2. The Nationwide project was an influential
audience research project.
Its principal researchers were David
Morley and Charlotte Brunsdon.
It was conducted by the Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS). It
was conducted in the late 1970s and early
1980s.
Nationwide project
3. Social Class
Size
Audience %
Overall
population %
Upper middle
class
321,000
5.4
6.0
Lower middle
class
2,140,000
36.3
24.0
Working Class
3,438,000
58.3
70.0
Male
2,772,000
46.1
-----------
Female
3,177,000
53.9
-----------
BBC Survey
4.
Morley outlined three hypothetical positions, which the reader of a programme
might occupy.
Dominant reading: The reader shares the programme's 'code' (its meaning
system of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions) and fully accepts the
programme's 'preferred reading‘.
Negotiated reading: The reader partly shares the programme's code and
broadly accepts the preferred reading, but modifies it in a way which reflects
their position and interests.
Oppositional reading: The reader does not share the programme's code and
rejects the preferred reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of
interpretation.
Morley argues that 'members of a given sub-culture will tend to share a
cultural orientation towards decoding messages in particular ways. Their
individual "readings" of messages will be framed by shared cultural formations
and practices'
His positions
5.
Social status classes:
The social status of a target audience for a magazine
varies depending on the class of the audience. These
are the categories that most magazines follow.
A - Higher managerial and professional
B – Middle managerial and professional
C1 – Supervisory, junior management and professional
C2 – skilled manual worker
D – Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
E – pensioners, lower grade workers and the
unemployed.
Audience Composition
6.
Deductive - Deductive research is the type of social research based on deductive reasoning. Normally, it deals with
starting with theories or generalizations, narrowing them down to hypotheses, and finally testing the hypothesis.
Reactive – make a hypothesis and react the hypothesis to prove it.
Polysemic - the ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that can be used (in different contexts) to express two or
more different meanings
Passive - people who listen in order to accomplish other goals.
Active Audience - audience members who already are interested in an organization, issue, or cause.
Dominant Reading - When a text is read by the audience in a way that is intended by the creators of the text.
Negotiated Reading - The process of give and take by which members of the audience interpret, deconstruct and find
meaning within a media text.
Oppositional Reading - A critical position that is in opposition to the values and ideology intended by the creators of a
media text, usually the dominant reading of a text.
Socio/Economic Group - people having the same social, economic, or educational status
Demographic - Factual characteristics of a population sample, e.g. age, gender, race, nationality, income, disability,
education.
Quantative – Including surveys and customers questionnaires – can help small businesses to help improve their
products.
Qualitative – Finding out not just what people think, but why they think it.
Glossary
