ABSTRACT
We can now return to the institutional predicament as outlined by Metz at the beginning of Chapter 1: the fact that there is no way for mass media institutions to secure the conditions of their own reproduction by exerting direct control over their audiences. In this situation, says Metz, the conquest of audiences can only be endeavoured by instilling a ‘spontaneous’ desire in people to be audience members. The principal way to do this, of course, is trying to convince people of the attractiveness or usefulness of the medium and its programming. Thus, eventually it is through the rhetorical assumptions of the programmes transmitted-their genres, their style, their subject matter, their place in the overall schedule-that actual audiences are affected by institutional control. This is applicable to both commercial and public service television institutions. As Williams (1976:133) has noted, ‘the control claimed as…a matter of principle by [public service] paternalists, is often achieved as a matter of practice in the operation of the commercial system’. For instance, commercial television programming is generally characterized by a regular and predictable flow of entertainment programmes, so as to secure the prolonged attention of the taxonomized audience member/ consumer, while public service television puts a distinctive emphasis on programmatic comprehensiveness (i.e. a varied range of informative, educational, high cultural and entertainment programmes) so as to offer the taxonomized audience member/citizen a responsible, meaningful TV diet.
