3.6 Reception Theory
3.6.2 The ‘active’ and ‘passive’ audience
90 and position themselves in relation to the text (Hall, 1980: 128 – 138). Audience members do not blatantly accept the messages which are released. Codes are successfully identified but smaller and more specific elements dictate the relationship that the viewer has with the communication process. Factors which may not be influential to other readers come into play and affect the outcome of the process. The majority of misunderstandings in the communication process could arise from the contradictions between the hegemonic-dominant encodings and the negotiated decoding which may or may not result in the desired meaning of the message being established (Hall, 1980: 128 – 138).
The third and final position identified is the oppositional code. It is possible for the viewer to perfectly understand the denotative and connotative meanings of particular signs but decode the messages in a contrary or oppositional way. The reader decodes the message in the intended way but relocates it within in a different framework of reference and constructs a reading that intentionally opposes the preferred meaning (Hall, 1980: 128 – 138).
The message receiver may purposefully choose to reject the intended meaning.
91 In his book Television Culture Fiske (1987) provides ample space for the discussion on the active audience. From the beginning of the chapter dedicated to the active audience the views of those who see the audience as a passive an inactive entity are rejected (Fiske, 1987:
62 – 83). A number of factors are discussed which are thought to affect the reading that audience members extract from the television texts they are exposed to. This is especially so when viewing the individual audience members as social subjects. These people have a social history that needs to be taken into consideration when analysing their readings of various media texts (Fiske, 1987: 62 – 83). Aspects of their social history will affect the way that they relate to certain events or representations of people and structures within the text. Features of the individual audience member’s social history and social formation are determined by a whole host of factors. These include, amongst others, age, gender, class, and geographical location (Fiske, 1987: 62; Nightingale, 1996: 88 - 93). The actual person watching the television programme draws on their own ‘real’ personal experiences as a social subject as well as their experience of the mediated text when they construct their textual readings. The subjectivity resulting from the individual’s real, or social, life is far more influential than the textual subjectivity which only occurs at the moment of viewing (Fiske, 1987; 62 – 83). What this suggests is that the viewer is in possession of a vast quantity of personal baggage which influences the way they decode certain messages and interpret media texts. The audience members are active in the sense that they construct their own media interpretations and are not reliant on the creators of the text in deciphering meaning.
One of the primary factors contributing towards the specific interpretation of media texts and the decoding of television messages is class (Hall, 1980: 128 – 138). Audience members of the same class and social status are perceived to decode messages and signs embedded within media texts in a similar manner. Hall (1980: 130) states that the:
typical processes identified in positivistic research on isolated elements – effects, uses, ‘gratifications’ – are themselves framed by structures of understanding, as well as being produced by social and economic relations, which shape their ‘realization’ at the reception end of the chain and which permit the meanings signified in the discourse to be transposed into practice or consciousness (to acquire social use value or political effectivity).
What Hall is conveying here is that people of a certain class or position within the social hierarchy have comparable needs and desires. They will participate in the communication
92 process with similar lifestyles and ideologies and are likely to decode the messages in ways that produce concurrent readings. People of the upper class have similar life experiences and needs which must be gratified. They are unlikely to relate to the text in the same way as those of the lower classes who have their own independent sets of social requirements and life experiences affecting their decoding of signs and messages. Social life is classified into a hierarchical structure of preferred or dominant meanings. The domains in which these preferred or dominant meanings exist have the whole social order embedded within them suggesting that people from the same social category are likely to identify the signs and messages in the same light (Hall, 1980: 134). Although only seen as one of the factors contributing to the manner in which audiences decode messages and construct meanings out of media texts, theorists and cultural studies researchers such as Morley (1992: 119 – 130) found that Hall had over emphasised the role of class in the reading of media messages.
Morley’s research found that Hall had underestimated a number of other factors contributing to the reading of media messages, many of which were surprisingly across a broad spectrum of class divisions (Morley, 1992: 75 – 118; Fiske, 1987: 62 – 83). Morley found that trade unionists and university students, for example, often read media texts in a similar way despite the fact that they are (not necessarily) classified as being part of the same class. It was established that the two groups had similar readings of the text in question as a result of the roles that they played in society. The institutions that trade unionists and university students found themselves in provided them with the opportunity to be more critical of the dominant system and easily allowed the two to generate readings that were more oppositional to the text’s intended meanings (Fiske, 1987: 62 – 83; Morley, 1992: 75 - 118). Such research acknowledges the differences between people despite their social standing and highlights the fact that media texts, especially television programmes, can be decoded and enjoyed in a number of different ways by people making up a significantly pluralist audience body (Fiske, 1987: 62 – 83).
The audience can also be viewed as active when one considers the various degrees to which smaller audience groups engage with the texts at hand. Audiences and dedicated fans of certain genres and individual television programmes adapt, change and make use of media texts to suit their own needs (Jenkins, 1992). Jenkins’ book Textual Poachers (1992) explores the interesting world of fanatics. Ardent Star Trek fans, or ‘Trekkies’, are actively involved
93 with the text and can be classified as belonging to a fan community (Jenkins, 1992: 16 – 24).
‘Trekkies’ may become obsessed with the show and may attend conventions, put off previous arrangements so that they do not miss an episode, participate in online discussions and even learn fictitious languages used in the show (Jenkins, 1992: 16 – 24). These people have made conscious decisions to further their experience with the text and have become active participants in popular culture through their high levels of engagement with the show. In certain ways, rugby supporters are no different. They purchase replica playing jerseys and team magazines, decorate themselves in the colours of their team and ensure that stay abreast with the latest results. Midweek magazine programmes such as Boots n All provide viewers with a summary of the weekend’s games, discuss interesting topics and host in-studio guests.
All this is done to meet the needs of the public who engage extensively with the sport. Those who participate so actively in the rugby culture are obviously meeting certain needs from watching the matches on television. Whether or not those exposed to televised rugby are encouraged to accept apparent messages of nation-building through their reading of the text remains to be seen and will be discussed in Chapter Eight of the dissertation.