Media Audiences, Two Perspectives

Queensland University of Technology creative industries ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET Student Name: __JON-ERIC MELSAETER Number:_N_4243579_

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Unit Coordinator’s Name: _Jason Sternberg_______________________ Tutor’sName:____Josh Green_______ Unit Code: __KCB 349_

Unit Title: _MEDIA AUDIENCES

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Jon-Eric Melsaeter N 4243579 Tutor Josh Green – fri 3-5 ESSAY 1: PART A The idea that audiences use media in very specific ways influenced by certain variables, like age, gender or socio-economic status is fairly new, and certainly still in the progress of heavy debate. Using dependency theory as base, this essay will compare and contrast two such influences; gender and socio-economic status and the impact these variables have on media use. As effects-theory has been divided between theorists, dependency theory can be useful in this setting because it attempts to investigate the relationship between different systems and how they affect audiences in how they use media. Dependency theory was first proposed by Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur, and takes a step towards trying to explain media effects from both a limited-effects and a

powerful-effects point of view. According to Ball-Rokeach & DeFleur, dependency develops when ‘certain kind of media content are used to gratify specific needs or when certain media forms are consumed habitually as a ritual, to fill time, or as an escape or distraction (Littlejohn 1996, p. 348)’. Needs, they say, are not necessarily personal, but may be shaped by ‘culture or by various social conditions (ibid, p. 350)’. That means that outside aspects act as limitations on what and how media can be used and on the availability of alternatives for non-media. Gender is a good example of this. Since gender is a social construction, it is constantly in the process of being redefined. Gillespie and Barker in their own respective research discovered that children and teens from immigrant backgrounds in Britain used TV to construct an identity as British-Asian. A direct example of this manifestation in the mainstream could be the teen film ‘Bend It Like Beckham.’ An important point to conclude from this is that children draw on their social experiences when constructing meaning from media, but not necessarily reality - rather verisimilitude, the hybrid understanding of how reality is experienced. Many other theorists have been onto the same thing, using other concepts; Roland Barthes’ concept of ‘intertextuality,’ which John Fiske built upon in his studies, claims that we make sense of reality by constantly referring to other texts (Fiske 1987) and that the degree of intertextuality is what enforces social beliefs in the culture or context we choose to live in.

The social context of the family home usually directs the media use of children. The classical stereotype is the Father hogging the remote while Mother finds other activities for the children than watching TV. While men like sitting down and watching a program the whole way through, women’s watching is filled with guilt, therefore being sporadic and fragmented. From another point of view, this can be seen as an example of a socially constructed myth about gender. Catharine Lumby disputes what she sees as circular logic in gender and technology: ‘My point is that social myths can support amazing contradictions quite effortlessly and that gender and technology is an area suffused with mythology (Lumby 1997 p. 141)’. If that is so, how do we go about studying how gender

influences media use? As implicated above, looking at the socio-economic context might be helpful. Socio-economic factors, personality traits and communication behaviour influence awareness of technology and subsequently the way in which media is used. But it is part of a greater picture, and that’s where a systems-perspective like dependency theory can be very helpful. One central notion is that ‘people depend on media information to meet needs and attain goals…(Littlejohn 1996, p. 348)’. What’s relevant to this discussion, is Littlejohn’s point that ‘the more alternatives an individual has for gratifying needs, the less dependent he\she will become on any single medium (ibid, 1996 p. 350)’. Consequently, The lower the socio-economic status, the more dependent an individual is on one segment or medium, and the more they will be affected cognitively, affectively and behaviourally by that segment.

Even McQuail, a noted researcher of uses-and-gratifications theory (of the limited effects tradition) recognises that a lot of research indicates that people misjudge the causes of their own behaviour, and suggests that ‘although individuals do use media for guidance, surveillance and information, they also have a generalised arousal need that comes from and is informed by the culture (McQuail in Littlejohn 1996, p. 353)’. Therefore, dependency theory can be very useful when studying the relationships between variables in media use. What dependency theory doesn’t do on the other hand, is explain wether media is powerful in influencing any of the other segments other than individuals, such as culture or communities. This is where the discussion on gender is important. Tom O’Regan and Stephen Cox argue in Mobilising The Audience: Towards An Ecology of Cultural Attendance (Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 156) that ‘a consistent finding in ethnographically oriented studies of the television audience is the importance of gender to understanding processes of audienceship.’ They also site Ann Gray when recognising that feminism has been instrumental in getting gender on the audience agenda. Lumby argues that with the arrival of new technology, it allows women to access new information without restrictions like gender and consequently outside factors lose their impact: ‘On the net, women (and men) can choose to conceal their gender and play at being the opposite sex. And there’s widespread anecdotal evidence that many do (Lumby 1997, p. 144)’. In this way individuals confront constructions of gender and translate new

