Interpreting the Media (AQA A-Level Sociology): Revision Notes
Interpreting the Media
How people understand and make sense of media content varies significantly. Rather than being passive consumers, audiences play an active role in deciding what media messages they engage with and how they interpret them.
Active audience theories
Uses and gratifications theory
Uses and gratifications theory shifts focus from asking 'what does media do to people?' to 'what do people do with media?'. This approach emphasises that audiences actively choose their media consumption based on personal needs and preferences.
Blumer and Katz (1974) developed this theory, arguing that people use media to meet their own requirements. The theory suggests that audiences employ media as tools - such as free will and remote control - meaning everyone creates their own unique media diet.
The concept of a "media diet" suggests that just like our food choices, our media consumption is personalised and reflects our individual needs, preferences, and circumstances.
McQuail (1972) demonstrated this theory through research on the soap opera Coronation Street. His study revealed that audiences used the programme to satisfy their need for social companionship. Viewers became emotionally invested in characters' lives and felt genuine concern about fictional storylines.
Lull (1990) conducted research in the UK examining social uses of television. His findings showed that men, women, young people and older people all used media differently to meet distinct personal needs.
The theory takes a functionalist perspective, suggesting that media exists primarily to serve public needs rather than manipulate audiences.
Selective philtre model
This theory emphasises audience control over media consumption. According to this model, people choose which media to experience and decide which parts of media messages to pay attention to and engage with. Audiences select parts of messages that align with their existing worldview while ignoring conflicting information.
Fiske (1988) argued that individuals become experienced readers of media who can understand one media text in multiple different ways across various levels. These interpretations often relate to other media texts on similar subjects.
Klapper (1960) identified three key processes through which audiences philtre media content:
- Selective exposure — people only consume media they want and can access
- Selective perception — people ignore messages they don't wish to hear
- Selective retention — people remember only information they agree with
Klapper argued these philtres make it easier for media to reinforce existing beliefs rather than change people's minds. This suggests that media often confirms what we already think rather than challenging our perspectives.
This model emphasises individual power to control media experiences, taking a somewhat postmodern approach by suggesting people use media in sophisticated ways. However, critics argue it overestimates individual control when faced with powerful media messages.
Structured interpretation model
This theory proposes that there is a dominant interpretation of media messages that most audiences follow. Unlike previous theories focusing on individual choice, this approach places media interpretation within a social context.
The social context creates a preferred reading of media content. For instance, films are written, presented and promoted with a specific preferred reading in mind. Makers of media want audiences to find storylines intriguing and convincing rather than alienating and boring.
Different social groups develop different dominant interpretations of identical content. This theory challenges earlier approaches that viewed audiences as a uniform mass responding identically.
Research Example: Morley's Nationwide Study
Morley (1980) studied television audience responses to the news programme Nationwide. He showed the same programme to various social groups and discovered that while responses varied significantly between groups, within each group most individuals responded similarly.
Key Finding: Trade unionists interpreted the programme as biassed towards management, while management trainees viewed it as pro-union - demonstrating how social context shapes interpretation.
Postmodern theory
Multiple meanings
Postmodernists argue there are countless meanings within any social or cultural aspect of life. They contend there is no single, objective truth or reality that everyone experiences identically.
The postmodern audience selects and chooses between various images, messages, ideas and meanings rather than accepting one predetermined interpretation.
Media replacing reality
Postmodern theorists suggest that media and technology development has created everyday life full of competing images and messages that conflict with each other. Media presents numerous different images and stories woven throughout daily life, blurring boundaries between reality and media until media becomes reality.
Reality TV and public obsession with soap stars exemplify this phenomenon. Real people get treated by media as unreal situation is presented as real, and audiences follow this interpretation as if characters are real.
News media provides another example. When events appear on news, they seem to prove their reality and truth. However, news images can be taken out of context, and news content is influenced by various factors including commercial pressures.
Simulacra theory
Jean Baudrillard (1981, 1994) suggested everything has been replaced by simulacra - copies that look real but aren't, existing without connection to any original. Postmodernist theorists argue these simulacra replace reality.
Baudrillard claimed obviously constructed images were used to convince people they could distinguish reality from simulacra when actually they couldn't. This creates a fundamental problem in how we understand what is real.
Baudrillard (1995) argued that the 1991 Gulf War existed more as television images than actual fighting. The Gulf War became a media spectacle where video game-type simulation became reality.
Media can distort information intentionally to make it appear correct to viewers, actually making content less true in order to appear more true.
Criticisms of postmodernism
Critics argue Baudrillard's writing is deliberately obscure and dismisses real suffering and inequality.
Postmodernism has been criticised for being too theoretical and hard to find evidence that would prove or disprove it. This makes it difficult to test or validate postmodern claims about media and reality.
Critics question how one can argue that no idea has straightforward meaning and individuals create their own reality when there's no single definition of 'real' or 'true', and reality has been replaced with something resembling it.
Key Points to Remember:
- Active audience theories emphasise that people actively choose and interpret media content rather than passively consuming it
- Uses and gratifications theory focuses on what people do with media to meet their personal needs and purposes
- Selective philtre model explains how audiences choose, perceive and retain media messages that align with existing beliefs
- Structured interpretation model shows how social context influences media interpretation, with different groups having different dominant readings
- Postmodern theory suggests media creates multiple meanings and may replace reality through simulacra, though this approach faces criticism for being too theoretical