How Do Viewers Differ in Making Sense of a Television Ad?

He also understood that it was presenting a stereotypical picture of the British as he said that having new, good quality shoes is characteristic of what the British traditionally valued.  Neither the Canadian nor the Taiwanese recognised that this was a British tradition, which could be reflective of the culture divide, but I (also being British and part of the target audience) did not know that the British had a particularity for new shoes.  This supports Messaris’ view 1997:95, that 'there may be a gap in relevant cultural knowledge between viewers’ in an ad’s country of origin and their counterparts in other places, but in many, if not most, cases, that gap is not very profound.' If not only another country but also the target audience does not understand the reference, it may be as in my case, that the reference is linked to a previous generation or tradition, which is not so well known or relevant today.

James understands the dominant readings but in one case (the American scene) he actually opposes this code and thereby offers an oppositional reading.  He understands that it is typical for Americans to go out and play pool but the image does not appeal to him, he rejects the reading of the Americans being funny or showing that the shoes are cool because he '(brings) to bear an alternative frame of reference' (Hall, 1980 and Morley, 1981, cited in Chandler, 2000). In this case it is a political reference.  James states himself as a communist and in his words he does not 'particularly get on with American culture', so this image does not appeal to him. 

In the retelling of a story, it is common for people to have assumed parts of the story line through their use of indirect perception.  This sort of perception is driven by hypotheses and schemata (Chandler 1995).  This occurs quite significantly in James’ account about the Siberian women in the advert.  He tells us that 'she shows the shoes to her friends, and they cry over them.'  In studying the advert, it is clear that there is no point in it that anyone cries at all.  James infers that the woman is crying through using cognitive structures that he has in his mind about how women act.  Livingstone,1990:91 believes that interpretation can be altered through the subconscious use of schemata, believing that 'The schema is a representational concept which is often used to replace concepts such as stereotype, attitude, belief or opinion.' Here, James uses the schema that the British have, about women being stereotypically weak and weepy which leads him to automatically assume that she was crying.  If this advert were shown to someone from a country where women are traditionally seen to be the toughest of the sexes, then this schematic reading would have been quite unlikely. 

Kate does a similar thing, although instead of adding a detail, she subconsciously changes what is already there to fit what she would expect.  Perceptions of the sexes are certainly not limited to the British.  In Canadian Kate’s account of the German section, she says she thinks it is crazy that the man angrily accused the other of not noticing the shoes.  In actual fact it was a woman that threw the accusation.  In this case it would appear here that she is using assimilation to expectation in that she is changing the details to make them more consistent with what she believes is natural for the scene.  Stereotypically men are more aggressive than women and therefore she assumes it is a man starting the confrontation. 

There is only one point in this experiment whereby one seems to give what Hall,1980 and Morley,1981, cited in Chandler, 2000 state as a ‘negotiated reading’, whereby the reader generally accepts the preferred reading but may alter it in some way as a reflection of their background, interests or needs.  This is the case with James’ interpretation of the Siberian scene.  James understands that it is representative in its display of the snow and the skidoo but he says that his understanding is hindered slightly because what he associates mostly with Russia is vodka.  He says:  'If she went round there, they looked at the shoes and then got blasted on vodka, then maybe I could understand it as a stereotypically Russian thing to do.' This way of thinking could be demonstrative of what the British feel Russia to represent, if one has an understanding of what a certain culture’s attributes are, our interpretations can be hindered if they are shown to us in an unfamiliar way.  However, one could also view this as being reflective of James’ interests and experiences of being a student and the drinking connotations that go with this.

An example of where one misreads the advert because of a lack of cultural knowledge is shown in Kate’s account.  She again presented a reasonably accurate linear recall of the advert and a fairly dominant reading, but when she got to the Japanese section, she says: 'And then we have Japan, I think it is Japan, a lady has new shoes, in a subway or something, and everyone is plastered against the window, very strange!' On being prompted as to what is happening here she replies: 'I really haven’t a clue what is going on here, are they plastered to the window because they want desperately to see the new shoes?' This is evidence of the fact that Kate does not know of the cultural situation in Japan where it is very crowded and people are crammed into trains.  She reads it as if the people are excited to see the shoes, rather than them being plastered onto the window because, with space being made for the shoes, there is no more room on the train for them. 

For the Taiwanese girl Amy, the Japanese section is the only part she fully understands and gives a hegemonic reading to:  'It’s really crowded in the Japanese one, it’s really busy there, I know it happens in Japan.  She seems to view the Japanese part in a referential frame, talking about it being a reflection of life, even substituting herself for the actress: 'I am the girl, I want to protect my shoes.' 

