David Morley’s Study of
the Nationwide Audience (1980)

Introduction
BBC Survey of Nationwide Audience
Three Positions
Research Methodology
'Dominant Readings'
'Negotiated Readings'
'Oppositional Readings'
- Black FE Students
- Shop Stewards
Conclusions
Sources
Key Links

Introduction

Professor David Morley is a sociologist who specializes in the sociology of the television audience. He is currently Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths' College in the University of London. His studies of the former television programme Nationwide arose from research which was conducted at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham between 1975 and 1979. Nationwide was a popular news/current affairs magazine programme which had a regular early evening slot on weekdays from 6.00 to 7.00 pm on BBC1. It followed the main national news from London and included human interest stories from 'the regions' as well as a 'down-to-earth' look at the major events of the day. It was broadcast throughout the UK (including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), though from its general stance one might have been forgiven for assuming that it was broadcast only within England. Michael Barratt was the regular presenter of the programme at the time.

A previous study by Morley together with Charlotte Brunsdon - Everyday Television: 'Nationwide', published in 1978 (also by the British Film Institute) - involved textual analysis of the programme. Although it has many limitations, Morley's study of The 'Nationwide' Audience (published in 1980) has become one of the most-widely cited studies of the television audience.

In the NWA study his major concern was 'with the extent to which individual interpretation of programmes could be shown to vary systematically in relation to... socio-cultural background' (1981b, p 56). He was investigating 'the degree of complementarity between the codes of the programme and the interpretive codes of various sociocultural groups... [and] the extent to which decodings take place within the limits of the preferred (or dominant) manner in which the message has been initially encoded' (1983, p. 106).

BBC Survey of Nationwide audience in 1974

Social Group Size % of Audience % of Overall Population
Upper middle-class 321,000 5.4 6.0
Lower middle-class 2,140,000 36.3 24.0
Working-class 3,438,000 58.3 70.0
Male 2,772,000 46.1 --------------
Female 3,177,000 53.9 --------------

Source: Morley (1980: 38)

Three Positions

Morley outlined three hypothetical positions (adapted from Frank Parkin) which the reader of a programme might occupy (1983, pp. 109-10; see also 1981b, p. 51 and 1992, p. 89):

Dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: The reader shares the programme's 'code' (its meaning system of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions) and fully accepts the programme's 'preferred reading' (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the programme makers).

Negotiated reading: The reader partly shares the programme's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but modifies it in a way which reflects their position and interests.

Oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: The reader does not share the programme's code and rejects the preferred reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of interpretation.

Morley argues that 'members of a given sub-culture will tend to share a cultural orientation towards decoding messages in particular ways. Their individual "readings" of messages will be framed by shared cultural formations and practices' (1981b, p. 51).

Summaries and commentaries on the responses of each of the groups interviewed in Morley's NWA study are presented here in the order in which he places them in the spectrum of readings from 'dominant', via 'negotiated', to 'oppositional'.

Research methodology

Morley did not claim in the NWA book that he was engaging in ethnography, but in his 'Critical Postscript' published in Screen Education a year later he proclaimed himself to be developing an 'ethnography of reading' (1981a, p. 13).
Morley deliberately chose to work with groups rather than individuals because 'much individually based interview research is flawed by a focus on individuals as social atoms divorced from their social context' (1980, p. 33).
Two programmes from Nationwide were shown to 29 small groups (2-13 people) from different social, cultural and educational backgrounds (note that tape-recording problems led to the data for groups 9, 24 and 29 being unusable).
Programme A had been broadcast on 19th May 1976 and a recording of this was shown to 18 groups in London and the Midlands; Programme B dated from 29th March 1977 (a 'Budget Special') and this was shown to 11 groups, mainly in London.
The groups were already meeting as part of educational courses of various kinds (some full-time; some part-time).
Viewing by each group was followed by a discussion lasting about 30 minutes. Morley chose to use 'open discussions' rather than pre-sequenced interview schedules (1980, p. 32).
[Note that the age-ranges for groups given in various places in the original publication do not always agree; I have relied on the summary list: 1980, pp. 37-8].

