Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 24

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Popular Culture Review

seen to be fixed by the actual texts (Morley 1995) with no space for resistance or
critical interpretation on behalf of the reader. As this notion began to be challenged
by a more interpretative, postmodern and local approach to culture, the audience
became the focus of attention, and content analysis alone was viewed as inadequate
to access the nuances and critical reflections available to audiences of popular
texts such as soap operas (Hobson 1982; Brown 1994) and women’s magazines
(Winship 1987; Ballaster et a l 1991). Viewers and readers were recognised as
bringing their own experiences and individuality to texts, rather than being
positioned by them, thus reducing the importance of the text whilst giving more
power to the audience. However, notions of sociological factors such as age and
class remain relevant to understanding audiences and enable researchers to go
beyond the psychological uses and gratifications approach (Rubin 1994) which
focused on individual responses to the media.
As the audience became to be seen as active rather than passive, the effects of
this shift were to encourage the notion that audiences not only actively consume,
but knowingly resist media influences to assert their own agenda over the material
(Fiske 1987). With regard to women’s magazines, earlier writings on the limitations
of such publications have given way to a more flexible idea of the reader as able to
pick the content she wants to read and to disregard the rest (Hermes 1995; Oates
1997). For some theorists, though, this focus on the audience has moved too far,
implying a rejection of issues of power and political economy