CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Dworkin, M., Foreman-Wernet, L., & Dervin, B. (1999). Sense-Making and television news: An inquiry into audience interpretations. The Electronic Journal of Communication [On-line serial] 9 (2, 3, & 4).
© The Electronic Journal of Communication (1999).

ABSTRACT:
This article reviews David Morley’s well-known Nationwide audience study as a way of considering some of the issues in the field of cultural studies, particularly regarding audience reception analysis. One overriding concern is the search for evidence of subordinated decodings (i.e., decodings of media messages that accept societal patterns and relationships as given) in view of the current trend of documenting interpretive resistance. We present an alternative way of studying audiences using the meta-theoretic premises and methods of Sense-Making Methodology and offer an empirical example of an audience reception study executed using Sense-Making’s qualitative sensibilities and access to quantitative analytics. Important findings include: documenting that a majority of a general population random sample of TV news viewers exhibited subordinated decodings; and, at the same time, finding that a Sense-Making derived measure of societal involvement state, which tapped situational anchorings and phenomenological interpretings proved to be the only powerful predictor of social criticism decoding. An interesting clue pointing to further research showed that in fact under some conditions labor class audience members exhibited less negotiated decodings of media messages than not-labor class audience members (consisting of managers and professionals). The paper concludes with a review of what methodological aspects of Sense-Making were seen as facilitating the search for evidence of both resistant and subordinated decodings.

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OTHER MATERIALS BY THESE AUTHORS ON THIS WEB SITE:
For Dworkin,
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistdworkin.html.
For Foreman-Wernet,
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistforemanwernet.html.
For Dervin,
See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlistdervin.html.