Understanding Audiences

Theory and Method

Andy Ruddock

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2000
• ISBN:
  9781446239490
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The history of audience research tells us that the relationship between the media and viewers, readers and listeners is complex and requires multiple methods of analysis. In Understanding Audiences, Andy Ruddock introduces students to the range of quantitative and qualitative methods and invites his readers to consider the merits of both.

Understanding Audiences: demonstrates how - practically - to investigate media power; places audience research - from early mass communication models to cultural studies approaches - in their historical and epistemological context; explores the relationship between theory and method; concludes with a consideration of the long-running debate on media effects; includes exercises which invite readers to engage with the practical difficulties of conducting social research.

1 Questions of Theory and Method

Before discussing how to do study audiences, we need to establish criteria for judging the strengths and weaknesses of research. This framework will be developed through a discussion of conflicts that have arisen over the nature, goals and methods of social science. ‘Normal’ views of the scientist – the dispassionate viewer of the world, dependent on the accuracy of tried-and-tested observational methods – do not square with reality. Whatever the common-sense allure of value-free science, this chapter will describe the reasons why all social research is inevitably influenced by the academic, political and cultural context in which it is conducted. This does not mean that such research is futile, but it does mean that social research must be read with one eye on questions of ‘who, where, when and why’ before we get to the ‘how’.

Cultural studies is often criticized for being overly theoretical. This criticism usually comes from academics in the applied natural and social sciences, and not infrequently from students who would prefer to be learning something useful, i.e. something that will get them a job. An exploration of controversies within the social sciences, however, reveals that theoretical issues are far from esoteric. Whether we acknowledge it or not, all social research begins from theory, from the set of assumptions that researchers use about the world in which they live and the nature of the work that they do. Theory and method are entwined, and the informed researcher must develop a way of accounting for this symbiosis.

The research context: what do we want to know?

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What do media researchers want to say about the impact of the mass media on audiences? Anyone who embarks on an audience research project would like to think that he or she will generate insights that will tell us something about the way in which the media impact upon our lives. What criteria would such a project need to fulfil to make this claim? From a standard social science point of view, three terms come to mind. Two of these refer to the strength of the observational methods used. Reliability is the degree to which we can say that, if the same observational methods were applied to the same research site again, they would yield the same results. To choose a simple example, we could return to ways of measuring the attendance at a sporting event. Attendance is measured by simply counting heads, and we can be sure that anyone familiar with basic numeracy would measure the crowd in much the same way. Validity concerns the degree to which we can say that the thing we are measuring actually represents the concept we wish to discuss. Returning to our sporting crowd, suppose we wish to measure how liked and respected team A is: would counting the number of people who go to see the team play provide a valid measure? Quite possibly, the answer is no. Our crowd will inevitably include supporters of team B, who may neither like nor respect team A. Moreover, team A may be so detested by opposing fans that they show up in their droves in the hope of seeing team A falter. If this is the case, then counting the crowd, although it is undoubtedly a reliable form of measurement, is not valid since what you are observing are the numbers of people who both love and loathe team A (for discussions of reliability and validity, see Babbie, 1992).

Finally, generalizability is often regarded as a benchmark of solid research. In classic terms, generalizability refers to the degree to which we can transpose the observations made in a specific research setting on to a wider social context (Babbie, 1992). Not all projects set out to generate generalizable findings, especially within cultural studies. Having said this, much audience research does claim to inform us about general processes of mass communication through the observation of an audience sample. Whatever one’s predisposition on the possibilities of objective social science, it follows that one should consider how various projects and approaches are positioned vis-à-vis this concept.

Taken together, these criteria, although they do not apply as stated in the terms above to all forms of audience research, provide useful ways for thinking about the ‘truth’ claims made by various theoretical and methodological branches of the social sciences. More specifically, they allow us to consider the cases for and against ‘normal science’. These are fundamental questions in considering what it is that we want to – or can – know by studying audiences.

Why should we care about audiences?

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Audience research is a complex process fraught with contradiction. So perhaps it is best to begin with a statement of what we can confidently proclaim about the mass media’s impact. Anthropologist Conrad Kottak (1990) claims that, with reference to television, the medium has so permeated Western society that we can no longer meaningfully speak of non-viewers. Viewing estimates from many countries support his conclusions. In the UK, the British Audience Research Bureau estimates that the average viewer watches a staggering 29 hours of television per week. But, if anything, even as startling a figure as this underestimates the degree of our media exposure. Add in time spent listening to the radio, tapes and CDs, reading books, newspapers and magazines, glancing at billboards on our way to work and surfing the Internet, and it soon appears that we are all media audiences almost all of the time. These simple observations demonstrate that a concern with the media’s social impact is no more than common sense. How can any student of society and culture afford to ignore such a time-devouring element of contemporary social life?

