Week 7 - Audiences: What do people do with media?

This week’s lecture was focused on what audiences do with the media texts they consume as well and how audiences are studied. One approach we learned which looks at this is Blumler and Katz’s theory of ‘uses and gratifications’, which was summarised by Dennis McQuail. This explores how audiences choose to consume certain kinds of media and how it meets their needs. Despite all its helpful insight into audience studies, it has presented some limitations and Stuart Hall’s work of encoding/decoding has considerably contributed to the development of audience studies. Through this model it is possible to explore ‘ways of thinking about the contexts of consumption and the kinds of pressures that might impact upon the way that we understand media meanings.’ (Long and Wall, 2012)

To put some of this knowledge we gained into practice, during the seminar we were put in groups to deconstruct some media texts to see how in fact these can result in us being ‘sometimes very engaged, other times quite distant from those things we consume and their meanings.’ (Long and Wall, 2012) My group and I used textual analysis to deconstruct Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’ music video to see how cinematography is being used to help refine the issues being addressed and how this left us feeling by the end of it.

The key reading this week was “Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change” by Marie Gillespie, in which she talks about soap operas and how audience members can relate to characters and apply the scenarios to their everyday life. ‘A large part of the enjoyment which is derived from watching soap operas lies in talking about them with the other people.’ (Gillespie, 2003) This is a great example of where Gillespie applied the uses and gratifications theory to the Australian soap opera “Neighbours”, explaining why we as audience members have the need for ‘personal relationships’ which is one of the points of Blumler and Katz’s theory that can be fulfilled through doing something as simple as interacting with others and speaking about the texts they are consuming. 

To further develop my knowledge it would be interesting to do some research into fandoms, because with the advent of digital age they have become more socially acceptable. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumlbr have proven to be easy ways for people to interact and discuss their opinions on topics (including TV and Film) from the comfort of their own home. I think this would be an easy way to gain a raw insight to how they consume and understand media texts.

References:

1.     Long, P and Wall, T (2012) ‘investigating audiences: what do people do with media?’ IN Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2^nd Edition), London: Pearson. pp 300-337 

2.     Gillespie, Marie (2003) “Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change” IN Will Brooker and Deborah Jermyn The Audience Studies Reader, London: Routledge.

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