Everyday Media Use 11

Everyday Media Use

The small but steady stream of publications about women's magazines has, until recently, hardly ever taken th perspective or th expriences of th reader into account (Dardigna, 1978; Ferguson, 1983; Illouz, 1991; Wassenaar, 1976; White, 1970; Winship, 1991). It seems highly probable, therefore, that we know more about th concerns and th views of researchers than we do about actual practices of women's magazine us and th expriences of other readers, who, after ail, make up th majority of women's magazine users. In this book everyday use of women's magazines, as reported on by readers, takes centre stage. Since I am interested in their accounts of how women's magazines hve meaning for them, there is no analysis of th women's magazine text. Text analysis assumes that texts offer a limited range of meanings that cannot butbe taken up by readers. My perspective is that texts acquire meaning only in th interaction between readers and texts and that analysis of th text on its own is never enough to reconstruct thse meanings. I could, of course, hve combined text and rception analysis, as other studies of women's magazines hve done (Ballaster et al., 1991; Winship, 1987). Again, there is a strong argument against proceeding thus. Text analysis is, in fact, th acadmie's reading of women's magazines. Although th criticism ensuirig from text analysis can certainly be very valuable, th acadmie voice is th authorial voice and its account is bound to be far more powerful thaiV'ny other account of everyday reading. To focus on both text and readers can easily drown out th accounts of readers, and thereby eliminate th added value of seeing women's magazines through their eyes.

Moreover, th readers' perspectives, though not easily made manageable for acadmie use, are fascinating in their own right. To find out how women's magazines become meaningful in everyday life and what 'meaning' can be taken to be in everyday contexts, I chose to employ an ethnographie perspective and to hold lengthy interviews with readers. An intgral lment in such a project is th fact that th researcher is a participant rather than an outsider or an observer (see Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983: 17-19). Throughout this book I aim to show my personal involvement in the_ research. Given th inherently unequal positions of interviewer and interviewed, I cannot claim this text is a sries of dialogues or a polylogue - a goal interpretive ethnography should aim for, according to some of its practitioners (see Marcus and Fischer, 1986). It is th product, though, of some eighty conversational interviews that took th form of dialogues. To elicit information from my informants and to redress th balance of knowledge (who gets to know more about whom), in th interviews there were many personal 'digressions' in which I told my informants about myself or gave my opinion, though seldom on th subject of women's magazines, because I wanted to avoid any suggestion that my views were th 'correct' way of looking at women's magazines. That would hve been absolutely at odds with my request for information and my explanation that I would use readers' catgories and views rather than my own to structure th research. I decided not to make thse digressions part of th book, though they would make fascinating research material for a project on field relations and conducting interviews (such as Kauffman, 1992). In keeping with th spirit of ethnography, however, I hve employed a personal style of writing. The goal of th eighty lengthy interviews with women and men was to reconstruct how women's magazines become meaningful. The interviews were a success in terms of social interaction. Although interviewing is tiring work, I enjoyed it. I was made most welcome by very diverse people, a majority of whom apprciated women's magazines and read them regularly. Informants were talkative enough - but they did not hve much to say about women's magazines. Interpreting th interviews presented serious problems. Rception studies of other popular genres had led me to expect that faithful women's magazine readers (and there were some among my informants) would hve no trouble in recounting narratives orl arguments from articles they had enjoyed or found interesting. J Although some readers ponder what they hve read and remember spcifie articles to some extent, most readers did not. Many could not _-

12

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Everyday Media Use 13

-give spcifie examples, and usually rfrences were vague. Quite often informants would hunt for a copy of a magazine if they wanted to say something about it. Generally speaking, although many readers hve generic knowledge of women's magazines, th practice of reading women's magazines apparently does not call for reflection or involvement of a readily communicable kind. The interviews were long: on average one and a half hours of interview was taped. Before and after th interview I explained th research and invited comments. The transcribed tapes fill a few thousand pages. I could simply hve extracted ail that was said about _women's magazines, but that would hve meant using only 2 or 3 per cent of th material (which is still, given th amount of material gathered, a reasonable amount of text). That would, in itself not be a bad method, but it would need contextualization to avoid suggesting that women's magazines are meaningful for readers to a much higher exent than they actually are, and thereby giving a blatantly false picture of women's magazine reading. To hve taken th tiny bits of interview text that directly addressed women's magazines and women's magazine use would not hve done justice to th impression that slowly built up during th research period: women's magazines are qualitatively diffrent from other genres (which were talked about with much more enthusiasm by th same informants); and it could also well be th case that popular mdia research has not done justice to th everyday character of th majority of mdia use. In this chapter I reveal th theoretical framework I developed to make sens of how readers make sens of th magazines they read, paying attention to th contextual and everyday nature of this particular kind of meaning production. I shall briefly discuss th rcent research on popular culture that shaped my expectations and > ideas, to clarify why I was so disappointed in th interview material, before turning to thories of everyday life and everyday meaning production. The chapter closes with a sketch of th theoretical toolbox I will, by then, hve prepared, in which th notion of 'interpretive rpertoire' has a central place. Popular culture research and th fallacy of meaningfulness My dcision to interview readers was motivated by what has corne to be known as 'th move towards th reader' in popular mdia research. Dissatisfied with a modernist privileging of th text as th

