The Relations Between The

1 "THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PRODUCTIONS OF BROADCASTING ORGANISATIONS, THE SOCIAL EXPERIENCES OF AUDIENCES AND THE MEANING ATTACHED TO PROGRAMMES, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO RECENT INSTITUTIONAL AND TECHNICAL CHANGES IN MASS COMMUNICATIONS." A thesis submitted to the University of London (London School of Economics) by Patrick Brian Hughes for the degree of Ph.D. March 1993 UMI Number: U055865 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U055865 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 < o f *' F ^ - 7o&( y«=?l o ^S3S 2 ABSTRACT This thesis argues that by the late 1980s, investigations of relationships between the audiences and programmes of broadcasting had been flawed by one or more of the following weaknesses: a focus of inquiry which expressed an unresolved dualism between atomistic and deterministic models of society; assumptions about the relationships between knowledge and its circumstances of production which expressed an unresolved dualism between materialism and idealism; and a disregard for the particular significance of socio-historically-specific cultural forms and institutions. Consequently, it argues that for an investigation of audience-programme relationships to be judged satisfactory, it must meet these three aims: 1. Pose a clear, non-atomistic model of society and thus resolve the individual-society dualism into a new, historically-specific focus of inquiry; 2. Resolve the materialism-idealism dualism into a new model of knowledge-production; 3. Explain the roles of particular cultural forms and of particular cultural and ideological institutions in social change, especially their roles in the commodification of culture. The arguments are based on an examination of pre-1980 broadcasting research projects within the "Media and the Individual" and "Media and Society" traditions, which showed that none had satisfactorily related programmes, audiences' understandings of them and audiences' social- material circumstances. Some influential theories of culture and of ideology were also examined for a means of relating those three elements, but without success. The thesis includes a report on the author's 1981 research into audience- programme relationships, highlighting the practical and conceptual difficulties of meeting those three aims, and the final chapter argues that major 1980s broadcasting research projects also failed to meet the three aims. The thesis concludes by drawing on the lessons of the projects examined to outline a new programme of research explicitly oriented to those three aims, addressing broadcasting as a particular relationship between consciousness and circumstances. 3 CONTENTS 1. EPISTEMOLOGY & POLITICS IN BROADCASTING STUDIES 6 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Theorising Audiences 1.3 Underlying Assumptions 1.4 Foci of Inquiry 1.5 Sites of Meaning-Production 1.6 Conclusion: Seeking a New Discourse 2. THE MEDIA, SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 18 2.1 The Media & Society 2.1.1 Idealist Analysis: Local Radio Workshop's "Kantianism" 2.1.2 'Half-Way' Analysis: Lazarsfeld's "Diffusion" 2.1.3 Materialist Analysis: McLuhan's "Impacts" 2.2 The Media & the Individual 2.2.1 Idealist Analysis: the Glasgow Media G roup’s "Effects" 2.2.2 'Half-Way' Analysis: "Uses and Gratifications" 2.2.3 Materialist Analysis: "Multiple Audiences 2.3 Conclusion 3. CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY 67 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Culture 67 3.2.1 An Idealist Approach: Hoggart's "Uses of Literacy" 3.2.2 A 'Halfway' Approach: "Cultural Studies" 3.2.3 A Materialist Approach: "Images of Society" 3.3 Ideology 80 3.3.1 Different Emphases 3.3.2 A 'Halfway' Approach: Althusser and Screen 3.3.3 A Materialist Approach: Lukacs 3.4 Conclusion 101 3.4.1 The Individual-Society Dualism 3.4.2 The Materialism-Idealism Dualism 3.4.3 Cultural and Ideological Forms and Institutions 4. THE WALWORTH CABLE RADIO (WCR) SURVEY 110 4.1 Introduction 111 4 4.2 The Walworth Cable Radio (WCR) Project 113 4.2.1 The Pilot Survey Questionnaire 4.2.2 Results of the Pilot Survey 4.2.3 Administering the Final Survey 4.3 Results of the Final Survey 123 4.3.1 '‘Coronation Street" and Working Class culture 4.3.2 The British Political System 4.3.3 The Role of the Police 4.3.4 The Role of the Individual and Individualism in Broadcasting 4.3.5 Insularity 4.3.6 Summary 4.4 Analysing the Final Survey 162 4.4.1 Using the Results 4.4.2 'Technical' and Linguistic Problems 4.4.3 Conceptual and Theoretical Problems 4.4.4 Posing a New Research Question 4.4.5 Planning a New Investigation 5. AUDIENCES IN THE EIGHTIES 176 5.1 The Decline of the 'Dominant Ideology' Thesis 177 5.2 Towards a New Paradigm in Broadcasting Research? 