Audience Research: Reception Analysis
"Despite the (implicit) nominal link to the work on what is also called 'Reception Theory', within the field of literary studies, carried out by Wolfgang Iser, Hans Jauss and other literary scholars (particular in Germany), the body of recent work on media audiences commonly referred to by this name, has on the whole, a different origin, although there are some theoretical links (cf., the work of Stanley Fish) than the work in literary theory. In practice, the term 'reception analysis', has come to be widely used as a way of characterising the wave of audience research which occurred within communications and cultural studies during the 1980s and 1990s. On the whole, this work has adopted a 'culturalist' perspective, has tended to use qualitative (and often ethnographic) methods of research and has tended to be concerned, one way or another, with exploring the active choices, uses and interpretations made of media materials, by their consumers.
As indicated in the previous discussion of 'The Media Audience', the single most important point of origin for this work, lies with the development of cultural studies in the writings of Stuart Hall at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, England, in the early 1970s and, in particular, Hall's widely influential 'encoding/decoding' model of communications (see the discussion of 'The Media Audience' for an explanation of this model). Hall's model provided the inspiration, and much of the conceptual framework for a number of C.C.C.S' explorations of the process of media consumption, notably David Morley's widely cited study of the cultural patterning of differential interpretations of media messages among The 'Nationwide' Audience and Dorothy Hobson's work on women viewers of the soap opera Crossroads. These works were the forerunners of a blossoming of cultural studies work focusing on the media audience, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including, among the most influential, from a feminist point of view, the work of Tania Modleski and Janice Radway on women consumers of soap opera and romance, and the work of Ien Ang, Tamar Liebes and Elihu Katz, Kim Schroder and Jostein Gripsrud on international cross cultural consumption of American drama series, such as Dallas and Dynasty.
Much of this work has been effectively summarised and popularised, especially, in the United States by John Fiske, who has drawn on the theoretical work of Michel de Certeau to develop a particular emphasis on the 'active audience', operating within what he terms the 'semiotic democracy' of postmodern pluralistic culture. Fiske's work has subsequently been the object of some critique, in which a number of authors, among them Budd, Condit, Evans, Gripsrud, and Seamann have argued that the emphasis on the openness (or 'polysemy') of the message and on the activity (and the implied 'empowerment') of the audience, within reception analysis, has been taken too far, to the extent that the original issue--of the extent of media power--has been lost sight of, as if the 'text' had been theoretically 'dissolved' into the audience's (supposedly) multiple 'readings' of (and 'resistances' to) it.
In the late 1980s, there were a number of calls to scholars to recognise a possible 'convergence' of previously disparate approaches under the general banner of 'reception analysis' (cf. in particular, Jensen and Rosengren), while Blumler et al. have claimed that the work of a scholar such as Radway is little more than a 're-invention' of the 'uses and gratifications' tradition--a claim hotly contested by Schroder. More recently, both Curran and Corner have offered substantial critiques of 'reception analysis'--the former accusing many reception analysts of ignorance of the earlier traditions of media audience research, and the latter accusing them of retreating away from important issues of macro-politics and power into inconsequential micro-ethnographies of domestic television consumption. For a reply to these criticisms, see Morley, 1992."
(David Morley, The Museum of Broadcast Communications)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Rare Archival Footage of Marshall McLuhan
"This rare archival footage of McLuhan speaking to an ABC journalist on his visit to Australia was recorded on 19 June 1977 in Sydney.
ABC Archive notes: 'Canadian expert on electronic media, Marshall McLuhan, arrives in Australia to address a seminar on Australian radio. He advocates shortening of TV transmission time and better balance between TV, radio and press. McLuhan speaks about the effect of TV on children.'
From other sources we know that he was brought to Australia by Sydney radio station 2SM.
Sadly no record of the interviewer has been kept, though we think she has a New Zealand accent."
(ABC Radio National, Australia)
Fig.1 This rare archival footage of McLuhan speaking to an ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] journalist on his visit to Australia was recorded on 19 June 1977 in Sydney.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Marshall McLuhan debates his ideas on Australian TV in 1977
"In June 1977 Marshall McLuhan visited Australia and was a guest on Monday Conference, a popular live ABC television show hosted by Robert Moore. McLuhan debated his ideas with Moore and took questions from a feisty studio audience made up of members of the media and advertising industry, including TV boss Bruce Gyngell (see Part One at 14 mins), and young, funky Derryn Hinch (see Part Two from 3 mins).
