CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.5. Audiences
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Muvhango was to represent the stories of typical Black people, which included issues surrounding polygamy, witchcraft, sangomas, business life and rural life.
2.4.2. The history of Muvhango
In 1997 when Muvhango first started, the story of how Black men lived at that time was expressed. The reality of how men would leave their homes in the rural areas and go to the city of Johannesburg to work as miners was depicted, and complex associated issues were raised around how men had wives at their rural homesteads while also having sexual relationships with other women in the city. In the first episode in 1997, Mashudu Mukwevho, a successful businessman and a chief in waiting, passes away while working in Johannesburg. Catherine, his learned city-lawyer girlfriend, wants to bury him, while at the same time his wife who lives at the rural homestead, Vho-Masindi, feels entitled to bury her husband. Today this is still a typical situation, where men see nothing amiss in having multiple partners, and many women have to contend with living under strict patriarchal conditions. From its first day on air, Muvhango has continued to tell stories that reflect the daily lived experiences of African people.
The following section presents theory related to television audiences. Such theory is crucial to this study, as this study focuses on a specific audience.
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Audiences are usually segmented according to particular traits and characteristics.
According to Webster, Phalen and Lichty (2006), audience attributes can be grouped into the following categories:
• Demographic variables: The demographics most commonly reported in audience data are race, ethnicity, age, gender, income, education, marital status and/or occupation. Of these, age and gender appear to be the most important.
• Geographic variables: Geographic variables often used in audience research are country of residence, province and residential area, as well as type of area (rural versus urban). Newspapers, radio stations, television channels and other media are often directed at specific geographical areas.
• Behavioural variables: Behavioural variables distinguish between people on the basis of particular behavioural patterns. Behavioural patterns become important to advertisers because they want to reach the audiences that are most likely to buy their products.
• Psychographics: Psychographics draw distinctions between people on the basis of particular psychological characteristics, such as values, attitudes, motivations and/or preferences (Smith 2006). Psychographic variables that have attracted attention recently are audience loyalty, involvement and/or engagement (Webster et al. 2006). It has become important for media professionals as well as advertisers to know which groups of people are particularly loyal and/or committed to particular media products in order to ensure that they are catered for accordingly.
For the purposes of this study I focus on demographic and psychographic variables.
These variables are important from a statistical point of view in audience research, as they provide a way to analyse audiences. However, they do not provide insight into how viewers watch and interpret programmes, and so the primary method of this research is an interpretive ethnographic study. The above variables provide a good foundation from which to develop this audience research, as they identify how audiences can be researched through geography, behaviour, psychology and demographics. These variables also simplify audience research and they will be further explored in later chapters.
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Although this audience study does not evaluate media consumption in relation to the reception of individual texts specifically, it does, in its attempt to evaluate media consumption and lifestyles, focus on the ways in which Black isiZulu-speaking audiences “actively and creatively make their own meanings and create their own culture, rather than passively absorb pre-given meanings imposed upon them” (Ang 1996: 136). Ethnography is a qualitative approach to research that draws on its anthropological tradition in order to understand people and their behaviours. Media ethnography looks specifically at media texts and contexts (Kitzinger 2005), which is what this study intended to do. As an audience study, this study employs the established traditions and methodologies of both reception analysis and ethnography as a means to better understand isiZulu-speaking audiences, their media consumption, their practices of masculinity and their lifestyles. I have chosen to interview Black isiZulu-speaking audiences who engage with the text on a weekly basis.
2.5.1 Why people watch television
Television has a diverse audience to whose needs it caters with the intent of producing a profound impact on its viewers. Uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understanding why audiences use certain media — in other words, why audiences watch television, rather than what they watch on television. This approach was developed from a functionalist paradigm, which emphasises the needs of the individual.
“As applied to the media institution, the presumed ‘needs’ have mainly to do with continuity, order, integration, motivation, guidance, socialisation, adaptation etc.”
(McQuail 1994: 77). People watch television for various reasons, such as to fulfil certain emotional needs, for entertainment and as a way to escape reality, and some watch because of loneliness. Loneliness is described in several studies as being a characteristic of soap opera viewers in the United Kingdom and the USA (Tulloch 2000). This is where viewers enter into a relationship with “their favourite characters as a substitute for real human interaction” (Tager 2002: 87). The respondents that I interviewed did not show or suggest that they were watching because of loneliness; they watched for many other reasons that included wanting to see other cultures. Tager’s study also reveals that the
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students that she interviewed did not watch soap opera because of loneliness but for pure enjoyment.
Further reasons for people watching television, and specifically soap opera, will be explored later in the chapter in the sections on soap opera. There are many ways to theorise why individuals watch soap opera. Uses and gratifications theory assists in examining how individuals use mass media, in this case, soap opera. This perspective is based on perceived needs, and social and psychological characteristics, as well as how the relevant individuals use and experience related gratifications (Papacharissi 2008).
Television producers explore strategies to draw certain viewers to certain programmes;
these include storylines that keep viewers watching on a continuous basis. Soap operas in South Africa occupy the local television channels’ top programming slots (Koenderman 2004) because they deal with everyday people and situations that their audiences identify with. Soap operas also air during the evening when most working viewers are home. Muvhango, for example, airs at 9 pm every weekday evening. It is assumed that at this time every family member is home relaxing in front of the television screen. Viewers engage with and feel that they are participating in the lives of their favourite actors or actresses because of the stories that continue on a daily basis.
This is different to a cinema experience, where the viewer’s engagement is for a short period of time. The viewing experience in relation to serial television dramas is complex in the sense that viewers are invited to sit back and relish the spectacle presented to them, while they also engage with characters as emotional representatives to whom they can relate. Soap opera specifically plays into these emotions (Corner & Harvey 1996).
At the same time, South African soap opera often incorporates dialogue about the country’s present situation, which creates a familiar frame of reference for viewers and an illusion of real life. An example of this can be seen with material related to the country’s elections that is often portrayed on soap operas just before voting day. Brief dialogue about how important voting is may be incorporated into the storyline. Isidingo, for example, touched on such issues during the voting season, and Van Der Merwe comments in her study of women’s perceptions of soap opera on how “Isidingo employs positive role models to transmit pro-social messages to its viewers” (2005: 19). In
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essence, individuals watch television for a range of different reasons. These include entertainment, a perceived sense of engagement with actors and actresses, and learning new perspectives on life (Gordon 2012).