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Making sense of audience discoursesTowards a multidimensional model of mass media receptionRoskilde University This article discusses the empirical and theoretical challenges facing reception researchers in their encounter with qualitative audience data. It does so by criticizing the one-dimensional theoretical framework set up by Stuart Hall in his famous encoding/decoding article. This framework has resulted in an exclusive focus in reception studies on ideology, as study after study has asked whether audience readings accept, negotiate or oppose the hegemonic thrust supposedly inscribed in the media text. Over the years empirical audience research has demonstrated that actual readings are more complex than that, but these studies have not taken the step of developing a multidimensional model of audience discourse. The article attempts to set up an empirically based general model of media reception with six dimensions: Motivation, Comprehension, Discrimination, Position, Evaluation and Implementation. This model may help open our eyes to the complexity of actualized readings while still enabling a politically committed audience research concerned with the role of the media in processes of social reproduction and, not least, social change.
Key Words: audience research • decoding • empirical analysis • ideology • qualitative research • reception theory • social change
European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2,
233-258 (2000) This article has been cited by other articles:
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