'Dominant Readings'

Print Management Trainees (Groups 26 & 28)

All men; aged 22-39; one group mainly white (European); the other all black (mainly Nigerian); middle-class.
Saw Programme B.
Predominantly 'radical' Conservative or 'don't know'.
The young European trainee managers held very right-wing views and saw Nationwide as a 'very pro-Labour' programme biased in favour of the trade unions and against management (1980, p. 123; in dramatic contrast to the trade union groups, who saw it as strongly anti-union). 'It's basically socialist' (1981b, p. 57). 'I come from a very conservative family. Several times I've wanted to pick up the phone and phone Nationwide; I have seen people being pulled through the mud there, just because they have too much money' (1981b, p. 57). 'They didn't give him a chance, the guy from management' (1981b, p. 57).
The black group of trainees did not share the programme's cultural assumptions and found it hard to make sense of it (1980, p. 130).
Morley saw these management trainees as inhabiting the 'dominant' end of the spectrum of readings, with a 'radical' Conservative inflection (1980, p. 137). 'In a sense... so far to the right of the political spectrum... that they might be said to be making a right-wing 'oppositional reading' of Nationwide' (1981b, p. 62).

'Dominant Readings'

Bank Managers (Group 21)

Mainly men; aged 29-52; all white, middle-class.
Saw Programme B.
Predominantly 'traditional' Conservative political views.
They hardly commented at all on the programme's content - its ideological treatment of the issues - this was 'transparent' and uncontroversial to them (in strongest contrast to the trade union groups) (1980, pp. 145-6).
They focused on what Morley calls the programme's 'mode of address' - its presentational style - contrasting it unfavourably with 'serious current affairs' as exemplified by The Daily Telegraph and The Money Programme. Nationwide was seen as 'just a tea-time entertainment programme, embarrassing... patronising... exploiting raw emotion... sensationalism' (1980, p. 145).
'I can't bear it... I think it's awful... one thing... then chop, chop, you're onto the next thing' (1980, p. 106).
'I couldn't identify with any of them [the participants]' (p 106). They imagine that the target audience is 'the car worker... the middle people... and below' (1980, p. 107).
'If you're talking about communicating with the public and you're actually leading them, I think that's dishonest' (1980, p. 106).
Ideas rather than people were important to them (1980, p. 105).
Morley saw these bank managers as inhabiting the 'dominant' end of the spectrum of readings of the programme, with a 'traditional' Conservative inflection (1980, p. 134). They shared the 'ideological problematic' of the programme (its structural limitations on what can be understood and what questions can be addressed) - indeed, they denied the presence of any particular problematic (1980, pp. 145-6).

'Dominant Readings'

Apprentices (Groups 1-6 & 27)

Mainly men; aged 17-29; all white; working-class.
Some saw Programme A; a few saw Programme B.
These were politically mainly 'don't know' or populist Conservative; many adopted a cynical rejection of politics; to some extent identifying with the National Front (1980, p. 138).
One noted that the programme seemed to be aimed at 'the 40-year-old normal man'.
They rejected the programme's style as too formal, serious and 'boring' (insufficiently entertaining and humorous). Several said that they preferred ATV Today.
They also saw it as middle-class. One declared: 'The people we see presenting, they all seem to be snobs to me' (1980, p. 52). Another said: 'You wouldn't think anyone actually worked in factories - at that time of night; to them, teatime's at 5 o'clock and everyone's at home... a real middle-class kind of attitude' (p, 52).
However, they tended to accept the perspectives of the programme's presenters, seeing their questions as 'pretty obviously OK'. The Nationwide team was seen as 'just doing a job' (1980, p. 54). 'The presenters have got to be the most authoritative 'cause you see most of them... You mistrust the person they're interviewing, straight away, don't you?' (1981b, p. 59). 'Barratt's a national figure, so what he says, you know...' (1981b, p. 59).
One group did note that 'they're going to the left... the majority of people think that Nationwide's left' (1980, p. 126).
They accepted the chauvinistic stance reflected in one of the items (1980, pp. 51, 59-60).
Despite their general tone of rejection and cynicism ('they're biased though, aren't they?') they decoded most of the specific items within the dominant framework or preferred reading (1980, p. 138; 1981b, p. 64; 1983, p. 113).
Morley saw these apprentices as clearly inhabiting the 'dominant' end of the spectrum of readings of the programme, in a mainstream working-class 'populist-Conservative'/cynical inflection (1980, pp. 134, 137, 138-40). He felt that the apprentices were the closest of all the groups to the programme's own 'populist' code (1981b, p. 64). 'The lads' use of a form of populist discourse ("damn all politicians - they're all as bad as each other... it's all down to the individual in the end, isn't it?") was quite compatible with that of the programme' (1983, p. 113). Morley notes that the apprentices had the same working-class background as the trade union officials who produced 'negotiated' readings and the shop stewards who produced 'oppositional' readings. He argues that the differences are explicable in terms of 'the articulation of social position through discourse' since the apprentices, who tended to reproduce 'dominant' readings, were inactive union members with no active involvement in the discourse of trade unionism (1992, p. 116).

