抄録
Content analytic approaches interpreting the “codes” of media representation and those focusing on the active audience have overlooked the effects of materiality associated with the agency of objects and the materiality of symbols. In contrast, this paper integrates into the theory of audience studies the subversion caused by non–human materiality, a form of subversion that cannot be reduced to active interpretive practices by humans.
Hall’s active audience theory has been associated with Butler’s performativity theory. In contrast, this paper establishes a connection between Shannon’s communication theory, the origin of the encoding/decoding theory, with Derrida and Hiroki Azuma’s misdelivery theory. Consequently, the subversion induced by material “noise” is conceptualized as “misdelivery.”
An instance of political subversion resulting from misdelivery is evident in the phenomenon where sexual desire for two–dimensional characters is differentiated from human–oriented sexuality. This paper critically assesses Azuma’s assertion that the desire for two–dimensional characters is “analogous to the behavioral principle of drug addicts.” Drawing on Becker’s examination of marijuana users and Akihiro Kitada’s non–semantic media literacy theory, the paper demonstrates the political potential of the “addictive audience” formed through engagement with media content.
Conventional content analytic approaches and active audience approaches falls short in capturing the phenomenon that the same “code” can yield different effects based on alterations in the material requirements that instantiate that code. We must not only consider the aspect wherein material objects constrain human action but also recognize that human meaning-making, social, and cultural conditions constrain the agency of objects.