But what about the nature of the media’s impact? Several examples of media influence spring readily to mind for anyone who pays even a fleeting attention to the news. We know, for example, that television has transformed a number of important social institutions. The murder trials of former American football star O. J. Simpson and British nanny Louise Woodward have raised questions about whether the trial by jury system, a system whose integrity relies upon the ability to sequester a jury from external influences, can survive media-saturated societies. Many claim that the quality of political campaigning is suffering a similar demise. In the 1992 US presidential election, the comedian Dennis Miller claimed that Ross Perot’s campaign had suffered from his vice presidential candidate John Stockdale’s poor performance in a televised debate. Unused to such a forum, and unable to hear properly (due to an ear-drum that had been perforated during a period as a prisoner of war), the otherwise erudite former naval admiral and then college professor came across as muddled and dull-witted. His true crime? Being bad on television.

Then, of course, we have long-standing concerns over the mass media’s power to erode moral fibre, producing anti-social and even psychopathic behaviour. In the 1950s, comic books were blamed for juvenile delinquency (Wertham, 1955). More recently, the film Natural Born Killers has been connected with 14 murders worldwide, including a particularly gruesome killing frenzy performed by two Parisian students. The music industry has also been accused of provoking murder. The heavy metal group Judas Priest were sued by a teenager who had shot a friend and blown a substantial part of his own face off in a bungled suicide attempt. The shootings followed a day spent taking drugs and listening to a Priest song which, the plaintiff felt, encouraged his actions. The mass media are also blamed for provoking a host of other anti-social behaviours, such as assault, smoking, drinking, drug-taking and sexual promiscuity.

Still others point to a number of less observable, but equally important effects. British media researchers from the Birmingham School of sociology and the Glasgow Media Group (Eldridge, 1993) have devoted a great deal of time to outlining how the media can influence the shape of social policy by dictating the terms in which political issues are debated. The group claimed that negative press coverage played a key role in undermining the power of trade unions. They also argued that a jingoistic news industry accelerated Britain’s entry into the Falklands War. The Gulf War of 1991 also provoked a number of concerns about the media’s ability to mould public opinion (Mowlana et al., 1992).

We can say for sure, then, that there are many reasons why we need to examine and understand the relationship between media and audiences. But it is also at this point that we encounter a fundamental problem. You might have noticed a distinct difference between the reasons provided for a concern about audiences in the first paragraph of this section, and the subsequent justifications offered. If we want to justify audience research on the grounds of sheer media saturation, no reasonable person could raise an objection. Media saturation is an empirical fact. When considering the nature of the concerns that emerge from this fact, however, we move on to shakier ground. Whereas we can simply describe the amount of media exposure we receive, assessing the effects of this saturation requires acts of interpretation and evaluation. This implies several problems relating to validity and reliability. In some of the examples stated above, we can already see a number of potential controversies about the nature of media power. We can also see how media criticism is necessarily provoked by the political position of the researcher. Some people are more concerned than others, for example, about the apparent erosion of conservative sexual mores. The Glasgow Media Group also took an explicitly leftist stance in its complaints about the role that television played in undermining British trade unionism.

All of us have seen optical illusions involving drawings that resemble two things at once. A famous example is a drawing of what appears to be, from one perspective, a beautiful young woman dressed in Victorian fashion and, from another, an evil, wart-ridden crone. What we see depends on how we look at the picture. Krippendorf (1995) argues that media research can be thought about in the same way. The things that we see in the media, and in the effects on the audience, depend on the position we adopt before we even begin our research. All researchers approach their topic armed with a set of assumptions and tools which influence the nature of the things they see (Krippendorf, 1995). Think about the picture again. What is its reality? Does it depict a beautiful woman or a crone? The answer is both, both realities are present, but your ability to see one or the other depends on how you approach the object. It also follows that neither version of what the picture is provides the definitive answer; they represent equally valid approaches to the same reality. This alerts us to the clash between validity and reliability. Both interpretations of the picture reflect a portion of reality, but neither way of viewing it can claim objectivity: we cannot be sure that two people will look at the picture and see the same thing. Generalizability issues follow: we cannot be sure how far our way of seeing the picture is representative of what a wider audience sees.

In practice, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to adopt an entirely similar approach to media research. Having spent some time reading about the topic, you may well conclude that certain approaches to audiences offer few answers with reference to your own interests. But thinking about audience studies, it is best to start by acknowledging that all research involves limiting one’s view, the things that one can say about audiences, by selecting a set of ideas and tools that allows us to see some things but not others. It remains for this chapter to chart what these tools are and how they are connected.