meanings. New technology isn’t only redefining the way women see themselves, but also helps challenge socio-economic structures. Availability of computers enables people with limited alternatives the opportunity to access mind-boggling amounts of information, and with that, the very foundations of dependency theory among others are on shaky ground. The difficulty of discussing how media use is dependent on certain variables is easier said than done when these structures are changing on a dynamic scale. At least there exists for the moment a model that incorporates and recognizes that change occurs all the time. To summarise, this essay has explored how gender and socio-economic status is related to media use seen from a combined limited- powerful-effects point of view. People will always depend on information, but the ways in which individuals go about attaining and negotiating this information is constantly challenged, so is the degree of dependence on a specific medium. Lumby argues that an analysis is required, ‘of how new media reorganises existing avenues of communication and ultimately our social relations and notions of self (Lumby 1997, p. 143)’. The challenge that exists is how well literacy within different media segments will evolve, and the unavoidable clash between the effects tradition and critical theories towards a nuanced analysis of the type Lumby was advocating. Bibliography ESSAY A: O’Regan, T. and Cox, S. (2002), “Towards An Ecology of Cultural Attendance,” In Balnaves, M. O’Regan, T. & Sternberg, J. (2002), Mobilising the Audience, pp. 131 - 167 Fiske, J. (1987), “Intertextuality” in Fiske, J, Television culture, Methuen, pp.108127 Littlejohn, Stephen W. (1996), Theories of Human Communication (5th Edn), Wadsworth Lumby, Catharine (1997), Bad Girls: The Media, Sex & Feminism in the 90s, Allen & Unwin

ESSAY B: 1:

The strangest thing about audiences is that they don’t exist. Even stranger is that until fairly recently, with the development of audience research, there has always been the assumption that it is there; the mass, the public. Of course there are people who use media, people that watch TV, read newspapers, but an audience isn’t something that just exists, it has to be created. Then maintained and managed. This salient shift in thinking is eloquently expressed by John Hartley, as he says that audiences are created and maintained institutionally in order to ‘take charge of the mechanisms of their own survival.’ This essay will look at how the view of audiences has changed, and then illustrate this by analysing how power discourses are upheld by creating audiences using the governance cycle approach. An obvious reason why the view of audiences has changed is because media technology is advancing and media use is becoming more and more fragmented.

It was perhaps a very arrogant view, but the assumption was earlier on that the audience was just there, ready to consume. This view is very clear if one looks at how audience research has developed. Magic bullet theory for example, has never been seriously held by theorists, the exceptions are the Frankfurter school of sociologists, who used it to back up their theories of how the mass media is related to dominant ideology. In this context, it is useful in illustrating how power discourses has developed from a focus on the message to the audience. Katz and Lazarsfeld in Personal influence (1964) introduced the influence of group membership and the concept of the two-step flow. Combined with Carl Hovland, who identified a variety of psychological factors, they principally killed off the myth of the bullet, and focused on what the audience does with the media: Katz explained in McQuail that ‘The 'uses' approach assumes that people's…interests… are pre-potent and that people selectively 'fashion' what they see and hear to these interests (McQuail 1969).’ What uses-and-gratifications theory does is very directly shift the power-balance from message to spectator. This means audience members do definitely make conscious and motivated choices when negotiating different media. However, later research has shown that people’s choices about media use are more complex than what was originally thought, and has included a systems-theory approach. Dependency theory

builds on a lot from uses-and-gratifications, but includes that people are influenced in their media use by other elements and outside factors, such as culture and socio-economic factors. The new economy is fragmented, and because of this, how actively the audience engages in a medium is more important, and consequently, how one targets such a market, is very important. This means that audiences are created; they are defined according to the economic and political/ideological goals of those who are defining. Balnaves and O’Regan recognise this when they argue that ‘knowledge about media audiences is integrally tied up with the strategies and plans of action of industry players, campaigners, professional bodies and interest groups who take up and apply this knowledge to prosecute their own agendas (Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 10).’ What they propose, is a governance cycle that enables theorists to analyse institutions, but also to include a socially productive and ethical character:

According to Balnaves’ and O’Regan’s model, institutions are managers and provide or regulate services. They become audience-minded when they define their audiences in the form of media typologies. They then switch to research-modality in order to find out how to reach their audiences in the most effective way. The institutions become campaignminded when they execute their tactics in order to reach the audience. They then evaluate the campaign, and the audience recognises itself as a citizen, a governed and selfgoverning subject. The governance-cycle bears striking resemblance to the models that are utilised in marketing, but especially in PR. Returning to discourses of power, Balnaves and O’Regan recognise that power lies in numbers, siting Hannah Arendt: ‘Power is never the property of an individual, it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. (Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 27).’

The more readers a newspaper has, the more powerful it is perceived to be. Kerry Green’s text Mobilising Readers: Newspapers, Copy-tasters and Readerships (in Balnaves et al. 2002) is a good example to illustrate and apply the governance cycle. It concerns how newspapers must deal with declining readership, and since Green is an academic and in certain ways must provide a service; writing papers and conducting research in order to survive, he is a representative for an institution when he argues that the decline in readerships ‘when coupled with stagnant levels of television viewing, threatens the survival of news as an institution around the world (Green in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 213).’ Green becomes audience minded when he goes into how journalists see themselves in relation to newspaper readers, saying the research on readers calls for ‘nothing less than a thoroughgoing application of readership research to both journalism practice and its organisational culture (Green in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 214).’ Then follows a detailed account of research into ‘audience engagement with news institutions (Green in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 215-225).’ When Green has decided to influence his audience; journalists and the organisational culture, he becomes campaign minded, his text becomes the campaign. He then evaluates how Australian news people work, stressing how they must use his research to change: ‘the need for change goes beyond a mere rapport between market researchers and copy-tasters. Both structural and newsroom leadership style changes are required (Green in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 233).’ When the text is used to train the audience, it becomes a citizen – given the opportunity to govern itself, but also being governed.

The way the view on audience has changed is evident in everything from research to how institutions create, maintain and govern audiences in order to accumulate power. Sue Turnbull in her text Figuring the Audience (Cunningham & Turner, 2000) acknowledges that the concept of audience-ship is truly post-modern. The most important feature of post-modernism is the refusal to believe in a centralization of power and grand narratives. Foucalt explains that knowledge is power, and therefore, those who control the knowledge, have the power. With fragmentation comes a cluster of small institutions that know that power lies in numbers, their very survival depends upon it.

Bibliography: ESSAY B Balnaves, M. and O’Regan, T. (2002), “Governing Audiences,” In Balnaves, M. O’Regan, T. & Sternberg, J. (2002), Mobilising the Audience, pp. 10 – 28 Green, K. (2002), “Mobilising Readers: Newspapers, Copy-tasters and Readerships,” In Balnaves, M. O’Regan, T. & Sternberg, J. (2002), Mobilising the Audience, pp. 213 – 234 Katz, E. and Lazarsfeld, P. (1964), Personal Influence: the part played by people in the flow of mass communications, New York McQuail, D. (1969), Towards a Sociology of Mass Communications, London Turnbull, S. (2000), “Figuring the Audience,” In Cunningham, S. & Turner, G. (Eds), The Australian Television Book, Chapter 12 ESSAY 3: (1) The traditional view of the audience is a one-way communication process. Messages are created, decoded and sent through mass media channels. People then negotiate these messages using different media and they are then influenced or not influenced by messages depending on how dependent they are on a specific medium. The placement of power is usually with the institutions that need audiences to accumulate power. This essay will argue that the increased interactivity between gamers and game creators is challenging existing power structures and how they view audiences. The traditional view of the audience has changed drastically since its conception, starting from the point of view that the audience is out there; it just needs to be reached through a message that can get their attention - to a view that audiences don’t exist at all. Individuals exist, but are defined as a specific typology in order for an institution exploit that segment and to make a profit.