place where meaning is produced and with 'grand narratives' (Lyotard, 1979) and politically inspired by th wish to 'strike back at th empire' to show that Thatcherism, Reaganism and th New Right had not brainwashed th consumers of popular culture, popular culture research turned from texts to spcifie groups of readers who were pictured as subversive and rsistant to dominant meanings. Although not labelled as such from th start, this new orientation has _, corne to be called 'postmodern', even though in most popular culture J research one does not find postmodernism of th most radical kind (see, for example, Ross, 1988). While a radical postmodern view would dictate that ail meaning is locally produced, independent of th text or grand theory, popular culture research usually recognizes some relation to th mdia text. It steers a middle course between text-based and text-independent interprtations of how mdia use is meaningful. In fact, much popular culture research is still genrerl based, and as a resuit meaning production is seen as being held logether or incited by texts that share a certain set of literary rules of form and content, rather than by how they are used. J Janice Radway's pioneering study on romance reading (1984) may serve as an example of th 'New Audience Research' that gave a central place to th reader. Through lengthy interviews with readers she reconstructed th 'idal' and th 'failed' romance to establish what it is women like in romance novels and what it is that makes them read them over and over again. She also asked her informants when and how they read romances. She found that for th women she interviewed reading was a qualitatively diffrent activity from for instance, housework, because it was th only activity they did for, and time they spent on, themselves. Romance reading, writes Radway, is a 'dclaration of independence', a minor rbellion against th position accorded thse readers by dominant patriarchal discourse: th position of th ever available and nurturing housewife and mother. Their rbellion is ultimately turned into submission to patriarchal discourse, however, because of their very reading. Reading romances also means investing energy in th imaginary (and wishful) reconstruction of masculinity, for readers interpret romances as stories about mle transformation: from hard and insensitive machos to loving and caring human beings. Reading th Romance is a well-founded and clever book in which textual and interview examples abound. Even though th 'pleasurableness' of romance reading (Ang, 1988) is not addressed but is traded against a view that believes feminist political struggle is more important than patriarchy (fans of th genre, feminists or not, might want to dispute th point),

14 Everyday Media Use th book shows that researching popular mdia use can be highly productive. I would hve liked nothing better than to follow in Radway's _ , footsteps, or in those of Angela McRobbie (1978; 1991). Her analysis of teenagers reading th girls' magazine Jackie is another argument in favour of researching popular women's mdia through interviews. How could my women's magazine readers hve so much less to say -r than Radway's romance readers or McRobbie's Jackie readers, when , Radway and McRobbie, I gather, employed much th same interview strategy? In what textual and practical respects are women's magazines (or is reading women's magazines) so diffrent from either : - romances or girls' magazines? Of course, women's magazines corne in diverse subgenres, and even single subgenres or single titles are fragmented and circular texts (th same topics return every few issues, years or couple of years). More pertinent is th observation that women's magazines do not create audiences that develop strong i narrative interests or cuit folloivings. As a rule women's magazines do 1 not hve fans, whereas girls' and young women's magazines inspire such interest and following (see Frazer, 1987; Lewis, 1987). The most important diffrence between women's magazines and other popular genres (with th possible exception of th outlier subgenre of gossip magazines) seems to be that women's magazines are read with far _- _less concentration and much more detachment than other popular genres. That is what I hve corne to believe after interviewing readers about ail kinds of women's magazines, from traditional and glossy to gossip and feminist. McRobbie's and Radway's studies are exemplary for work done on spcifie mdia audiences and subcultures. In gnral, research on popular culture aims to reconstruct pleasure and meaning production and focuses on isolated bodies of text (Ang, 1985: prime-time soap Dallas; McRobbie, 1978, 1991: girls' magazine Jackie; Schrader, 1988: prime-time soap Dynasty) or on interviews with readers who, on average, are more knowledgeable than other viewers or readers (Livingstone, 1990, found viewers through advertisements who could recall soap opra plots; Radway, 1984, interviewed an existing group of self-identified romance readers). The certainly unintended consquence of thse condensations - isolating spcifie texts from everyday ~ mdia use and taking th knowledgeable reader for an average reader 1 - is that popular culture is given th status of high culture. It is made into a discrte text that offers a unique and possibly liberating perspective on th world. Paul Willis's work with Simon Jones, Joyce Canaan and Geoff Hurd on th symbolic activity of young people in