'Dominant Readings'

School Students (Groups 10 & 12)

All male; aged 14-16; more white than black; working-class.
Saw Programme A.
Their political views were mainly 'don't know' or Labour.
They liked the style of Nationwide, seeing it as appealing to children as well as adults, in contrast to Panorama and the News (1980, p. 69), though some preferred their own local ITV programme London Today (p. 74), favouring its more irreverent style.
Others liked Nationwide's variety, immediacy and accessibility. 'You can see the expressions on his face' (1980, p. 69).
Some were aware that in one item an interviewee was not allowed to talk about what he regarded as 'the important thing' and that in another the interviewer was 'trying to catch him [the interviewee] out all the while' (1980, p. 70). Others felt that the interviewer was 'just there doing his job' (p. 75).
They generally accepted Nationwide's preferred readings, agreeing, for instance, with the chauvinistic item (1980, pp. 71, 77).
Morley felt that these schoolboys tended to inhabit the 'dominant' end of the spectrum of readings, with a 'deferential' inflection (1980, p. 137).

'Negotiated Readings'

Teacher-Training College Students (Groups 14 & 15)

Mainly women; aged 19-46; mainly white; middle-class.
Saw Programme A.
Politically, mainly Conservative and 'don't know'.
The programme was seen as not for them; they saw it as for an older, family audience (1980, pp. 79-80; 84; 1981b, p. 58). It was a programme which 'I only watch with my parents' (1980, p. 80).
It was seen as 'the TV equivalent of the Sun or Mirror' (1980, p. 84). 'There didn't seem to be a good reason, a valid reason, for half the things they showed' (p. 83) (this attitude was in strong contrast to working-class groups such as the apprentices, who liked programmes which offered 'a bit of a laugh').
Nationwide was seen by the student teachers as offering inadequate 'detail' and information compared to 'serious', 'educational' and 'worthwhile' programmes such as Panorama (1980, pp. 80; 84; 1981b, p. 63). 'It's not very thought-provoking' (1980, p. 84). Like the university arts students they favoured the more serious items in Nationwide (1980, p. 84). This was in strongest contrast to the Black FE Students (1980, p. 142).
They rejected Nationwide's focus on the 'human' angle (1980, pp. 84, 86).
They criticized the questions asked in interviews (1980, p. 82) and the bias of the presenters (p. 85). 'We're supposed to side with them [the presenters]... It gets on your nerves after a while' (1981b, p. 58).
They tended not to accept the programme's preferred readings, including the chauvinism (1980, pp. 82-3, 86).
Morley saw the student teachers as adopting 'negotiated' (veering towards 'dominant') readings with a Conservative 'Leavisite' inflection (1980, pp. 134, 137). He argued that their involvement in HE shifts their discourse into 'negotiated' rather than 'dominant' readings (1980 p. 141; 1981b, p. 62), though he also refers to the general conservatism of teacher-training colleges (p. 144).

'Negotiated Readings'

University Arts Students (Groups 7 & 19)

Men and women; aged 19-24; all white; middle-class.
Some saw Programme A; others saw Programme B.
No predominant political views.
The programme was seen as 'basically for middle-class people' (1980, p. 61).
They dismissed the programme's style of presentation in similar terms to the bank managers, seeing it, for example, as 'patronizing' (1980, p. 63). 'It's obviously directed at people with little concentration... it's got a kind of "easy" form... it's "variety", isn't it?' (p. 60). 'It's like Blue Peter... it's vaguely entertaining... basically undemanding' (p. 98).
They favoured the more 'serious' items. Like the teacher-training students, they assessed the programme according to criteria of relevance and informational value derived from 'serious' current affairs broadcasting (1981b, p. 62).
'It's meant to give the impression that we're all in this together. We're a great big happy family as a nation, and we're doing all these things together' (1981b, p. 57).
They were particularly conscious of the methods used by the programme. They noted certain significant absences.
They were less 'oppositional' on the programme's treatment of politico-economic issues. The programme's treatment of industrial relations was not regarded by them as biased (in strong contrast with the trade union groups). 'I don't think they have done anything to bias us one way or another' (1981b, p. 57-8).
Morley saw these university students as adopting highly articulate (and because of their educational background, consistently deconstructed) 'negotiated' (and sometimes 'oppositional') readings of many topics in the programme, with a 'radical Leavisite' inflection (involving a notion of 'high culture'). However, their readings were more 'dominant' in relation to other topics (1980, pp. 134, 137, 144; 1981b, p. 62).

