David Morley conducted a study in the late 1970s and 1980s where he showed episodes of the popular BBC program "Nationwide" to different social groups and had them write down their views. He found that there were common readings within specific social groups, such as gender, occupation, and class. For example, those from upper middle class backgrounds tended to share similar opinions. However, Morley concluded the findings were not strictly applicable to individuals. The study demonstrated there are different ways audiences can interpret a TV program based on their social position and background.

1. David Morley & The Nationwide
Audience
By Holly Sheldon

2. The Background to this project
David Morley is a sociologist who specializes in
the sociology of television audience. He studied
the television programme ‘Nationwide’ which
was a popular programme following main
national news from London and included human
interest stories and showed major events of the
day from a ‘down to earth’ perspective. The
show had a regular early evening slot from 6pm-
7pm on BBC1.

3. What the study involved…
David Morley conducted the nationwide project
in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. He showed one
edition of this TV show to a series of different
groups that were of a different - gender, race,
sexuality or have a different occupation. He
asked these different social groups to write
down their views on this edition they were
shown. He discovered common readings within
specific groups.

4. The conclusion of this project
David Morley concluded that the findings of this
study were not strictly applicable to each
individual social group, however there are links
and members of the same social group are likely
to have similar opinions.

5. David Morley produced this table to
show his findings:
Social Group Size % of Audience % of 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 -----------
David Morley conducted 3 ways that the reader of a programme might occupy:
1) Dominant Reading – The reader shares the programmes system of beliefs, values
and attitudes.
2) Negotiated Reading – The reader partly shares the programmes code, and accepts
the intended reading of the programme to an extent.
3) Oppositional Reading – The reader does not share the programme’s code and
reject the preferred reading.

6. Why is this project important today?
It gets people to think about what other
influences make people read a text differently
besides the typical social groups. It makes us
think about how can we break down audience
to understand why audiences see things a
certain way.

7. KEY WORDS:
Quantitative – Results being measured by the quantity of something and can be transformed into number,
usually more factual than qualitative.
Qualitative - Results being measured by the quality of something, usually more informative about emotions or
feelings of others.
Deductive - Reasoning from the general to the particular.
Reactive - Acting in response to a situation rather than creating or controlling it.
Polysemic – A word or phrase that has several different meanings that are all related in some way.
Passive – Accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance.
Active audience – Audience members who are already interested in an organization, issue or cause and instead
of waiting to receive information on it, they seek it out from many sources and when doing so, they speak as
well as listen.
Dominant - Having power and influence over others.
Negotiated - Solve an issue by bringing about an issue.
Oppositional reading – Holds an opposite stance (neglects) the intended point of view the producer is trying to
get across to the viewers’.
Socioeconomic group – Relating to or concerned with the interaction of social and economic factors.
Demographic - A particular movement/specific part of a population.