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72 Communication Theory & Research
Micro/Macro Problems

First it should be clear that reception analysis dissociates itself explicitly from the
study of larger, long-term influences or ‘effects’ on a macro-level and focuses the
analysis on the concrete individual consumption of specific programmes in
specific contexts (micro-level). In contrast to most experimental studies on effects,
reception analysis is not even really interested in isolating the specific influence
of one factor (a stimulus), by eliminating or controlling all other contextual
factors in an experimental design. In its ethnographic vein, reception analysis
emphasizes the interactive processes between a ‘text’ and its ‘readers’ in their
varying manifestations situated in a natural context (Curran, 1990: 150; LeCompte
and Goetz, 1982: 33). [...]
Considering this formulation of the research problematic it is clear that the
macro-problematic in relation to ‘effects’ will never be solved by reception
analytical studies. Moreover, studying the long-term social consequences of a
great quantity of American fiction programming faces insuperable difficulties
from a research point of view. How can, for example, the cultural influence of
these programmes be dissociated from influences of other socioeconomic devel-
opments? Yet, reception analysis can give extremely valuable information on the
decoding of US fiction on a micro-level. According to Höijer (1990b: 30–1), ‘any
theory of long-term effects of mass media thus has to take short-term effects into
account, although not equalizing the two levels’.

The Relationship between Decoded Meanings and Impact

A second problem deals with the question of how to relate decoded meanings
to impact. Although several qualitative audience enquiries introduce their
studies with a plea for the need to conduct research on audience responses in
relation to the problematic of the influence of US fiction, they are obliged to
talk with great caution about impact, influence or effects. Liebes and Katz
(1986: 151–2) write that their study is ‘not of effects but rather of the
processes that might lead to effects’. In the same vein of well-considered
restraint Herta Herzog (1986: 351; 1987: 95) presents her study of audience
responses to Dallas as (only) a necessarily preliminary investigation to a possible
study of impact.
As Katz and Liebes later wrote (1990: 58), it is appropriate and even necessary
to reflect on how to interpret such reception analytical data with regard to
effects. Here an ambivalent position can be observed.
On the one hand, it is obvious that researchers working within the reception
perspective will always adopt a distant, cautious attitude towards a concept like
impact. [...] On the other hand, there seems to exist a sort of consensus on some
of the directions that a potential textual impact may take. This is quite clear in
relation to the concept of involvement. For Liebes and Katz (1986: 151–2) this con-
cept is important because it ‘may hold the key to effect’ and it designates ‘depen-
dence on the message’. As involvement may say something about impact, one