Amazon Town TV: An Audience Ethnography in Gurupá, Brazil

5. Heeding Interpellation

CHAPTER 5 Heeding Interpellation Since the 1980s the television viewers of Gurupá have been exposed to a steady stream of messages interpellating them to accept and submit to sets of social identities and worldviews presented in programming. As discussed in Chapter 2, the messages call upon viewers to join in national unity, adopt a pan-Brazilian lifestyle and worldview, and consume products advertised on television.They show viewers the virtues of modernization and progress, warn of the corresponding problems of crime and violence , tell of the possibility of class mobility, depict women as active and as the equal of men as well as sexualized objects, and inform of both the corruption and the valor of politicians. They provide glimpses into other social worlds, tell stories about how to deal with both the mundane and the extraordinary problems of life, and provide bits of narrative to allow viewers to imagine different lives. The questions we want to address are, How do Gurupaenses respond to this deluge of information, and how do all the messages, representations, narratives of the possible, and warnings of the improper alter or reinforce viewers’ social identities, worldviews, and behaviors? In this chapter we focus on how Gurupaenses respond positively to televisual messages (Figures 5.1 and 5.2). We are interested in the process of heeding interpellation, beginning with the most easily identifiable types of changes, namely, those found in observable behavior such as TV-talk, consumption, and display of material items. We also discuss changes that are more difficult to detect, such as those found in shifts in social identities and worldviews. Even when the audience accepts a preferred message or social identity, a certain amount of interpretation, reworking , negotiating, or hybridization to fit preexisting cultural patterns must take place. In addition, parts of messages may be heeded, or heeded Figure 5.1. Rosi and Meire’s family watching television. Photograph by R. Pace, 2011. Figure 5.2. TV viewing in the Dias household. Photograph by R. Pace, 2011. 110 Amazon Town TV sometimes, but also missed, ignored, or resisted. Further complicating matters, the messages broadcast on television may be polysemic; that is, they may have contradictory messages. Despite these difficulties, we have found consistent and identifiable patterns in how people heed television’s interpellation. Perhaps surprisingly, we do not find strong statistical relationships between viewer reception and the demographic factors of social class, age, and gender. Even though Kottak’s television reception model predicts well-marked statistical correlations between viewing and other factors in the early phases of television acculturation, in the Gurupá sample social class, age, and gender are not among them. The key to understanding this pattern, we suggest, lies in the relatively homogeneous class structure of the community. From a comparative perspective (which differs somewhat from respondents’ self-reported class standings), approximately 95 percent of Gurupá’s population falls within the C and D range on the IBOPE social class scale (i.e., working class) and only about 5 percent at the B3 level (i.e., the lowest stratum of the middle class). In addition, the differences between C and B3 households in terms of wealth, income, occupational prestige, education, and consumer purchasing power are incremental , making it difficult to clearly delineate social class hierarchies, which is an observation also supported by local perceptions. Given the relatively small variation in socioeconomic terms, it is less surprising that our findings show little or no statistically significant relationships between responses and social class standing. Explaining the lack of strong statistical variations in terms of age and gender is more problematic .We suspect the recent and rapid spread of the medium negates strong age-related variations. The variations we find in gendered responses, which exist but are not statistically significant, may indicate that at least in this stage of television exposure perceptions stemming from social class homogeneity are more critical and powerful than gendered perceptions. TV-Talk “TV-talk” refers to the manner in which viewers discuss new ideas, concepts , and beliefs presented on television. These discussions are essential to creating meaning and relevance through interpretive discourse (Wilk 2002a; Lull 1988; Katz and Liebes 1984). When viewers do this collectively in their community or region or nationally, they participate in a discourse community. In Gurupá we find that viewers’ participation in television discourse communities provides them with novel information Heeding Interpellation 111 to rethink all kinds of social identities, worldviews, and behaviors. It...