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News audiences JN2042 Journalism Theory University of Central Lancashire November 2013

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Lecture for JN2042 International Journalism Theory, School of Journalism and Media, University of Central Lancashire

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: News audiences

News audiences

JN2042 Journalism TheoryUniversity of Central Lancashire

November 2013

Page 2: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and the audience

Page 3: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and audiences

Page 4: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and audiences

An all-powerful media pouring its messages into empty heads?

Page 5: News audiences

Media effects theoriesWhat the media does to the audience

Focus on:• power differences between media and audiences• media ownership and controlExamples:• Weather forecast• UK: MMR vaccination scareProblems:• Over-emphasis on negative

effects• Simplistic transmission-

reception, cause-effect model

Page 6: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and audiences

An all-powerful media pouring its messages into empty heads?

Page 7: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and audiences

Page 8: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and audiences

All-powerful audiences using the media for their own purposes?

Page 9: News audiences

Uses and gratifications theoriesWhat the audience does with the media

Focus on:• ‘agency’ or power of the

audience• How audiences use

media to create their own identitiesExamples:• Liverpool Sun boycott• GoggleboxProblems:• No analysis of media ownership and power inequalities• No explanation of media influence

Page 10: News audiences

Journalists

What’s the connection?

and audiences

A middle way, between all-powerful media and all-powerful audiences?

Page 11: News audiences

Kalyango (2012): • 'less educated citizens who consume state-owned media are most

likely to legitimise the regime’ – evidence of media influence?• More educated citizens are more likely to reject government

media messages – evidence of audience power to oppose media messages?

Page 12: News audiences

Van der Wurff (2011):• People interested in politics, or with good knowledge of the

topic of a news item, were more likely to receive a diverse range of news

• Readers of popular newspapers, e.g. Evening Herald or Irish Daily Mail less likely to get diverse news

Mix of influences – from the media, from the audience

Page 13: News audiences

By the way …

“A general assumption, shared by media policy-makers and scholars, is that exposure to a variety of sources increases the likelihood that audiences receive diverse ideas. Only a few studies have investigated this assumption for aggregated audiences. This study provides a first test at the individual level” (Van der Wurff 2011, p.333)• Analysis of literature: Identifies taken-for-granted

assumption, with little evidence• Identifies gap in literature: Previous research has looked

at average response – nothing so far on individual response

Page 14: News audiences

Journalists

How do we explain the connection?Explanation = theory!

and audiences

Page 15: News audiences

The sceptical view: There is no connection

minimal communication between the two sides -- consuming media is like watching a spectacle (Scollon 1998)

Journalists talk to each other,Audiences talk to each other,

Page 16: News audiences

Journalists try to make stories mean one thing (encoding)Audiences try to understand stories in their own ways (decoding)3 ways audiences decode media:• Dominant reading – following BBC journalist’s intended

meaning• e.g. this Iran agreement is good• Oppositional reading – against journalist’s meaning, • e.g. this agreement is bad, the West has been tricked by Iran• Negotiated reading – audience selects different elements, • e.g. deal will probably fail but the process of talking is

positive, successful deal would isolate Israel

Stuart Hall: encoding/decoding

(Hall 1973)

Page 17: News audiences

Stanley Fish: Interpretive communities

• Different groups of people – communities – interpret the same media in different ways

• Members of interpretive communities talk about media and come to an agreed interpretation

• Communities can differ by nationality, religion, politics, personality etc.

(Fish 1976)

Page 18: News audiences

David Morley: Not all audience members have the same power

Asked viewers of Nationwide TV programme about their understandings:• Found that viewers’ social class, age, gender,

race etc. affected their interpretations

(Morley 1980)

Page 19: News audiences

Conclusions

• The big question: what impact does journalism have?• It’s complicated: depends on …

– the story– how it’s presented– the news organisation– the individual news consumer – communities of news consumers

• Journalists often support dominant groups in society – but audiences have the power to reject these frames/angles, or to reinterpret them, or use them in unintended ways.