David Morley James Parkinson

Nationwide project

The Nationwide project was an influential audience research project.

Its principal researchers were David Morley and Charlotte Brunsdon.

It was conducted by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). It was conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

BBC Survey

Social Class Size Audience % Overallpopulation %

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 - - - - - - - - - -- -

His positions

Morley outlined three hypothetical positions, which the reader of a programme might occupy.

Dominant 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‘.

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 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'

Audience Composition

Social status classes:

The social status of a target audience for a magazine varies depending on the class of the audience. These are the categories that most magazines follow.

A - Higher managerial and professional B – Middle managerial and professional C1 – Supervisory, junior management and professionalC2 – skilled manual workerD – Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workersE – pensioners, lower grade workers and the unemployed.

Glossary

Deductive - Deductive research is the type of social research based on deductive reasoning. Normally, it deals with starting with theories or generalizations, narrowing them down to hypotheses, and finally testing the hypothesis.

Reactive – make a hypothesis and react the hypothesis to prove it.

Polysemic - the ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that can be used (in different contexts) to express two or more different meanings

Passive - people who listen in order to accomplish other goals.

Active Audience - audience members who already are interested in an organization, issue, or cause.

Dominant Reading - When a text is read by the audience in a way that is intended by the creators of the text.

Negotiated Reading - The process of give and take by which members of the audience interpret, deconstruct and find meaning within a media text.

Oppositional Reading - A critical position that is in opposition to the values and ideology intended by the creators of a media text, usually the dominant reading of a text.

Socio/Economic Group - people having the same social, economic, or educational status

Demographic - Factual characteristics of a population sample, e.g. age, gender, race, nationality, income, disability, education.

Quantative – Including surveys and customers questionnaires – can help small businesses to help improve their products.

Qualitative – Finding out not just what people think, but why they think it.