Everyday Media Use 15

everyday culture (1990) explicitly starts from th point of view that there is no diffrence between high and popular culture with regard to processes of meaning production. Although laudable in its ftj intention to reassert th value of low-valued popular culture, there are dire consquences to such an approach: gnral, everyday mdia I j use is identified with attentive and meaningful reading of spcifieJ * texts, and that is precisely what it is not. Media use is not always meaningful. From time to time it is virtually meaningless or at least a secondary activity. David Morley's work on tlvision (1986) makes th point very clearly. His aTSalysis shows, on th one hand, how gendered power relations within th family are reconstructed through diffrent styles of interaction around th tlvision; on th other hand th family portraits in Family Tlvision make clear that tlvision is not always meaningful as text. One of Morley's respondents had a habit of turning th tlvision on in th early morning: 'Sometimes I intend to look at it,' she said, '. . . but . . . at th end of it Fve seen everything but l've heard nothing' (1986: 56). Magazines may be opened or leafed through, tlvision sets may be on, but that is hardly an indication that they are 'read' ( ' consciously, seriously or with animation. How women's magazines are read and how tlvision is watched appear to be inextricably tied in to everyday routines. Both tlvision and women's magazines hve" become such standard parts of our lives that their status is almost unquestioned. Tlvision, th newer mdium, might occasionally lead viewers to find explicit lgitimation for viewing; women's magazines are almost too familiar to be noticed. My disappointment in th interviews I held with women's magazine readers can be seen to hve a positive side. It alerted me to several dangers. As a researcher, without intending to be, one is drawn to 'fans',1 to knowledgeable readers and viewers who easily express themselves. Can one take fans to be reprsentative of ordinary viewers? A tricky question. John Fiske sees fandom as a l heightened form of popular culture and fans as 'excessive readers' I who differ from 'ordinary readers' in degree rather than in kind (1992: J 46). I disagree with Fiske and with Lisa Lewis, editor of The Adoring Audience, a collection on fan culture and popular mdia that starts from th assumption that academia is still caught in its 'historical propensity to treat mdia audiences as passive and controlled' (1992: 1). Media and cultural studies, by now accepted disciplines or interdisciplinary approaches, hve trained themselves to conceptualize th reader as active and to treat mdia audiences as such. In fact, current research and theorizing appear overburdened by their

16

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Everyday Media Use 17

J
V V,'

attention to fans2 and to th reading and watching expriences that people are enthusiastic about, to th dtriment of theorizing th mundaneness of everyday mdia use. This leads to what I would call /th""fallacy of meaningfulness, by which I mean th unwarranted vassumption that ail use of popular mdia is significant. Although readers may recognize th codes of a given text and accord it limited associative meaning, they do not always accord it generalized significance, that is, a distinct and nameable place in their worldviews and fantasies. As acadmies we are in th business of meaning production and interprtation, while th majority of mdia users are not: much mdia use is routine and insignificant, it has no distinct, generalizable meaning. Of course, viewers and readers love texts that offer spellbinding escape, a learning exprience, suspense, moral outrage or good melodrama. But watching tlvision or reading magazines may also hve th reassuring character of a much repeated, wellknown activity that does not ask us to concentrate or to think. There is pleasure in saying; 'Reading those tips, you are reminded of ail sorts of things that you knew but had kind of forgotten', as an older, female informant remarked, but it is a very diffrent pleasure from th pleasures and meanings that hve, up till now, been described in acadmie popular culture research. The fallacy of meaningfulness leads popular culture researchers to privilge knowledgeable viewers and to use only their most expressive utterances. We prefer our analyses to be conomie and evocative, our quotations to be to th point and edited into readable English and logical arguments. The fallacy of meaningfulness leads me to expect lay thories and surprising views of women's magazines from my informants, or at least examples and knowledgeable rfrences. But those were extremely scarce. Ordinary viewers are not lay theoreticians, as has been observed by others (Lindlof and Meyer, 1987: 4). If one wants to understand reading women's magazines, or watching tlvision for that matter, it should not be assumed that th mdia text is always important or that readers' views hve th status of lay theory. On th contrary, readers may hve little to say or may express contradictory views and use conflicting discourses (see Morley, 1986), as was th case with my interviewes. To understand and theorize everyday mdia use a more sophisticated view of meaning production is required than one that does not recognize diffrent levels of psychological investment or emotional commitment (see Henriques et al., 1984: 238) and reflection. Popular

culture research has not set itself such a task. Since I was confronted with th fact that women's magazine readers described an important part - though not ail - of their use of women's magazines as almost meaningless, I set myself th task of finding theoretical tools to understand and explain how mdia use at times is meaningless - or has a more or less 'hidden' meaning - and at times is meaningful. I will focus hre on th work of th French structuralist philosopher and researcher de Certeau, on social phenomenological insights in everyday meaning production and on social psychological views of how everyday meaning production can be traced.