In asking her to recall the other sections of the advert Amy seems to take on a more critical frame identified by Liebes and Katz, 1993:77.  She says:  'I just remember the guys were shouting ‘new shoes, new shoes’, different people from different countries, Clarks is trying to push the idea of new shoes.' In her comment concerning the German section she remarks: 'Germany, really strong German accent, Birkenstock, really comfortable shoes.' Amy seems to understand the main message of the advert as selling comfortable Clarks shoes, emphasised by her reference to the counterpart German shoe brand, but she seems to take an oppositional stance with her following comment:  To the Siberia one, she says:  'Everywhere in ice, I don’t know, why are these girls showing these shoes?  Why in this weather do you need sandals?  You should need boots.' Clarks goes wrong here - they  suggest impracticality.' To the American one, she says, 'Why does this man jump up?  What a freak!' This perhaps suggests that the Taiwanese culture is concerned heavily with practicality but this also could infer that the western humour is a barrier in preventing her understanding of the characters’ actions.  Amy does laugh occasionally but tends to find that the advert is more inappropriately bizarre than humorous.  When asked if she believes them to be stereotypes, she says apart from the Japanese one, no: 'I don’t recognise it apart from seeing the flag.' Livingstone,1990:161 states the importance of understanding character in order to interpret narrative 'for viewers use their knowledge of characters to create coherent and consistent meanings for the events they perceive.'  If Amy cannot understand the characters reactions or the humour involved then the events are meaningless. 

In asking all the students how they would describe the character portrayals, all the responses that they came up with were that they were stereotypes, or ‘crazy people’, or unrealistic.  At the same time however, it is important to consider how much any viewer can adopt a certain feeling towards the characters considering the fact that they are stereotypes.  These characters cannot grow and change as real people do, like we may find in a soap opera for example. (Livingstone, 1990:161) This is why differences in interpreting character portrayal are generally inapplicable within this advert. 

It may seem difficult for viewers to relate to the characters in an advert, but if we are to look at it in another fashion, by relatively comparing our British advertising characters in general, in conjunction with those in American ads, we may find it an easy task to apply key psychological factors, such as recognition or perspective taking to British advertising. (Chandler 1995).  Kate said that in Canada they get a lot of ads from the US: 'a lot of them are flashy with beautiful people with just constant direct references to how fab their product is, I switch off, they’re boring and superficial, generally I have not noticed that here.' Goldman (1992:58) supports her statement, saying the more advertisers promise in association with their products, the more they strain the credulity of increasingly ‘savvy’ viewers, who react with postures of indifference and cynicism.' This seems to show us that some viewers need to see an advert, which goes further than the hard sell before they will even consider putting an interpretation on it. 

A reasonable amount of differences in interpretations between the varied nationalities have been discussed, which are likely to have stem from the fact that they have on occasions not been familiar with particular representational conventions.  This is my preferred reading.  Using a qualitative approach through interviews with three students, it has been possible to gain detailed and elaborate responses concerning students’ views and the effects of their culture.  However, in any survey of this kind, it is vital to understand that a small sample can never be fully representative of society and when dealing with foreigners, there is always the chance that the language barrier could be a problem, (the language of the text and the language involved in relating the events and understanding the interviewer.)  It is also important to consider that, however at ease one tries to make the participant, a one-on-one interview can be intimidating which can lead to changes in response, as Dahlgren, 1988:295-7, cited in Moores, 2000:26) says 'there is a fundamental dichotomy between ‘official’ and ‘personal’ modes of talk.'

Having noted the differences, however, it is also very important to realise that when asked about the main overall message, 'ClarksNew Shoes bring excitement' was the general consensus and it was not necessary (although it could certainly have been beneficial) to recognise the cultural references in order to understand this idea.

We could make a comparison here with The Simpsons: this is a cartoon which is packed full of intertextual references but still remains to be loved, for its wacky nature by under-socialised viewers such as children who have not yet acquired the skills necessary to decipher the codes (Goldman, 1992:81).  All nationalities during the New Shoes advert (even if they did not understand the stereotypes) saw the characters as wacky, crazy and over exaggerated which prompted them all to laugh (if only occasionally by the Taiwanese.)  Advertisers more often than not cover themselves, by including some qualities which are recognised internationally so that usually on some level, whatever further interpretations are made or not, a basic preferred understanding is usually conceivable. 

References

• Chandler, Daniel, 1995, The Active Reader, [www document] URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC10220/active.html
• Chandler, Daniel, 1995, Theories of Perception, [www.document] URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC10220/
• Chandler, Daniel, 2001, Semiotics for Beginners: Encoding/Decoding, [www document] URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/Documents/S4B/
• Goldman, Robert, 1992, Reading Ads Socially, London, Routledge
• Liebes,Tamar& Elihu Katz,, 1993, The Export of Meaning, Cross-cultural Readings of Dallas, Oxford, Oxford University Press
• Livingstone, Sonia, 1990, Making Sense of Television, London, Routledge,
• Messaris, Paul, 1997, Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising, USA, Sage Publications
• Moores, Shaun, 1993, Interpreting Audiences: The Ethnography of Media Consumption, London, Sage Publications