Page 179 - Decoding Culture

172 D E C O D I N G C U L TURE
on an ability to understand how social actors themselves define and
understand their own communication practices - their decisions,
their choices and the consequences of both for their daily lives
and their subsequent actions - as well as on the ability of the
researcher to bring into the analysis (and even offer his or her
subjects) the benefits of more structural considerations'. In its first
part, this passage could represent any V e �tehen-inclined research
strategy, any attempt to remain true to the character of actors'
experiences of everyday life, so it is not surprising to find Morley
invoking the father of phenomenological sociology, Alfred Schutz,
a page or two later. In its second part, however, a more distinctive
claim is being made about the importance of incorporating 'struc­
tural considerations'. That immediately begs the question of what
conceptual materials such structural considerations are composed,
which, in turn, requires the 'ethnographer' to lay out the theory of
structure through which these phenomena will be identified.
Structures do not identify themselves; they require conceptual
framing. Morley's formulation clearly assumes that these concepts
are brought to the analysis by the researcher - they do not simply
emerge inductively from the phenomenal account.
Two kinds of claim are being made here. One supposes that it is
both possible and desirable to understand audience activity from
within and to describe that activity in its own terms. The other
requires that such 'ethnographic' description be related to some
model of structure that is used to (re) interpret patterns of activity
in a larger socio-cultural context. Morley's use of gender in Family
T e levision is presumably an instance of such interpretation, but it
remains untheorized in its relation to other aspects of the struc­
turing environment. Of course, a radically phenomenological
position would anyway deny the validity and possibility of the
second structuring moment of Morley's project, accepting only
accounts cast in the terms provided by the social agents involved.

Copyrighted Material