Theorizing everyday meaning production

Everyday meaninglessness? De Certeau's views of everyday life (1988) were introduced in popular culture research by, among others, John Fiske (1990). Fiske used de Certeau's view of everyday practices as resisting dominant knowledge and dominant codes to show how th enjoyment of, for example, quiz shows may be a statement of rsistance3 rather than a form of incorporation in dominant capitalist or patriarchal norms. According to de Certeau, everyday practices are made up of ways of resisting dominant knowledge - which includes prescribed ways of reading a text. Non-dominant knowledges, he believes, are fleeting and transient: 'Writing accumultes, stocks up, resists time by th establishment of a place and multiplies its production through th expansionism of reproduction. Reading takes no measures against th rosion of time (one forgets oneself and also forgets), it does not keep what it acquires, or it does so poorly, and each of th places through which it passes is a rptition of th lost paradise' (1988:174). In The Practice of Everyday Life (1988) Michel de Certeau suggests not only that reading subverts institutional power/knowledge in th Foucauldian sens (of which acadmie knowledge is a part), but that /- reading, defined as th imprint or formative influence of a text upon a reader, is unresearchable. Texts, according to de Certeau, do not hve . th power to impose meanings. The pleasures and meanings of reading are transient and short-lived. Thus, supposedly, th only thing that can be researched or described is th practice of reading. And, more than that, th only thing popular culture researchers following de Certeau can do, if th meanings and doings of ordinary, everyday life can only be understood by doing them, is research their

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Everyday Media Use 19

own expriences. The drawbacks of such a self-reflexive approach are put thus by John Frow: 'in th absence of realized texts which can be subject to determinate analysis - in th absence of a definite and graspable object - th analyst will inevitably reconstruct such an object. [The resuit of which] is a politically fraught substitution of th ., voice of a middle-class intellectual for that of th users of popular culture' (1991; 60). I feel no wish to clbra te reading women's magazines as an as yet undiscovered liberating practice of rsistance and neither do I want to research my own reading expriences or claim privileged insight in a vox populi that cannot be heard except by th empathie and critical researcher (see Morris, 1988). While I admire de Certeau's inspired description of th deep inequality of social relations and th repercussion of such a state of affairs on meaning production - that is, <~ that there are forms of meaning production that are of an order other than acadmie, officiai meaning production -1 disagree that everyday ( reading as such is virtually unresearchable. There is a 'realized text' that can be researched. Interview transcripts do not offer much, but they show fragments that appear to relate to a structure of meaning. The challenge is to understand both why much women's magazine use hardly seems to hve meaning (or significance in terms of anticipated pleasures, fantasies and uses to which th text might be put) and how th largely hidden meanings, which one also sees glimpses of, are structured. Moreover, while interpreting interview transcripts may be a laborious and convoluted process, involving a good deal of hand-wringing over countless meaningless 'you knows', it also seems a more respectful course of action than simply abandoning th project of understanding mdia use through th recollections and reports of readers. I will use de Certeau's analysis, however, to contextualize my search for th structures of meaning underpinning women's magazine use and to understand th apparent superficiality and meaninglessness of my interviews and th character of everyday mdia use. To describe or recollect in substantive dtail what reading women's magazines means or has meant is difficult. I can hardly explain what - it was I liked so much about Viva when I regularly read that magazine some ten years ago (to invoke my own exprience, despite Frow's argument). In a de Certeauian framework this loss of meaningfulness would be explained by rfrence to th diffrence between tactics (ways of making do, arts dfaire) and stratgies. Stratgies are used by total institutions, such as armies, cities and supermarket chains, to create and delimit their own place, a 'proper'. Tactics are th

weaponry of th powerless. Tactics are calculated actions determined by th absence of a proper locus that tend to insert themselves in th spaces created for th maintenance of power (de Certeau 1984: 36-7). Reading, according to de Certeau, is a tactic and therefore dpendent -, upon th structures and spaces created by stratgies. It does not hve A a 'space' of its own. Everyday reading is pleasurable because it is done in your own time, when there are no obligations, no boss to tell you what to do. Your own time, by dfinition, is time stolen from th - System, spent outside its grasp, outside th stratgies that fence off places and set rules. You do not need to memorize everyday reading or even to remember it, you do it simply to enjoy yourself and, therefore, over time you forget. De Certeau is a romantic about everyday life in its more 'practical' sens. He has chosen to overlook most people's everyday duties: having to prpare your family's meals seven days a week; going to work every day; raiding th shops to find bargains in order to stretch a limited budget; or desperately trying not to get bored out of your mind spending your entire day on home-making and looking after children in a suburb. Exactly what readers invest in reading in terms of fantasy, identity or diversion (th nomadic and ungraspable side to reading of which de Certeau says:'one forgets oneself and also forgets') is intrinsically part of such daily constraints and obligations. ,/ Reading may be, like poaching, strolling, cooking or dwelling, 'wandering through an imposed System' (1988:169), th System of th { text, analogous to th constructed order of a city or supermarket. It is also taking a little time off for oneself; using th 'natural' breaks in a day of looking after a child or simply filling empty time, which makes it a part of everyday obligations. In so far as it is an escape, it is an activity in line with, rather than opposed to, th overarching structure of people's daily lives (Radway, 1988: 366). While you remember th structure and that there were things you had to do, you forget what you did in th empty time, th minutes of pleasure or of boredom spent doing nothing of consquence. Reading women's magazines, even if it is not important in itself, may still hve its place or its importance in th structure of everyday \, and thus lose its l'rom readers' memories. One of th men I interviewed, Paul Mortier, works on a drilling rig (on a seven days on, seven days off rota). When he is at home, he reads th women's magazines his wife buys: 'in th morning, when I get up, I usually make myself comfortable, hve coffee and a fag and then I might get a Libelle and browse a bit. |lf you had a morning newspaper, do you think you'd still read

