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Critical Analysis S2010 S07

A reconceptualization of sorts

I've been teaching audience criticism for a while
The approach I've been taking is taken from texts I've read
Oddly, I don't see the distinctions I'm drawing in general use
That said, my concern is different ways of looking at how audiences interact with content
I see three general approaches:
1. Interrogation of the audience
  - What I've been calling reader-oriented criticism
  - And which can probably be left to its existing vocabulary
2. Observation of the audience
  - What I've been calling reader-response theory
  - What is probably better thought of as audience ethnography
3. Demographic analysis of the audience
  - What I've been thinking of as reception theory

Reader-Response theory

Asks the question: How does viewing fit into our daily lives?
Oriented to methods that borrow from ethnography
- Observation of people using media
- Not always the pure participant-observer interaction of observing and interacting with people in the real world
- But with the same objective of learning via observation
- And describing it in detail (thick description)
Examples of such methods
- Putting a camera inside a television set to observe viewer behavior
- Sitting in an audience watching a football game at a bar
- Asking children to write stories that extend a show
- Participating in a discussion list oriented around a show
  - Baym's "Tune In, Log on"
- Being a participant observer within the medium

Reception theory

Answers much different questions
- Who is the intended consumer?
- How has the narrative been constructed for that audience?
  - How does it address them?
  - How does it recruit them?
- What assumptions does the teller make about the audience?
  - Reception theory is, at its fundamentals, focused on the demographics of audiences

View excerpt from "The Incredible Hulk" pilot episode

How does this excerpt address and recruit a demographic

Key issues
- Generalized types of consumer
  - Can be viewed in many ways
    - Fictive: an imagined prototype user
    - Model: the perfect target (e.g. women 16-35)
    - Intended: the target you build a message for
    - Implied: the target your message suggests it is for
  - Examples in the real world:
    - Soccer Mom's
    - NASCAR Voters
    - Yuppies
- Modes of address
  - Cinematic: hiding the workings of the medium
  - Rhetorical: engaging the viewer
    - Fictional engagement in which the camera is addressed as the audience
    - Sympathetic engagement in which an actor stands in as a representative audience member
    - Direct engagement via call-in, direct audience interaction, and similar techniques
    - The use of interactive technology and live viewer statistics
The biggest use of this method is recruiting viewers for advertisers.
But there are other interesting applications
- Reeves and Nash find that people often treat media as if they were people
  - interacting with their television as if it can hear them
  - assuming that a computer has intent
- One outcome of this observation is the creation of media that appear to have a personality
  - the Window's "paper clip"
  - animated characters on cell phones
  - animated characters on the help section of web sites

Uses and Gratifications (UsesAndGratifications)
- A theoretical perspective that explores why people select a particular medium for a particular purpose
  - Almost always focused on audience selections
- Built around some key assumptions
  1. To be influential a channel and/or its messages must be perceived as useful.
  2. Audience members are aware of and command media selections
  3. Individuals are goal directed
  4. Individuals are capable of explaining their choices
  5. Media compete for selection (and face to face is seen as something different and more powerful)
- Organized around a somewhat serial chain from psyche to action
  - needs -> motivations -> goals -> plans -> selection -> exposure -> gratification
    - Needs
      - Think Maslow: human needs
      - Then think pragmatically: what do I need to accomplish
      - Primarily an in the head phenomenon
      - Impacted by a variety of psychological variables
        contextual age
        self-esteem, shyness, and social support
        loneliness
        attitudes
        locus
      - But also affected by others
        Persuasion
        Contagion
    - Motivations
      - Reasons for action
      - Pressures to act on our needs
        learn
        habits
        arousal
        companionship
        relaxation
        forgetting
        passing time
    - Goals: Intended purpose
      - We often have multiple goals when we select a medium
      - Some may be more important (Primary goals) than others (Secondary goals)
      - Companionship
      - Convenience
      - Entertainment
      - Accomplishment
    - Plans: Our solution to accomplishing a purpose given multiple goals
      - Selection and Exposure to media
      - Exposure
    - Gratification (media selection)

-- Last edited March 24, 2010

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Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this page were written by participants on the Media Space Wiki, operated by Davis Foulger, and should be cited accordingly. For example (APA):
Foulger, D. and other participants. (March 24, 2010). Critical Analysis S2010 S07. MediaSpaceWiki. Retrieved on from http://evolutionarymedia.com/wiki.htm?CriticalAnalysisS2010S07.