'Negotiated Readings'

Photography HE Students (Groups 8 & 18)

Mainly men; aged 19-26; all white; middle-class.
Saw Programme A.
These students rejected the programme's style of presentation as 'all very sort of matey' (1980, p. 65).
It seemed to be a programme for 'teenagers... mothers putting kids to bed'. It was 'just like a tidied-up version of the News of the World' (1980, p. 65). Like other higher education students they favoured the more serious items.
Their technical background led some to make technical criticisms (1980, p. 94).
They were aware of the presenters' power: 'They claim to speak for the viewer.. but in doing that they're actually telling you what to think' (1980, p. 94). They noted that Michael Barratt put his interpretive slant on what was shown (p. 65); 'he's the voice of authority' (p. 94).
They rejected the programme's preferred readings in some items - for instance, dismissing the chauvinism of one item (pp 76, 95).
Morley saw these HE (photography) students as adopting 'negotiated' readings, inflected by a 'technicist professional' perspective (1980, pp. 134, 137).

'Negotiated Readings'

Trade Union Officials (Groups 20 & 22)

All men; mainly aged 24-64; all white; working-class. On in-service training.
Saw Programme B.
Their political stance was a populist, 'right-wing Labour' perspective.
In strongest contrast to the bank managers the presentational style was treated as a subordinate issue - the trade union officials were more concerned with the programme's content - its ideological formulation of the 'issues' (1980, pp. 144-5). Because this content was unacceptable to the trade union officials what was 'transparent' to the bank managers was highly 'visible' to these groups.
They generally accepted the presentational style of the programme. However, one noted: 'my major complaint... is the way in which they trivialize every topic they seem to take up - and just when the topic begins to blossom out, they suddenly say, "Well, that's it..."' (1980, p. 110).
They accepted the individualistic theme of the programme and its construction of a national 'We' (1981b, p. 64).
One group felt that 'It seems to be a programme acceptable to the vast majority of people' (1980, p. 102). For the other group it was seen as 'for the middle-class... undoubtedly for what they regard as the backbone of the country, the middle-class' (1981b, p. 60).
One group accepted the presenters as their 'enquiring representatives' (1980, p. 103) and felt that the programme was 'fair' (p. 104). The other (exclusively Labour) group felt that there was an unacceptable right-wing bias (p. 109).
One group rejected the general political perspective of the programme; the other group was more critical and 'oppositional' about the treatment of specific economic 'trade union' issues.
Morley felt that the trade union officials made 'negotiated' (veering towards 'oppositional') working-class readings of the programme, with a 'populist' right-wing Labourist 'official' inflection (1980, pp. 134-5, 137, 141).

'Oppositional Readings'

Black FE Students (Groups 11, 13, 16, 17 & 25)

Mainly women; aged 17-37; mainly black (predominantly West Indian); inner-city working-class.
Predominantly Labour and 'don't know' politically.
Some saw Programme A; others saw Programme B.
The programme did not reflect their concerns or their lifestyles and they couldn't see 'how anyone could watch it' (1980, p. 87). 'It's for older folks, not for young people' (p. 71). And for 'affluent... middle-class people' (p. 118). 'Nationwide's Conservative' (p. 118). 'If it's supposed to be for us, why didn't they never interview Bob Marley?' (1981b, p. 58).
'It didn't show one-parent families, nor the average family in a council estate - all these people they showed seemed to have cars, their own home, property... don't they ever think of the average family?... And they show it... like all the husbands and wives pitching in to cope with problems... They don't show conflict, fighting, things we know happen. I mean it's just not, to me it's just not a true picture - it's too harmonious, artificial' (1981b, p 59).
Nationwide was seen as going into too much detail (1980, p. 88), and consequently 'boring' - as also was the News - and even the BBC output in general (1980, pp. 71, 87, 89, 118; a notably different argument from that of the teacher-training students). Some, like the apprentices, wanted TV which gave viewers 'a bit of a laugh... variety and all that' (1980, p. 93). The programme was seen as lacking entertainment value. Morley attributes this contrast with the more academic students to their 'differential involvement in the discourse of formal education' (1981b, p. 63; 1980, p. 142).
Some items simply left them confused. Morley notes that 'insofar as they make any sense at all of the items some of them come close to accepting the programme's own definitions' (1980, p. 142; 1981b, p. 63).
Morley assigned to the black students an 'oppositional' position in the spectrum of readings (1980, p. 137), although noting that their response was more of an alienated 'critique of silence' - a refusal to read the programme at all (1981b, p. 63, 1980, p. 134; 1983, p. 115) - rather than an 'oppositional' reading. Theirs was a working-class, inner-city, black youth subculture perspective alien to the cultural codes of Nationwide (pp. 137, 142-4).