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Libelle?] I don't know. I might. There are dead moments in a day, just before dinner, like now, when you get a magazine.' Many women told me they started to read women's magazines after they had children. Modern-day child care imposes rigorous schedules that do not seem to allow for any activity that cannot be immediately broken off, to be taken up again later: 'I hardly read romances any more . . . I do more knitting now than reading. Because th moment you've settled nicely, he'll wake up, of course. You learn fast enough not to look forward to an hour's reading. And a romance is really difficult to put down. And you can't do that, can you? Because I hve to read a romance, he would hve to be absolutely quiet?' (Joan Becker). Women with school-going children seemed to hve less demanding -schemes. Still, a good deal of waiting is involved: waiting for children to corne home from school, waiting in doctors' surgeries. Women with jobs outside th home, part-time and full-time, give other reasons for reading women's magazines. They are 'light' matter that can be taken to bed for a quick read. Women's magazines will not keep you up for half a night, though an exciting novel might. Reading women's magazines is often described by informants as a secondary activity requiring little concentration or involvement: 'Sonlmes I read magazines when l'm watching tlvision. Not when l'm watching Derrick [a police sries] but when I watch Achter het Nieuws [a current affairs programme] or something else, and it's boring, then l'il read' (Elizabeth Veenstra). Undoubtedly, women's magazines are occasionally read with full concentration and fascination, but from th interviews I hve concluded that it is more usual for women's magazine reading to be a low-priority means of spending leisure time or unoccupied minutes. To understand reading women's magazines one has to understand everyday life: its particular routines and hirarchies of activities. De Certeau's rendering of everyday life, though thought provoking, is rather sombre: pleasure cannot be found in things we are forced to do; only when we escape our obligations, when we can wander, are we free to hve pleasure. Even if pleasure itself does not last, could not th context or memory of experiencing pleasure last? And cannot such contexts hve th structure of routines? The woman who said; 'I love to read ail those tips. Reading those tips, you are reminded of ail sorts of things that you knew but had kind of forgotten', may forget what she reads, but she does not forget to read. People read women's magazines because it suits their everyday routines. Such everyday routines may revolve around working inside or outside th home, studying and doing odd jobs, 'being a

pensioner' or 'doing nothing' (see Canaan, 1991). In discourse, for de Certeau, there are only th polemological space and th utopian. I ^j would say that much is lost between a space in which 'th strong always win and words always deceive' (1988: 16) and 'a site that is impregnable, because it is a nowhere' (1988: 17). Such a dichotomy does not do justice to th variety of ways in which people describe ' their everyday lives and life historis, how they adapt, what they are proud of or what they hve to laugh about. De Certeau does not offer a framework for understanding everyday talk when it is used to negotiate th meaning of everyday activity. According to The Practice of Everyday Life, language belongs to the^ powerful, words always deceive. Should I then understand th superficiality of my interview transcripts and th meaninglessness surrounding women's magazine reading as intentional or unintentional obfuscation? Because th subordinated would not want to reflect on their everyday lives and help collect acadmie knowledge that may be used against them? I do not think so. I was given some information and, more importantly, I received a warm and sincre welcome from informants. Rather, it is th case that readers are not in th habit of reflecting on everyday routines or of preserving memories i of what made reading pleasurable. Still, in th interviews some [ memories cropped up and were savoured. At th end of th interview many said they had greatly enjoyed talking about reading women's magazines and about their lives, which surprised them because they had never given women's magazine reading much thought. This is exactly th issue adressed by social phenomenology. From a phenomenological perspective th apparent meaninglessness of much mdia use can be explained in terms of routines rather than rsistance. It is to phenomenology I now turn. Everyday meaning and implicit understandings Phenomenology respects that everyday talk does not pose rigorous standards on reflection or logical felicity. It has championed th cause of everyday reasoning, which has so often, though subtly, been dnigratecTalfnon-scientific knowledge. Phenomenology set itself th lask of elucidating th relation between exprience and knowledge; between a practical and a theoretical attitude; between common sens nnd reason. Important to my argument is Schutz's work on everyday ro meaning. Schutz would definitely think modest expectations were befitting to an interviewer interested in everyday practices. He

