Television Studies was written by Jonathan Gray and Amanda D. Lotz and published by Polity Press in 2012.
It consists of four chapters, each one introducing an aspect of TV studies.
Chapter 2 introduces the concept of audience studies and audience research, important academics studying in this field, and the most vital findings they have uncovered about audiences since the 1970s.
Audiences are essential to TV shows because, without an audience, the show can not mean anything to anyone.
Research on audiences has so far been conducted in two main ways: examining the "uses and gratifications" audiences have for shows they watch, and the older pattern of the "hypodermic needle", which used to occur when viewers would be expected to take out of the program only the message the producers had intended for them.
1970s
Most audience research came out of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), located in Birmingham.One model that originated here was Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding model which defined that "encoding" was the messages the program creators put into their shows, whilst "decoding" was down to the viewer, and how they read the program text. What producers encoded, did not limit what the audiences decoded.
Using this model, audiences would read the program from one of three viewpoints, which Hall categorised as being:
"Dominant-hegemonic"= decoding exactly what was encoded.
"Oppositional"= decoding a different interpretation that was not encoded.
"Negotiated" = decoding something between what was encoded and what was interpreted.
However, there were issues about studying viewers in a laboratory or experimental environment, as studying families at home meant that researchers could also study how TV affected family relationships, rather than just studying the shows they watched, as well as pick up on how the viewers themselves talked about the shows they viewed in an everyday manner.
1980s
Audiences that had been looked down upon, such as women and children, became much of the focus of audience studies as feminist media scholars began research.The fact that children were treated by TV as if they could not interpret other messages than the one encoded was also studied by David Buckingham. He found that both children and teens could decode various different messages from shows intelligently, therefore research started to be used to investigate how society functioned.
This led to John Fiske, who defined "mass culture" as what came from the program creators, and "popular culture" as created by the audience and how they use these programs. From this, Fiske was able to derive the "active audience theory" in that audiences actively use the mass culture given to them, to create popular culture in society.
Fandom was a new point of research, one which Henry Jenkins covered in his book "Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture'. Here he defined fans and consumers as "selective users of a vast media culture" (Jenkins, 2013, p.27), meaning they could take any culture and interpret it in their own way, effectively as "poachers". Women were probably most likely to have been the ones having to poach on texts, but also they could use fan fiction to add issues important to them into what is a male centred text on TV. This has somewhat meant fans can be both co-producers and co-authors to a text as well as an audience member, or can be part of the audience for both.
Because of fan fiction and fan art, programs can take on entirely new meanings within the fan community that were not intended by the program creators.
1990s
Active audience theory began to face criticism at the University of Illinois cultural studies conference, as many pointed out issues with how studies to derive the theory had been conducted. For example, many thought it was an issue that it seemed the middle class had been studied rather than the intended lower class, as well as the power of the media being limited by the study as it did not account for the program creator's own politics and ideologies, only the audience's interpreted meanings. Also, it was found that only some audience members decoded a different message than that which was encoded, even if they were 'poaching' as the audience didn't really have any effect on the programs they watched. However, these were accounted for by the fact Fiske did not run much thorough audience research whilst deriving his active audience theory.This led to the production process being seen as more important than how the audience interacted with the program. Although, it has been argued that the production process required to make the program can not take place if there will not eventually be an audience willing to watch it.
Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding model was also criticised for depending on the audience analysing how they interpret programs, even though this was a strategy to be able to reach audiences usually ignored, such as women, children, and minority groups.
But, there was still the issue that audiences were being cordoned off when researched, as they were only studied as using one medium and/or watching one genre. However, this was because it would require a large study which would take years to complete even by a group of researchers.
Aiming to document "TV Talk", and how it allows people to test different identities, Marie Gillespie relocated to live within a large Punjabi population in London. She also aimed to study how shows were interpreted by the audience there over time, giving them various meanings. Her findings showed that audience research could expand to uncover links between programs and how these programs fit into viewer's everyday lives, therefore affecting how they see the world.
The work of S. Elizabeth Bird built on this in her book 'The Audience in Everyday Life'. She used focus groups who each put together a TV show premise with a character that had to be a Native American. From this she could see the stereotypes, even when groups tried to invent new ones, that the media had created and how these had become fixed views in the members of the groups' lives. Unlike Gillespie's study though, this one was helped by the growing internet, as Bird had access to fan forums, and multiple discussions online where it was found members of fan communities did not only discuss their favourite show among themselves, but also their personal lives.Although the internet had its limitations of only allowing access to content that had been posted online, as well as people who actually used these fan forums. There were also issues with ethics such as the fans not being aware they were being studied, and these forums causing many people to hide behind fake identities because of this worry.
"User generated content" is being created by many fans on the internet nowadays, as viewers are required to participate in the culture of the TV show. This new content created by fans can allow them to have an effect on the show, however, it could be argued that they should be paid for the work they create if it affects the show, as well as that this type of content can still prohibit some fans from having any effect.
But, therefore a relationship has been established between program creator and audience as they begin to work together or even swap roles in this age of the "produser", causing audience and production studies to begin to also overlap. Because of this, studies now need to figure out how audiences are able to co-produce existing shows, how this new age is either accepted or struggled against, and how it affects TV and the audience's interpretation of it.
A vast amount of media, such as streaming, and multiple TV channels has meant creators of programmes are unable to mock viewers if they want their show to successfully reach a wide audience. However, the what viewers count in the measured TV audience is up for debate due to all the devices and services viewers can now use to watch TV, both live and on demand.
Since most audience research has only studied western shows and their audiences, another new point of study could be worldwide audiences. Audiences move just like shows, or their formats do, so these diasporic audiences usually only have the option to watch what is aimed at the audience who live in that country. However, even this audience is restricted when it comes to what is on TV as many programs are usually shipped over from Hollywood networks (such as NBC/Universal and Disney/ABC), who also own large bases in other countries. This means they beat out the competition of local producers as they make profits in many countries, so can sell a TV show for a much lower cost than the local producers. Although this has caused fears of cultural imperialism, audiences have been found to be more unaccepting of American culture than previously thought.
Following on from Gillespie's study, it has been shown that migrants are able to construct a "third space" between their country of origin and their new country, helping them gain a sense of identity, helped by media. However, this can also be done by non-migrants who can discover another country, which according to John Hartley, helps TV fulfil the purpose of "cross-demographic communication".
As anti-fandom is as present as fandom, and TV audiences have their own politics, much like program creators, it could be said that the next phase of audience studies could use research into fandom and anti-fandom to show how they could cause a viewer to have certain politics.
References:
Gray, J., Lotz, A.D. (2012) Television Studies. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 57-88.
Jenkins, H. (2013) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory
Culture. (Updated 20th anniversary. ed.) New York: Routledge.
Bird, S.E. (2003) The Audience in Everyday Life. New York: Routledge.
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