'Oppositional Readings'

Shop Stewards (Group 23)

Mainly men; aged 23-40; all white; working-class.
Saw Programme B.
Their political views were predominantly socialist or Labour.
They saw the programme as 'light entertainment' and as more patronizing than ITV's London Today (1980, p. 113). They objected to Nationwide's 'sort of soothing, jolly approach... as if you can take a nasty problem and just wrap it up... you know - "We're all in the same boat together" and clearly we're all going to live to fight another day' (p. 113).
They rejected Nationwide's attempt to tell us what 'our grouse' is and its attempt to construct a national 'We'. They rejected the programme's claim to represent 'us' (1980, p. 114).
'I don't think you can take Nationwide in isolation... I mean... add the Sun, the Mirror and the Daily Express to it, it's all the same whole heap of crap... and they're all saying to the unions, "You're ruining the country"...' (1981b, p. 60).
They redefined the issues which the programme presented, noting significant absences in the discussion of economics. Givcn that the programme they saw was a 'Budget Special', one noted: 'There's no discussion of investment, growth production, creation of employment... nobody mentioned unemployment... no reference to stocks and shares... that are accumulating money all the time without anybody lifting a finger' (1981b, p. 61).
They saw the treatment of issues as highly biased. 'They had so much sympathy with the guy from middle management. Even in BBC terms, there wasn't any neutrality in it at all' (1981b, p. 61).
Morley felt that the shop stewards produced the most articulate fully 'oppositional' critical reading of the programme, with a 'radical' left-wing, 'rank-and-file' trade unionist inflection (1980, p. 137; 1983, p. 114). They rejected the ideological problematic of the programme (in contrast to those inhabiting the 'dominant' end of the spectrum of readings) (p. 146). 'This group fulfils the criteria of an oppositional reading in the precise sense that it redefines the issues which the programme presents' (1981b, p. 65).

Conclusions

Morley insists that he does not take a social determinist position in which individual 'decodings' of TV programmes are reduced to a direct consequence of social class position. 'It is always a question of how social position, as it is articulated through particular discourses, produces specific kinds of readings or decodings. These readings can then be seen to be patterned by the way in which the structure of access to different discourses is determined by social position' (1983, p. 113; see also 1992, pp. 89-90).

Whether or not a programme succeeds in transmitting the preferred or dominant meaning will depend on whether it encounters readers who inhabit codes and ideologies derived from other institutional areas (e.g. churches or schools) which correspond to and work in parallel with those of the programme or whether it encounters readers who inhabit codes drawn from other areas or institutions (e.g. trade unions or 'deviant' subcultures) which conflict to a greater or lesser extent with those of the programme. (1983, p. 106-7; see also 1992, p. 87).

'The apprentice groups, the trade union and shop stewards groups and the black college students can all be said to share a common class position, but their decodings of a television programme are inflected in different directions by the discourses and institutions in which they are situated' (1983, p. 117). Morley thus emphasizes the importance of different subcultural formations within the same class.
'If we relate decodings to political affiliations then it does appear that the groups dominated by Conservatism - the apprentices, teacher training students and bank managers - produce dominant readings, while those dominated by Labour or socialist discourses are more likely to produce negotiated or oppositional readings. This is not to suggest that it is an undifferentiated "dominant ideology" which is reproduced and simply accepted or rejected. Rather, it is a question of a specific formulation of that ideology which is articulated through a particular programme discourse and mode of address... To take the example of dominant code, as employed here it exists in three different versions: for the managers in "traditional" and "radical" Conservative forms, for some of the teacher training students in a Leavisite form, and for the apprentice groups in a populist form' (1980, pp. 134-5).
'To understand the potential meanings of a given message we need a cultural map of the audience to whom that message is addressed - a map showing the various cultural repertoires and symbolic resources available to differently placed subgroups within that audience. Such a map will help to show how the social meanings of a message are produced through the interaction of the codes embedded in the text with the codes inhabited by the different sections of the audience' (1983, p. 117).
Morley argues that in his perspective, 'readers are seen to be engaged in productive work, but under determinate conditions, which are not of their own choosing' (1992, p. 122).