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argued that in everyday life we expect things to continue largely as they are and that we expect to be able to repeat particular solutions. We make sens of th world around us by routinely applying types or catgories to order our expriences. In th words of Mary Rogers: Any process of type construction or reconstruction is 'broken off when th individuel has constituted sufficient knowledge for mastering th situation and anticipated similar situations. The break-off point, however, is not a commitment to closure. It is a turn toward th taken-for-grantedness that prsupposes idealized,'^/ implicit expectations in th forrn of 'and so forth and so on' and 'again and again'. The first idealization is that my world exhibits a stability that indefinitely validtes my dterminations and guarantees th fundamental familiarity of my expriences; th latter more basic idealization is that I can repeat my succesful actions as long as th former idealization remains tenable. Thse idealized expectations undergird ail common-sense thinking and typification. (1983: 41) Lived exprience thus consists of interpreted realities. Everyday reasoning is governed by what phenomenologists call th epoche of th natural attitude, in which doubt in th existence of th social world is suspended, as are doubts that th world might not be what it ;, appears (Natanson 1986: 66; Schutz, 1962: 229). Meaning, in this context, is th relationship established between th self and its expriences. Phenomenology stresses th situatedness and timerelatedness of 'meaning'. (Meaning) is 'th resuit of my explication of past lived expriences which are grasped reflectively from an actual now and from an actually valid rfrence scheme' (Schutz and Luckmann, 1974:16). The meaningfulness of any practice will change over time. Thus, one's expriences make up one's life-world, which is always already there, an inhabited world, a pre-existing cultural, historical and social order. Although Schutz held th view that meaning production is an inherently reflective process, it is not always consciously so. Meaning . . . is not a quality inhrent in certain expriences emerging within our stream of consciousness but th resuit of an interprtation of a passed exprience looked at from th prsent Now with a reflective attitude. As long as I live in my acts, directed toward th objects of thse acts, th acts do not hve any meaning. They become meaningful if I grasp them as well-circumscribed

expriences of th past and, therefore, in retrospection. Only expriences which can be recollected beyond their actuality and which can be questioned about their constitution are, therefore, subjectively meaningful. (Schutz, 1962: 210) Thus, everyday sense-making is based on routines that are opened ^ up only if new situations arise. Expriences become meaningful only ^j m looking back upon them. Everyday reading practices follow th same path, they are part of everyday routines; as such they are not often reflected upon and therefore do not hve conscious meanings. =. This explains why it is truly difficult for readers to enlarge upon why and how they read. Schutz's dfinitions of 'language' - a 'treasure house of ready-made pre-constituted types and characteristics' (1970: 96), - and 'knowledge' may add further to an understanding of everyday meaning production. Knowledge has to be conceived in th broadest possible sens; not as th resuit of ratiocination nor in th sens of clarified and distinct knowledge, nor clear perceptions of truth. The term rather includes ail kinds of beliefs: from th unfounded, blind belief to th well-founded conviction, from th assumption of mre chance or likelihood to th confidence of empirical certainty. Thus, knowledge may refer to th possible, conceivable, imaginable, to what is feasible or practicable, workable or achievable, accessible or obtainable, what can be hoped for and what has to be dreaded. (Schutz in Natanson, 1986: 31) It would be overly credulous to expect too much from informants. Schutz would typify them as 'men on th Street, living, in a manner of speaking, navely in their own and their in-group's intrinsic relevances' (1970: 241). No matter that most of them are women. I find phenomenology's understanding of everyday life perspicacious, but a critical note needs to be added to its characterization of overyday meaning production. Phenomenology is rather rigid in its conceptualization of th natural attitude: women and men in th street, supposedly, are successful in keeping ail doubts and critical -i reflection at bay. Dsire for change or simply doubts about th social J order or th world as it is today appear to hve th status of an anomaly. Another point of criticism is Schutz's focus on th working 'man' and his 'acts' as th basis of th meaningful structure of th social world. I should think that for men and for women fantasy and imagination are also important sources of a meaningful structuring of Ihe social world. While Radway's analysis of how her romance readers balance social and imagined worlds to concoct liveable

