The Resourceful Reader: Interpreting Television Characters and Narratives

Abstract

The television viewer is an active interpreter, not a passive recipient, of programs. Viewers’ interpretations of programs mediate television effects. The “active viewer” is accepted by both traditional and critical mass communication scholars, allowing for a possible convergence between these two schools through a more sophisticated theory of the relation between text and reader. Recent empirical research within the reader-reception theory tradition is discussed. An original research program is described in which the “role of the reader” is explored, using both quantitative and qualitative methods to show how viewers’ interpretations of programs depend on their sociocognitive resources (a summary of experiences and understandings of everyday life) as well as on program structure. Theoretical problems with reception research are considered, focusing on the differences between comprehension and interpretation and between consensus and divergence, and the nature of the preferred reading and the active viewer.