McLuhan had been brought to Australia to address a broadcasting conference organised by Sydney radio station 2SM, and the Monday Conference was broadcast from the ballroom of the Sydney Hilton Hotel.
Many in the audience clearly admired McLuhan who has well into his prime and at ease with the live television situation. The discussion covered an eclectic range of topics, from television, privacy and Richard Nixon to holograms, transcendental meditation, Jane Austen, Euclidean geometry, denim jeans and nude streaking.
Towards the end of the program the always unpredictable McLuhan can be heard just off-mic, saying to Moore, 'I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to have to sneak off and have a pee!'."
(ABC Radio National, Australia)
Fig.1,2&3 Marshall Mcluhan, lecture recorded by ABC Radio National Network on 27 June 1977 in Australia.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Making up Postcards: expressing real and fictional stories
"To me Postcards and Blogs share something in common. Both contain basically private information but can be read by people who have nothing to do with the writers. There is nothing wrong with reading a postcard that is not addressed to you or checking out a blog that is all about the personal life of an unknown person. A typical way of protecting privacy is using information that will be understood only by the people whom the message is addressed to. Another defensive approach is to be laconic, rather inexpressive. This last strategy is typically seen in postcards.
This blog is intended to play in a sense with these issues of privacy. For this reason my approach is purely literary (another way of protection). Here I mix together real and fictional stories. Some people who 'receive' a postcard from me are real people, others unrelated or almost unknown to me. Of course I, as an architect, 'send' only architectural postcards. Some of them were already postally used and therefore now they are being rewritten by me. In short, I am just making up postcards.
Las Tarjetas Postales de siempre tienen algo en comun con los Blogs de ahora. Su caracter es publico, (cualquiera puede leer su contenido) aunque su intencion sea privada (la correspondencia va dirigida a una persona o grupo concreto). Un blog es publico porque cualquier persona tiene acceso a el, pero su caracter tiene algo de privado porque va dirigido a alquien en particular. Se escribe un blog pensando en un grupo de personas mas o menos numeroso pero concreto. Eso no quita para que haya blogs mas 'universales' con los que algun 'desconocido' pueda identificarse. Pero aun asi, todos los blogs tienen algo de personales, de diarios.
Mi blog versa sobre arquitectura moderna, que es algo que me interesa mucho. Esta es revisada a traves de tarjetas postales de arquitectura que son reales (las cuales yo poseo y colecciono). Las tarjetas estan dirigidas a personas concretas que conozco, conoci en el pasado o quise conocer. Algunas tarjetas son recientes, otras muy antiguas y las demas ni lo uno ni lo otro. Algunas estan escritas y enviadas, otras por escribir. Lo que yo hago aqui es escribirlas o a veces reescribirlas. En todo caso reinventarlas. Son pues Postales Inventadas."
(Rafael Cazorla)
Fig.1 7 March 2011: Hotel Savoy-Bandung- Indonesia
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
A simple abstract model of human communication
"One of the first designs of the information theory is the model of communication by Shannon and Weaver. Claude Shannon, an engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, worked with Warren Weaver on the classic book ‘The mathematical theory of communication’. In this work Shannon and Weaver sought to identify the quickest and most efficient way to get a message from one point to another. Their goal was to discover how communication messages could be converted into electronic signals most efficiently, and how those signals could be transmitted with a minimum of error. In studying this, Shannon and Weaver developed a mechanical and mathematical model of communication, known as the 'Shannon and Weaver model of communication'. ...
Shannon and Weaver broadly defined communication as 'all of the procedures by which one mind may affect another'. Their communication model consisted of an information source: the source’s message, a transmitter, a signal, and a receiver: the receiver’s message, and a destination. Eventually, the standard communication model featured the source or encoder, who encodes a message by translating an idea into a code in terms of bits. A code is a language or other set of symbols or signs that can be used to transmit a thought through one or more channels to elicit a response in a receiver or decoder. Shannon and Weaver also included the factor noise into the model. The study conducted by Shannon and Weaver was motivated by the desire to increase the efficiency and accuracy or fidelity of transmission and reception. Efficiency refers to the bits of information per second that can be sent and received. Accuracy is the extent to which signals of information can be understood. In this sense, accuracy refers more to clear reception than to the meaning of message. This engineering model asks quite different questions than do other approaches to human communication research."
(Communication Studies, University of Twente)
Shannon, C.E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Hawes, L.C. (1975). Pragmatics of analoguing: Theory and model construction in communication. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Fig.1 Mathematical (information) model of communication.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