He notes that there were differences within each group of viewers, and overlaps between groups (1981b, p. 66; 1983, p. 115-6). It was possible to refer to various examples of 'the same code' ('dominant', 'negotiated' or 'oppositional') for 'purposes of gross comparison only' (1983, p. 116). However, he argued that the differences in readings between groups categorized as reflecting different codes were 'far greater' than the differences within any group (1980, p. 33).
Morley adds that any individual or group might operate different decoding strategies in relation to different topics and different contexts. A person might make 'oppositional' readings of the same material in one context and 'dominant' readings in other contexts (1981a, p. 9; 1981b, pp. 66, 67; 1992, p. 135).
In terms of sociological/structural variables, he notes that his study focused on class largely at the expense of age, sex and race (1981a, p. 8; 1981b, p. 67).
Morley accepts that he did not adequately explain his use of the terms 'middle-class' and 'working-class' and that these referred more to occupational position than to 'a model of class based on relations of production' (1981a, p. 9; 1981b, p. 67).
He notes that the small groups he studied could not be taken to 'represent' sections of society. We could not be sure that other people from comparable social positions would necessarily decode the same material in the same ways as those of the groups he studied (1981b, p. 67).
He acknowledges that his research was subject to the usual limitations of the interview technique (1981b, p. 67). In addition, the groups were not interviewed in the domestic setting in which they would normally watch TV (1992, p. 133).
Morley had deliberately avoided the use of fixed-choice questionnaires on the grounds that 'it is not simply the "substance" of the answer which is important, it is also the form of its expression which constitutes its meaning' (1980, p. 31). He insisted that he wanted 'to examine the actual speech forms' used (1980, p. 34). However, he later accepted that in his use of his interview data, 'despite the proclaimed intention to deal with questions of linguistic form, the research constantly slides back to a perspective where the question of form becomes of only marginal, or occasional interest' (1981a, p. 8).
Morley noted that in interpreting viewers' readings of television attention should be paid not only to the issue of agreement (acceptance/rejection) but to comprehension and relevance. He also adds enjoyment (1981a, p. 10; 1992, pp. 126-7, 136).
'What we have at the end of the Nationwide project is a series of responses to material which is not necessarily salient to the respondents... Clearly the question of whether they would make a dominant, negotiated or oppositional reading of a certain type of programme material is less relevant than the question of whether or not they would choose to watch that type of material in the first place' (1992, p. 137).
He leaves open the issue of whether and how the framework of 'preferred readings' is applicable in television genres other than news, current affairs and documentary 'which explicitly claim to make factual statements about the world' (1981a, p. 6; see also 1981b, p. 66). Applying it in this way might threaten to reduce fictional texts to banal propositions. He does note that different genres require different competences in the viewer; many assumptions will not be made explicit within the programmes. He suggests that

['Serious'] current affairs TV presumes, or requires, a viewer competent in the codes of parliamentary democracy and economics... The competences necessary for reading current affairs TV are most likely to have been acquired by those persons culturally constructed through discourses of masculinity... the other probable conditions of access to these forms of cultural competence are being white and being middle or upper-class. (1981a, pp. 12-13; see also 1992, pp. 129-30)

Sources

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 Howard Davis & Paul Walton (Eds.): Language, Image, Media. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 104-17. Extracts can also be found in Paul Marris & Sue Thornham (Eds.) (1996): Media Studies: A Reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 298-306
Morley, David (1992): Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge (Chapters 3 & 4).

Daniel Chandler
January 1997

Social Group	Size	% of Audience	% of Overall Population
Upper middle-class	321,000	5.4	6.0
Lower middle-class	2,140,000	36.3	24.0
Working-class	3,438,000	58.3	70.0
Male	2,772,000	46.1	--------------
Female	3,177,000	53.9	--------------

David Morley’s Study ofthe Nationwide Audience (1980)

Three Positions

David Morley’s Study of
the Nationwide Audience (1980)