NATIONWIDE

Reception studies - Morley

Morley's research is often hailed as something of a breakthrough. In turning his attention
resolutely to the audience, it is, though he probably overstates his case in his claim that the
effects tradition was dominated by a hypodermic needle model of influence until the uses
and gratifications approach developed. Curran (199! has pointed to many instances of
early studies which focused on audience reception. "he fact remains, though, that, although
it may be possible to find many such studies, they were not in the mainstream of the effects
tradition.
Morley's detailed observations of audience reception were among the first to attempt to
address the over#emphasis on semiotic analysis of media te$ts, which may be seen as a
deficiency in the CCC% approach.
The Nationwide audience
Morley's audience study of the Nationwide audience is a major text in media research
(Nationwide was an evening current affairs "& programme!. Morley's investigation of two
broadcasts focused on the way that meanings are constructed through the interaction
of the media text and the social and discourse positions of audience members.
Combining semiological and sociological study
His two main intentions were
semiological study, involving the notion of the preferred readings of media
texts, the way that the polysemy of the text has its range of potential meanings
narrowed down 'closure'!
sociological study of the ways that age, sex, race, class and gender may
determine a person's access to possible readings of the texts
Relationship beteen readings and sociological !ariables
He demonstrated that different groups generated "uite different meanings for the
Nationwide broadcasts and showed that the meanings generated were closely
related to the subcultural groups within the same social class. (Morley (19'!!
Morley found, for e$ample that ban( managers rarely commented on the actual content of
the programme. It seemed to be that they shared the 'comonsense' framewor( of
assumptions within which Nationwide operated. )or other groups, aspects of the
programme's content were much more salient. * group of management trainees saw the
programme's items on trade unions as being biased towards the unions, whereas a group
saw the same items as rabidly anti#union. * group of university arts students were especially
conscious of the methods deployed by the programme ma(ers in constructing the discourse
of Nationwide. * group of apprentices tended to show cynicism and alienation, re+ecting the
whole of the system of party politics, but nevertheless were most in line with the
assumptions made by the programme ma(ers.
Dominant" negotiated and oppositional readings
#hese observations are in line with $tuart Hall's notions of dominant or preferred!,
negotiated and oppositional readings of media texts. Morley builds on %arkin's
suggestion &'(&! that in any society there are three dominant 'meaning systems')
#he dominant value system, the social source of which is the major
institutional order* this is a mmoral framework which promotes the
endorsement of existing ine"uality, in deferential terms*
#he subordinate value+system, the social source or generating milieu of which
is the local working+class community* this framework promotes
accommodative responses to the facts of ine"uality and low status*
#he radical value+system, the source of which is the mass political party based
on the working class* this framework promotes an oppositional interpretation
of class ine"ualities
Morley (199,!