A peek into the black box? Audiences and the study of empirical contexts

Mathieu, D. (2011). A peek into the black box? Audiences and the study of empirical contexts . Zagreb conference: "New challenges and methodological innovations in European media audience research". 7-9 April 2011.

Abstract: Audience studies have always been a contextual inquiry. And yet, given the contextual nature of all media interpretation (Jensen, 2002), context has rarely been an empirical object of investigation in its own right, nor the subject of much theorisation (van Dijk, 2009; Corner, 1991). One has to turn to neighbouring disciplines for systematic treatments of context (van Dijk, 2009, 2008; Muchielli, 2005; Verschueren, 1999; Hanks, 1996; Sperber and Wilson, 1995). Among this multitude, a common denominator is a cognitive approach, which still needs to be spelled out vis-à-vis media reception (but see Mathieu, 2009). What does it mean to study contexts of reception? How do we study “cognitive” contexts within a necessary constructivist epistemology populated by audience “discourses”? Can a cognitive approach live up to its promise to offer a peek into the black box of interpretation? This paper wants to contribute to the craftsmanship of empirical reception studies by presenting a study and its methodology in which context is the main “analytical variable” (Jensen, 1986). Articulated around a cross-cultural study of news comprehension, the notion of context sheds light on the capacity and limitation of recipients, given their cultural background, to make media texts meaningful. Such fundamental competence, exercised by recipients, is necessarily linked to the potential of mediated communication to impact recipients in their daily life, and has implications for questions of agency with regards to media education, empowerment, citizenry or even cross-cultural understanding.