Ang on: The Politics Of Media Research

It may be argued that one of Ang's most acclaimed articles concerns the topic of empirical audience research. In short, the way in which media audiences are studied and therefore represented when analysing a media text or format. The article entitled On the Politics of Empirical Audience Research analyses the work of David Morley, a respected media researcher. In the article, Ang discusses the ethical and political issues surrounding audience research in media studies. In particular, she criticises commercial research that is purely based on statistics and ratings. Saying that to achieve a "critical" and empirically valid analysis of an audience, qualitative data must be used.This is because Ang agrees with Morley's reasoning; that ratings analysis does not account the social, political and environmental context of how a member of a media audience receives the product in question. It is therefore logical that qualitative data (in the form of interviews and questionnaires) would provide a much more detailed and valid analysis of the way in which audiences receive media products.

Ang also expands on Morley’s work in this article. She focusses on the difference between “mainstream” and “critical” research, saying that: 

“I am proposing an open and contextual definition of critical research, one that does not allow itself to rest easily on pre-existent epistemological foundations but, on the contrary, is reassessed continuously according to the ways in which it contributes to our understanding of the world”. 

[ P177 - Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks ]

This clear, but in itself “open”, definition of critical research allows for a more in depth and contextually valid analysis of a media audience.

It is this expansion of Morley’s work that I will be focussing on in the next instalment. What impact has this article and point of view has had on the field of audience research?

References:
Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks : Durham & Kellner (2006) Blackwell