What describes the current view of the audience could be best described as fragmented. Sue Turnbull describes the major problem as ‘how to pin the audience down: just how can an entire range of media practices in which people engage be limited and defined

(Turnbull in Cunningham & Turner, 2000, p. 86)?’ For the industry, audiences are a means of survival; passing the buck. They create audiences which they can sell to advertisers, and in the current media environment this is ever more difficult to do. Media abundance is the very source of audience fragmentation. If that is so, how is it possible to maintain an audience for a product? Corporations have for a long time thought of fans of programmes and other media as pathological side effects, but have now realised that it is with this segment they must establish relationships with. John Banks sites Virginia Nightingale when pointing out the opportunities that lie in fan building: ‘the fan has… become the target of ‘renewed managerial activity to contain the quixotic preoccupations which become pretexts for the development of new and commercially exploitable fan communities (Banks in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 188).’ Looking at series such as ‘X-Files’ and ‘Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,’ this is more than evident, but when conglomerates attempt the same community building on the net, something goes terribly wrong, as Banks argues: ‘The audience – at least as it is understood for traditional media – has escaped the net and resists delivery (Banks in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 189).’ He continues to argue that online communities use totally different ways of constructing ‘practices, expectations, materials, tools and technologies (Banks is Balnaves 2002, p. 189).’ He speculates that the reason for the failure of online community building can be because of the paradigm of one-way communication in order to influence and create audiences. The implicit argument is therefore that one has to develop larger degrees of interactivity with audiences. The question is, are institutions ready for this? One thing seems sure, the development of a more interactive and dialogue-based approach is unavoidable. This is especially evident in the development of games. When looking at how the game Grand Theft Auto 3 was released, one can assume that the game developers were interested in developing a two-way dialogue with the gamers from the start. Firstly, it was released on PS2, then on PC 6 months later. What’s striking about the release for PC is that it’s designed to be tampered with. The official site, GTA3.com, is maintained by a fan of the game, and it features several downloads, like cars, skins and other ways to personalise the game. It also features links to the game developers, Rockstar games, where patches and technical support is available. Other games that

include the same approach, is the Sims, as Bank also has noted: ‘The Sims game provides an excellent case study of the computer game industry enlisting and leveraging the online community fans into a commercially successful network (Banks in Balnaves et al. 2002, p. 198).’

Hard-core gamers increasingly expect that companies will listen to, engage with and support the fans that build around titles. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the computer literacy of many fans\gamers is almost equal to the game designers in many cases. Secondly, games are counter intuitively very social. To sell a commercially successful game nowadays, the game must include multiplayer capability. This cannot be done without including the audience that are going to use the product. Thirdly, the main point of the net is interactivity. This new gamer audience follows the logic of the discourse of power. The larger the audience, the more power, except there’s no institution there to accumulate the power, and so the gamers themselves have realised that they have the capability to influence the existing power structures. This poses an interesting dilemma for corporations: how close to you let the audience come to you? The paradox is that as conglomerates create audiences, they cannot manage them, because the services that they provide have been partially taken over by the audience itself! The gamer audience feels that they own the product as well, and consequently they get to call the shots. The interesting part is that this can lead to two different outcomes. One, corporations must redefine the way the see audiences on a massive scale, or two; corporations will give up trying to venture into this territory. To summarise, for corporations to be successful, there must be a certain balance of power. In order for these organizations to be successful, they have to: one, deliver something of value that can breed relationships with their audiences and two, be able to manage them. The Sims and GTA3 are examples of games that are successful because the game developers let the audience take part a period of time after the game was released. This change from one-way to two-way communication in the organizationcustomer relationship is a great challenge to existing power structures, and will perhaps be too much to handle after a while.

Bibliography: Turnbull, S. (2000), “Figuring the Audience,” In Cunningham, S. & Turner, G. (Eds), The Australian Television Book, Chapter 12 Banks, J. (2002), “Gamers as Co-Creators: enlisting the virtual audience – a report from the net face,” In Balnaves, M. O’Regan, T. & Sternberg, J. (2002), Mobilising the Audience, pp. 213 – 234

KCB349: Media Audiences Take-home exam marking criteria Nonexistent Attempt is made to answer question, rather simply present material associated with topic. Ability to integrate lecture and tutorial materials. Ability to integrate required and recommended readings. Well-structured argument. Ability to summarise and synthesise key points in a clear, coherent fashion. Demonstrated knowledge of key theoretical issues associated with the question. Use of examples to illustrate key points of argument. Clarity of expression, grammar and presentation of report.

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