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Everyday Media Use 25

surroundings may be lacking with regard to a prcise analysis of their actual Household arrangements and their relations to their flesh-andblood husbands (Curran, 1990: 154), it makes a point about th /^ importance in everyday life of th dsire for change. Likewise, Birte Bech J0rgensen4 criticises Schutz's exclusive emphasis on th taken-for-grantedness of everyday life. In her research on female youth employment she found that such a perspective did not suit her material: 'Modem everyday life is created as doubleness on th one hand of continuity, of trust and certainty, made possible by th norms, rules and routines of everyday life. And, on th other hand, change and a more or less frightening and joyful urge for autonomy' (1990: 22). Hermann Bausinger (1984) has formulated some very helpful proposais for mdia research, which he bases on social-phenomenological theorizing of everyday life. According to Bausinger, mdia consumption functions as a mark of confirmation. An undelivered newspaper is missed not because of itsfcbntentjbut because it disrupts th structure of everyday life. Despte its seeming irrationality, everyday life consists of ritualized structures of perceptions and expectations that should be read not in terms of a 'mystique of immediacy', but rather in terms of th capacity of such structures to naturalize and stabilize. As an example Bausinger introduces Mr Meier and th weekend sport coverage. Mr Meier makes a sries of conscious, tactical dcisions in order to maximize his pleasure in following events in th football league. He does not listen to th radio, but waits for th late evening sports programme on tlvision so that he is able to see th goals without knowing th score in advance. His tactical dcisions are interfered with because of such mundane things as th weather, irritation over his son sleeping late and his wife coming down for a glass of water when he thought she had gone to bed. Bausinger uses this example to make several related points about mdia consumption. Meaningful study of mdia use has to take th 'mdia ensemble' into considration. As rcipients we intgra te th content of diffrent mdia: radio, tlvision, newspapers, magazines. His other points are that th mdia are seldom used completely or with full concentration. On th contrary, th mdia are an intgral part of th way everyday life is conducted. Thus, mdia use is never an isolated, individual process, but a collective process. And, finally, mdia communication cannot be separated from direct personal communication (1984: 349-50). A phenomenologcal accunt of everyday reading and meaning production provides an explanation, at least partly, for th 'relative

meaninglessness' of everyday mdia use, while it does not close off th road to further inquiry. Like de Certeau's interprtation of everyday practices, phenomenology stresses th situatedness of reading, even if sometimes th emphasis on routines can be too heavy, to th dtriment of understanding change, as is argued by, for instance, J0rgensen. A phenomenological understanding of everyday practices strengthens th cultural studies view that an analysis of reading women's magazines would hve to be twofold. On th one hand th practice of reading and how it has acquired unquestioned space in women's and men's lives need to be researched. On th other hand th implicit understandings of reading, th ideas and catgories people vaguely refer to in everyday conversation (and in lengthy conversational interviews, of course), hve to be made explicit. Only by putting th reading of women's magazines in a wider perspective, by denaturalizing th activity of reading this particular genre and comparing it with reading other genres and with other rfrences to interpretive frameworks, will it be possible to understand reading women's magazines at ail.

How women's magazines are made meaningful

Media and cultural studies theory in gnral, such as exemplified in th work of David Morley (1980, 1986), would stress that a rough framework for th study of everyday mdia use would see readers as active, meaning-producing agents. The possible meanings they may give texts will be delimited by th contexts in which they are used /v and, to some extent, by th texts themselves. Texts may be said to hve 'preferred meanings' that invite a reader to read them in line-i with dominant meaning Systems (Hall, 1980). However, this invitation need not be taken up. Readers may negotiate with texts or even read them against th grain. This dpends largely on a reader's place in th social formation and on th range of knowledges and/v expriences a reader has had access to. Inspired by th cultural studies framework and by th theoretical npproaches discussed above, I used two diffrent stratgies to nnalyse how women's magazines are used and interpreted and thus become meaningful. I hve sought to show th spcifie and -, wntextual nature of women's magazine use and interprtation byj focusing on spcifie life historis. This particularizing move dmonstrates how mdia use and interprtation exist by grce of unruly and unpredictable, but in retrospect understandable and interesting,

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Everyday Media Use

Everyday Media Use 27

choices and activities of readers. At th same time th cultural knowledge readers use and hve access to needed to be charted. To do so I analysed my interviews using a concept developed by two social psychologists, which they hve named 'interpretive rpertoire'. Interpretive rpertoires are defined by Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell as 'recurrently used Systems of terms used for characterizing and evaluating actions, events and other phenomena' (1987: 149). Potter and Wetherell see thse Systems of terms as adding up to a structural explanation of th diffrent cultural resources that may be used to talk about, explain and legitimate reading women's magazines. They hold a functional perspective that highlights people's need to communicate adequately: if one kind of explanation or way of telling a story does not work, other rpertoires or other styles to which a speaker has access will be used. Rpertoire analysis, though grounded in post-structuralist theory, differs from other forms of discourse analysis in that th social subject is theorized not just as an intersection of discursive structurings but as an active and crative i. language user. For readers rpertoires hve th form of 'cash and carry' knowledge: rpertoires are available knowledge that readers - will refer to in everyday talk. Because they are used, rpertoires change over time. Although rpertoire analysis is typically a micro-sociological approach, it can be contended that it is also a tool that helps to lay bare what underlying structures of meaning look like and thus to explain how culture as a whole is organized. Bearing directly on this question, Karin Knorr-Cetina (1981) has argued that what is commonly called th macro-structure is a summary reprsentation actively constructed and pursued within micro-situations. Thus, th macro-structure is seen to rside within . . . micro-pisodes where it results from th structuring practices of agents. The outcome of thse practices are reprsentations which thrive upon an alleged correspondence to that which they represent, but which at th same time can be seen as highly situated constructions which involve several layers of interprtation and slection . . . Agents routinely transform situated micro-events into summary reprsentations by relying on practices through which they convince themselves of having achieved appropriate reprsentation. (Knorr-Cetina, 1981: 34). This complex process of reprsentation, th resuit of which is 'culture', can usefully be pictured as a sries of rpertoires. Following