179 5.2.1 Changing Concerns in 1980s Research 5.2.2 A New Approach in Broadcasting Research 5.3 Four 'Axes' of Meaning-Production around Broadcasting 185 5.3.1 The Intratextual-Intertextual Axis 5.3.2 The Intradiscursive-Interdiscursive Axis 5.3.3 The "Open"-"Closed" Axis 5.3.4 The Production-Reception Axis 5.4 Integrating the 'Axes' 201 5.4.1 Bourdieu and Pecheux 5.4.2 Morley 5.5 Evaluating the New Approach in Broadcasting Research 208 5.5.1 Internal Coherence 5.5.2 Meeting My Aims 5.5.3 Restrictions on Contemporary Discursive Repertoires 5.6 Implications for Broadcasting Research in the 1990s 217 5.6.1 The Individual-Society Dualism 5 5.6.2 The Materialism-Idealism Dualism 5.6.3 Cultural Forms 5.6.4 Sotio-historically-specific Audiences 5.6.5 Cultural Relativism 5.7 Designing a New Investigation 228 5.8 Outlines of a New Investigation 230 5.9 Synoptic Conclusion 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY 241 APPENDICES 253 Appendix 1: The Pilot Survey Questionnaire. Appendix 2: "Walworth Cable Radio: Broadcasting Survey. Summer 1981". Appendix 3: Walworth Cable Radio Broadcasting Survey leaflets. Appendix 4: The Final Survey Questionnaire. CHAPTER ONE EPISTEMOLOGY AND POLITICS IN BROADCASTING STUDIES 7 1.1 Introduction The first three chapters of this work present its theoretical problem: the inadequacy of the dominant paradigms of broadcasting research in the 1970s and early 1980s. In chapter one, I argue that by the early 1980s many media researchers had posed static relationships between knowledge and its circumstances of production due to their epistemological assumptions; hadn't integrated historically-specific individuals, social groupings and institutions in explaining meaning-production, due to their foci of inquiry; and had undertheorised distinctions between meaning-production and -consumption. I argue that a new discourse of meaning-production around broadcasting should resolve the materialism-idealism and individual-society dualisms, and should integrate particular programmes with particular programme-makers or viewers (described according to class, gender and race) in explaining the production and consumption of meaning. In chapter two I show that by the early 1980s, projects within six contemporary categories of broadcasting research were unable to resolve the materialism-idealism and individual-society dualisms due to their epistemological assumptions and foci of inquiry. I assess the implications of including in each category a substantive consideration of relationships between programme-makers and audiences and between the production and consumption of meaning. In chapter three I conclude that three approaches to researching culture and two approaches to ideology can contribute little to a new discourse in broadcasting research. Their failure to explain how membership of social groups influences individuals' understandings of the world, and how ideologies constrain them, precluded resolving the materialism-idealism dualism; their separation of 'society' from individuals' everyday lives precluded resolving the individual-society dualism; and they underplayed the significance of cultural forms and institutions. The final two chapters assess more contemporary broadcasting research. Chapter four presents the results of my own investigation into whether people's experiences of their social-material 8 circumstances affect how they understand television programmes. Despite failing to show how individuals' experiences of everyday life 'translate' into ways of watching television, the investigation linked television viewing and social-material circumstances - unusual then, and still uncommon a decade later - and showed that understandings don't just reflect shared experiences. In chapter five, I synthesise a new 'draft discourse' from the results of some major 1980s research projects, show its inadequacy, and speculate on forms of research which could adequately explain meaning-production in broadcasting. In summary: My thesis is that broadcasting research in the 1970s and 1980s was conducted within discourses which have proved inadequate means of explaining how meanings are produced around programmes, and I propose three aims for any new discourse to meet. 1.2 Theorising Audiences. The 1970s and 1980s saw great changes in the UK communications arena. Technological innovations such as videocassette and videodisc systems, satellite

Load more