Page 33 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

24 Shaeda Isani and Geoffrey Sykes

RECEPTION THEORIES

If this is the case, what more needs to be added to contextualise the
subject matter, in this case of a court‘s functions? In terms of media theory,
Lazarsfeld‘s stepped model of message reception is a classic account of how
television programs are not received and interpreted in isolation from a social
context of their audience [Blake, 125]. Thus, another level of commentary and
presentation is involved, occurring not in the studio but in the viewer‘s living
room, neighbourhood or workplace . Despite the appearance of individual and
hermetically isolated viewing patterns, the television is a social media and
invites ongoing social talk about its content.
What is distinct about our example is that television was being viewed in a
group situation. The revulsion and reaction by students could have been as
much a rhetorical strategy and pre-sequence to talk about the show as an
authentic register of their individual feelings. As such it could have been
exaggerated peer talk, pre-sequencing more nuanced or appropriate
consideration. On the other hand, the group and class-room situation may have
afforded a more candid opportunity to share individual responses that would
otherwise have been implicit and inhibited.
It can be argued that the classroom reaction was context related. Given the
formal and unbalanced situation of communication – classroom, teacher,
knowledge gap, learning and silence – the students produced what they
considered to be the expected appropriate behaviour. When they watch their
blood and cadaver series lounging on a sofa in their living rooms, they are
probably drinking soft-drinks, smoking and talking on their mobiles at the
same time. As Lazarsfeld argues, viewing television is in part a ―stepped‖,
social activity, inviting and relying on discourse and shared responses. The
context of these social responses could be reiterated in the more formal
classroom setting, producing a form of familiarity that is also embarrassing.
The students‘ response is an unchecked mix of both motivations – recognition
of embarrassment at the repetition, out of context, of a familiar show.
Social reception theory provides another clue to teasing out the inquiry
about the students‘ responses. The American police procedural and coronial
television series include dimensions or ―steps‖ of talk perhaps absent from the
more controlled documentary presentation. Actual or scripted renditions of
police, judicial and participant talk provide an essential social and legal
context to footage of injured or dissected bodies. Reality television embodies
and demonstrates social reception theories – that television is a conversational
medium, inviting and requiring forms of discursive response by audiences.