th authors discussed above, I define 'culture' as a System of beliefs values and ideas about th world that meaningfully organize a way of life in a process of negotiation and struggle between those with diffrent positions in th social formation and with diffrent social and cultural power resources. Rpertoire analysis is not a prescriptive or rigorous method. It simply consists of going back and forth through th text, summarizing interview transcripts according to diffrent criteria, for as long as it takes to organize th bits and pices in meaningful structures. One looks for statements or manners of speech that recur in diffrent interviews^ Once such key lments hve been found, it is a matter of " ~~~'N Irying to!r/ fit ' them jtogether. My understanding of thse sets of rcurrent statements has led to th formulation of diffrent rpertoires. Most of th rpertoires I found (or, rather, that I reconstructed) centre around anxieties, vague fears and th solutions that women's magazines offer, which usually were not taken up directly but were used for imaginary or fantasy reconstructions of what one might do or how a threatening or frightening situation, if it arose, could be coped with. Women's magazines of ail kinds address what readers perceive as sensitive areas that they hve less control over than they would like to hve. Thus, like other mdia, women's magazines are used indirectly in identity building and maintenance, which is an important part of attaching generalized, evaluative significance to lexts. It must be repeated, though, that th fantasy and affective investments of readers in women's magazines are expressed and defined much less than in th case of other popular mdia. Even <*' within th blurred umbrella genre of women's magazines, there were important diffrences in th extent to which th magazines inspired such investments, whereas gossip magazines were a source of much I fantasy activity, domestic weeklies and glossies were far less j obviously a source of such investments. Although rpertoire analysis in itself is no guarantee against not being trapped in what I hve called th fallacy of meaningfulness, Ihere seems less chance of that when rpertoire analysis is used not only to reconstruct th meanings women's magazines hve, but also lo detect recurring thmes in descriptions of how women's magazines iire used. (From thse it became clear that women's magazines are read in short periods of 'in-between' time and that they are valued because they are easy to put down.) A second 'guarantee' is located in how informants were sought (diffrent kinds of 'ordinary' readers were interviewed, rather than fans or exceptionally knowledgeable rc-aders), which is discussed at length in appendix 4. In chapter 2, th

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Everyday Media Use

rpertoires readers employ to interpret their own practices of use and to describe how they read th magazines are considered in relation to each other. Although I show that women's magazines, like other popular genres, contribute to identity construction, this is set against th background of how readers talk about what makes women's magazines primarily attractive to them: they are easy to put down. The portraits of two readers (in chapter 3) make it even clearer that women's magazine use is part of and dpendent on everyday t. routines and habits. When they break down, readers lose interest in 9 - women's magazines.

Notes

Introduction 1. Of course, not ail of th studies of women's magazines are inspired by feminism. Exceptions include th study by Braithwaite and Barrell (1988), which takes an enthusiastic view of 'th business of women's magazines'. 2. This dfinition is culled from John Corner's discussion of th concept of meaning and what he terms th 'New Audience Research'. See Corner, 1991: 271-6. 3. Based on Neale's shorter dfinition. See Neale, 1980: 7.

Chapter 1 Everyday Media Use 1. 'Fan' can be defined as someone who has expert knowledge of a lowvalued or non-valued form of culture: for example, someone who knows every Une of Barry Manilow's songs by heart (Jensen, 1992: 19). 2. Fiske (1992) draws on Radway's work with romance readers (1984) mentioned at th beginning of this section and Hobson's work with soap opra viewers and on how soap opra is used at work (1982, 1989). I believe thse are generally seen as examples of studies that work with 'average' audience members rather than with 'fans', which points to th confusion regarding whether or not a diffrence is made between fan culture and everyday mdia use in mdia and cultural studies. 3. Watching is accompanied by a good deal of shouting; participants make a spectacle of themselves and of consumption. Ail sin against norms of 'proper' fminine behaviour. 4. I should like to thank Kirsten Drotner for recommending J0rgensen's work to me.