deriving from Frank Parkin's 'meaning systems', Hall suggested
three hypothetical interpretative codes or positions for the reader of a text
(Parkin 1972; Hall 1973; Hall 1980, 136-8; Morley 1980, 20-21, 134-7; Morley
1981b, 51; Morley 1983, 109-10):
- dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the
preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the
author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent';
- negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but
sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local
and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions;
- oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly
oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's
code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g.
when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote against).
Note, however, that in his Nationwide study, Morley felt that allowance should also be made for
rejection of TV material which was perceived as totally irrelevant to the viewer's interests and
concerns (Morley 1980 & 1981b, 51).
References
- Allport, Gordon W. & Leo J. Postman (1945): ‘The basic psychology of rumor’,
Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II 8: 61-
81. Reprinted in Eleanor E. Maccoby, Theodore M. Newcomb & Eugene L. Hartley (Eds.)
(1959): Readings in Social Psychology (3rd edn.). London: Methuen; online summary -
[WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF12710/levsharp.html [useful summary of key
processes in recalling events]
-
Buckingham, David (1987): Public Secrets: 'EastEnders' and
its Audience. London: BFI
- Chandler, Daniel (1995): 'Types of Inference'. [WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF12710/infers.html
- Chandler, Daniel (1997): 'Notes on the Katz & Liebes Cross-Cultural Studies of Dallas Viewers'
[WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/katzlieb.html
- Davis, Howard & Paul Walton (Eds.) (1983): Language, Image, Media.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell
-
Graber, Doris (1988): Processing the News (2nd edn.). New York: Longman
- Hall, Stuart ([1973] 1980): 'Encoding/decoding'. In Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies
(Ed.): Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies,
1972-79 London: Hutchinson, pp. 128-38
- Liebes, Tamar & Elihu Katz (1993): The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural
Readings of 'Dallas'. Oxford: Polity
- Livingstone, Sonia (1998): Making Sense of Television. London: Routledge;
pdf extract 'Divergent Interpretations of Television Soap Opera' [WWW document] URL
http://www.aber.ac.uk/modules/documents/TF33120_2.pdf
-
Morley, David (1980): The 'Nationwide' Audience: Structure and
Decoding. London: BFI
- Morley, David (1981a): '"The Nationwide Audience"
- A Critical Postscript', Screen Education 39: 3-14
- Morley, David (1981b): Interpreting Television. In
Popular Culture and Everyday Life (Block 3 of U203 Popular
Culture). Milton Keynes: Open University Press, pp. 40-68
- Morley, David (1983): 'Cultural Transformations: The Politics
of Resistance'. In Davis & Walton (Eds.), op. cit., pp. 104-17
- Morley, David (1992): Television, Audiences and Cultural
Studies. London: Routledge
- Newcomb,Theodore M (1952): ocial Psychology. London: Tavistock, pp. 88-96
- Parkin, Frank (1972): Class Inequality and Political Order.
London: Granada
May 2002