There is a quantity of material on audiences, which is concerned with gender differences between and within audiences. This interest attends to audience preferences and audience reading of texts. It looks for ways of modelling these audiences.
Christine Geraghty (1996a) has considered ways in which women are constructed as an audience and operate as consumers, in relation to a proposed difference between how the viewing of film has been understood, as opposed to television. In the case of television she points to an emphasis on the context of viewing for the female audience. With regard to film she refers to an emphasis on spectator positions and psychoanalytic
discourses. She comments on other critiques which draw attention to the way in which the female viewer of film is often modelled as being passive, whereas the viewer of television is often described as ‘ “active”, “conscious” and “optimistic” ’. She discusses the representation of mothers, in particular. There are accounts of various views on the nature of identification with mother characters, for the female audience. Psychoanalytic positions seem to be more pessimistic about women reading disempowering meanings into, for example, melodramas. Whereas a more post-modern analysis is fairly positive about pleasures gained and about a sense of resistance to social strictures being gener- ated. There is also comment on the process of viewing – perhaps a shared experience in the case of TV, in which women will talk about and assimilate material collaboratively.
Such comments on viewing tend to be confirmed by the work of Silverstone (1994) and Morley (1992), for example. They comment on the fact that male viewers of TV prefer not to be interrupted, whereas female viewers may view spasmodically, and prefer to talk about material on screen. On the other hand, their research suggests that males more than females will control the machinery of viewing, and therefore the material that is actually watched. It should also be pointed out that such gendered behaviours and preferences operate in a context – that of family life. Other kinds of media consumption may take place in other contexts, with other implications for gender. For example, males and females will go to see a movie as a shared and social experience, not just for the film. The choice of the film could depend on either male or female preferences.
So the context of that lived experience is not just about the domestic sphere. And even where it is, gender roles may vary from one type of household to another and over a period of time. So, for example, Hobson (1982), like Morley, found that female viewers of the then early evening soap, Crossroads, experienced interrupted viewing because they were trying to watch, prepare a meal and deal with children. But twenty years on and more one would have to say, what about that majority of households that do not contain children? What about the impact of the VCR and the possibility of deferred viewing? What about the impact of the microwave and ready meals? What about different households of different socio-economic groups, with different incomes?
So, one might now question the validity of work by people like Morley, on the basis of the comparatively narrow cross-section investigated and of the possibility that social behaviours and relationships are changing, even since such research was carried out. Certainly the British prime-time TV schedules are increasingly full of drama material that contains themes and characters of relevance to women’s lives, and which are some- times treated in what might loosely be termed ‘soap style’. One example was the third series of a drama called Clocking Off (2002), based around a northern textiles factory. The storylines focus on both male and female characters, but they are very much con- cerned with relationships and emotional dilemmas. The series Playing the Field is about a women’s football team, but is dominantly about what goes on the protagonists’ lives, not about matches. Episodes contain multiple storylines and a cross-section of female types, much like a soap. An example of ‘women’s themes’ would be The Cry (2002), a two- parter, in which the female protagonist is a social worker who has to deal with suspected child abuse and with the trauma of her own miscarriage.
Similarly, it is noticeable that movie releases contain a fair proportion of material which is clearly aimed at a specifically female audience. Bridget Jones’s Diary has topped both novel and film best-sellers’ lists. The novel and film About a Boy contains male
protagonists but appeals to female readers/viewers because of its exploration of emotion and relationship. One also has to be careful about explaining a gendered audience in terms of material supposedly tailored for female viewers. For a start, there will be differ- ences between what younger and older females will prefer. Indeed, the whole notion of a ‘female audience’ implies a coherence of interest, of background, of gender definition, which hardly stands up to examination, and which is in its own way demeaning. Not much better is the assumption that material supposedly for a female audience contains nothing of interest and value for men. I would also argue that audiences may not and should not be differentiated by gender without good evidence. The audience for David Fincher’s Panic Room (2002) was as much female as male. Horror material in all media is very attractive to a young female audience. Or a film like 24 Hour Party People (2002) is sold on its cultural attractions and references, within which gender is largely irrelevant.
It is interesting to take, somewhat at random, exit reviews of the film Bend it Like
Beckham directed by Gurinder Chadha (in the Independent on Sunday 14 April 2002). This
film is partly about football, but also about gender behaviour. It is enjoyed by the audi- ence partly for this reason, but not because of their gender. A 39-year-old male reviewed it as ‘really exciting and had all the right moments and emotions you want in a film’. A 25-year-old female said, ‘I don’t know anything about soccer, but that didn’t matter because the interracial differences came across well.’
Where there has been explicit identification of a female-gendered audience one may argue that it has something to do with those ideological shifts related to feminism, and a lot to do with economic changes that have given women more leisure and more spending power.
One notable US TV series, Cagney & Lacey, starring two female cops, started out as a made-for-TV film pilot in 1981. It was conceived as material for women, and explicitly pursued this end over a number of years, covering, rather like a soap, specific issues including sexuality, abortion, gender orientation and marriage. There is an excellent discussion of this series as a case study by Julie D’Acci (2000).
A contrasting, but equally interesting example refers to a gardening programme on British television. The researcher/writer Jacqui Gabb (1999) suggests that the audience for such programmes is dominantly female, on the basis that
G she received an exclusively female response to an open letter asking for responses,
G a 1998 live arena show of the programme (Gardeners’ World) was attended by a clear majority of women,
G the presenter would overtly address a female audience.
Gabb draws attention to the gender-oriented language about gardening used in the programme. She refers to the myths of nature, of mothering and nurturing, which are clearly invoked. She is clear that the text speaks through a female discourse to a female audience. ‘Within Gardeners’ World, the dialogue between the feminine text and the female subject is not passive discourse, but requires that “she” actively construct the narrative. [. . .] The female subject . . . is encouraged to inhabit subject positions and scenarios that she would not assume in real life, experience an emotional intensity that she is usually denied.’ Gabb also argues that the original presenter, hugely popular until
his death in 1996: ‘represented a complex blend of patriarchal authority and feminine (maternal) power, singularly embodied within a male physique’.
This kind of study, of a personal relationship between audience members and spe- cific texts, is an example not only of the use of a feminist perspective, but also of a kind of micro-study. This contrasts with the broader macro-studies that try to generalize about large audiences, even about society as a whole. Clearly there are a range of problems in understanding audiences, both in terms of defining their composition and in respect of explaining how they engage with media texts. In spite of widespread beliefs about media influence, it is easier to show how and why media are unlikely to affect audiences, than to prove that they do. We may categorize kinds of influence, and propose how this may work. But the evidence for effects on the audience is tentative, given the complexity of contextual factors at work.
I now want to move on to looking at particular aspects of specific media, with some emphasis on gender, technology and globalization. However, you will find that the scope of these chapters continues to be defined by the key areas of institution, text and audi- ence. I will hold on to an interest in the production of meanings and the work of ideology. You should find that these case studies build up that picture of media and society which has been sketched out in these first three chapters.