Page 44 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

4 Understanding and theorizing
cultural change

So far I have argued a number of general points maintaining that in the con-
text of wide-ranging processes of social and cultural change it is crucial to
develop a revised theory of ordinary life. This theory combines a focus on the
mundane day-to-day events and practices that make up ordinary life, with
increased attention to the ways in which media are structuring and restructur-
ing a number of aspects of our lives. Morover, in the previous chapter I have
identified, on the basis of recent literature, some key processes of socio-cultural
change that provide an integrated context for this conceptualization of ordi-
nary life. At several points, I have argued somewhat briefly that it is important
that this ordinary life is seen as involving audience and performance pro-
cesses. However, I have not fully grounded or contextualized that argument.
That is the task of this chapter. This discussion will provide the third aspect
of the background for the subsequent discussion in the book. I proceed as
follows. I begin by considering issues of spectacle, performance and performa-
tivity outlining the significance of the spectacle/performance paradigm for the
study of media audiences. This grounds my contention that these processes are
at the heart of ordinary life. This leads to examination of important dif-
ferences between audience positions and some critical research questions. It is
important to emphasize that, once more, I will be selective.

Spectacle, performance and performativity
While increased research attention to media audiences has been important,
future understandings will be limited unless reformulated in the context of
audience change (Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998). Moreover, such changes
require new modes of conceptualization. The two most important ways of
conceptualizing the audience – the behavioural paradigm and the incorpor-
ation/resistance paradigm are limited in critical ways. The behavioural para-
digm tends to consider the audience as individuals as either affected by the
media (often in a pernicious way by, for example, propaganda or by particular
representations of sexual activity, violence, and so on) or as individuals
who use the media to fulfil certain wants and needs (in the so-called uses and
gratifications approach).