Discursive texts, reflexive audiences: Global trends in television news texts and audience reception

Abstract

This study examines the process of media globalization at the level of meaning generation (by television news texts) and interpretation (by audiences) based on the analysis of news‐texts and focus groups from four countries. It is suggested that the narrative of television news is discursive: it provides a specific vision of cultural “others”. At the audience level there is the emergence of a global culture of critical media consumption. This reflexive mode is born of a familiarity with the narrative conventions of the genre and the institutional imperatives of the media industries.