The standard view of the scientist

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The popular, common-sense view of the scientist can be described in terms of the way that he or she is supposed to think, and the way that he or she is supposed to proceed. In terms of thinking, the scientist is supposed to remove him or herself from potentially biasing elements to view the world and interpret data in an objective manner. The basis for this view can be found in the work of French philosopher René Descartes. Descartes was a seminal figure in the Enlightenment, the period when an explosive growth in scientific knowledge created a new confidence concerning the ability of humans to control the natural world and their own destiny. For this reason, his work is also vital for an understanding of traditional views of what represents proper science.

Descartes’ thinking is normally summarized by a quote taken from his Discourse on Method: ‘I think, therefore I am’ (Flew, 1971). This deceptively simple statement disguises a range of important suppositions regarding the relationship between the thinker in question and the world in which he or she lives. The sort of thinking Descartes is concerned with is thinking that generates true knowledge, knowledge that we can rely on, knowledge that has nothing to do with custom, tradition or prejudice. This could only be attained through the following process:

I thought that I must reject as if it were absolutely false everything about which I could suppose there was the least doubt, in order to see if after that there remained anything which I believed which was entirely indisputable. So, on the grounds that our senses sometimes deceive us, I wanted to suppose that there was not anything corresponding to what they make us imagine. And, because some men make mistakes in reasoning – even with regard to the simplest matters of geometry – and fall into fallacies, I judged that I was as much subject to error as anyone else, and I rejected as unsound all the reasonings which I had hitherto taken for demonstrations. (Descartes, cited in Flew, 1971: 280)

Scientific thinking, then, is conducted by people who are able to remove themselves from potentially biasing elements of cultural values. This concept grounds the notion of objectivity or value neutrality. The true scientist serves no political master, but produces value-free knowledge for the good of all.

Having established how the scientist is supposed to think, it remains to describe how he or she is supposed to act. Descartes’ theory of knowledge can be seen as operationalized by the tenets of a philosophical position known as ‘positivism’. Not coincidentally, positivism emerges during the same period, being associated at first with the work of Auguste Comte (Kolakowski, 1992). Positivism can be seen as related to the Cartesian belief that true knowledge is based on things that we can be sure are true. One way of interpreting this is to say that science is based on the gathering of physical evidence that cannot be doubted. This is the founding principle of positivism. Believing that we live in a world with a fixed and knowable physical structure, positivist science is based on the development of observational methods which allow us to see that reality for what it is (Fay, 1996). Kolakowski (1992) sees positivism as being defined by four rules:

1	‘The rule of phenomenalism’ (1992: 3), which holds that the nature or truth of an object of study is manifest in its physical, observable (and hence knowable) features.
2	‘The rule of nominalism’ (1992: 4), which holds that scientific observations must be based on the presence of a tangible object.
3	The rule of value-neutrality, which as the name suggests holds that values cannot be classified as knowledge, nor can they be scientifically examined (since they lack a physical referent).
4	The rule of scientific unity, the idea that there is a single scientific method that is equally applicable to all fields of study whose goal it is to produce true knowledge.

Taken together, the Cartesian view of scientific thought and the positivist prescription for scientific action provide what looks like a sensible course for potential researchers. Knowledge grows through a neutral process of observation that, by confining itself to a physical world that is objectively measurable, remains aloof from political positions based upon value judgements that can be classified as neither true nor false.

Attractive as this view might be, it is hopelessly divorced from the reality of conducting social research. In fairness, few if any social scientists believe in this pure form of positivism, but the model does serve a useful role as a touchstone for many of the problems that we encounter when trying to research social issues such as the impact of the mass media. If, then, Descartes and the positivists outline a widely accepted common-sense view of scientific activity, what is wrong with this picture?

Can we have a science of the social?

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As we have seen, positivism defines science as a means of seeing clearly. Scientific methodology is thus based on methods which allow us to see things for what they actually are. Take, as an example, advances in the health field. Suppose you suspect that you are overweight. How would you confirm that your suspicions were true? One way would be to ask friends or partners if they think you are overweight. The answers you get are not likely to be objective; no partner with an interest in maintaining a harmonious relationship is going to say yes, even if he or she thinks that this is the case. The reply that you get to this question, then, does not reflect the perception...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Science Wars and Cultural Studies
• 1 Questions of Theory and Method
• 2 Media Effects
• 3 Media and Public Opinion
• 4 Cultivation Analysis
• 5 Cultural Studies and Audience Research
• 6 Audiences, Media and Consumption
• Conclusion: Multiple Realities, Multiple Methods
• References
• Index