Page 192 - Decoding Culture

THE RISE F THE READER 185
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constituted something of a radical critical development in media
research. During the 1980s, however, revision became necessary,
above all because of 'growing disenchantment with the class con­
flict model of society that framed much of its [the radical
tradition's] research output' (Curran, 1990: 139).
This revision took various forms (including compromises
between radical and pluralist traditions in media studies) but was
particularly far-reaching, in Curran's view, in the prominent and
growing concern with audience reception. This is an area of media
research that has been extensively mythologized,' he observes
acidly (ibid: 145), going on to suggest that the belief that 'new'
audience analysis is excitingly innovative is only possible in the
context of a foreshortened misreading of the history of communi­
cations research. There are plenty of precursors to reception
studies, he claims, not least the long-established 'uses and gratifi­
cations' model. The new revisionism is therefore engaged in
'rediscovering the wheel', which would not matter were it not for
the loss of critical edge that this entails. All too often it has 'resulted
in old pluralist dishes being reheated and presented as new cuisine'
(ibid: 151).
Of course, Curran is being somewhat disingenuous here.
Although 'new revisionism' does indeed turn attention away from
a direct concern with the structuring impact on the media of
politico-economic factors, it cannot straightforwardly be equated
with the pluralist and functionalist analyses espoused in uses and
gratifications research. As Ang (1996: 42) observes in drawing this
very distinction, unlike the uses and gratifications project the aim
of new audience research 'is to arrive at a more historicized and
contextualized insight into the ways in which "audience activity" is
articulated within and by a complex set of social, political, eco­
nomic and cultural forces'. In the present theoretical circumstances
this may be something of a utopian aim, but it is certainly true

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