Selective perception theory falsely privatizes systematically structured audience readings

Evidence

In recent years, discrepancies of this kind are usually accounted for in terms of individually “aberrant” readings, attributed to “selective perception.” “Selective perception” is the door via which, in recent research, a residual pluralism is reserved within the sphere of a highly structured, a-symmetrical cultural operation. Of course, there will always be individual, private, variant readings. But my own tentative view is that “selective perception” is almost never as selective, random, or privatized as the concept suggests. The patterns exhibit more structuring and clustering than is normally assumed. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 805

Categorization

• SEED: The critique of ‘selective perception’ could frame an essay on how audience studies have (mis)handled resistance and variance.
• XREF: This critique targets the ‘residual pluralism’ of media-effects research, connecting to debates in cultural studies versus empirical communication research. — connects to: Audience measurement ceded programming control to ratings rather than taste or decency — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 494