Spectatorship: An Introduction

Spectatorship, in relation to how cinema is perceived, is a concept defined by how an individual responds to a film based on the contexts of the environment they view it in. This kind of environment being less of a physical one and more of a political, psychological or sociological perspective driven by opinions and morals and natural responses from the viewer. How a viewer infers meaning from the sound and imagery of a particular moment or overall narrative of a feature is what ‘spectatorship’ is concerned with. And yet it goes further than this as when analysing spectatorship, we are no longer simply concerned with how the thoughts and feelings of characters on screen are presented but how these stylistic elements relate to society and things found in real life.

For example, when an audience member is considered to be ‘passive’ or ‘active’ in terms of how they participate or engage in the viewing experience, and this is based off of how many of these symbolic or societal connections they make. It’s suggested that that an audience is almost always engaged in these implications whilst they immerse themselves in the characters and world (which may or not be representative of our own world). Various analytical models are based off on this concept of ‘active’ or ‘passive’ audience members:

• The ‘Hypodermic Syringe’ Model is an analytical standpoint which suggests that all members are truly passive, meaning that any meaning that they may infer from the work has to have been intentional on the part of the filmmaker
• The ‘Uses and Gratification’ Model suggests that each audience member’s perspective is unique and driven by completely different moral or social backgrounds and therefore each individual will have a considerably different reaction to what they see on screen

These concepts may be considered flawed however. For instance, the ideas introduced in ‘Death Of The Author’ famously suggest that the work should be treated as something not with a fixed message but as an open form of artistic expression to be interpreted in a range of ways by the ‘consumer’. Whilst this most commonly applies to literature, it can be argued that often filmmakers don’t necessarily “have all the answers” and that, whilst carefully and beautifully crafted pieces of work a feature film may be, in the end it’s up to the audience to draw what they can from what they see unfolding. Stuart Hall has a theory which suggests a film has no meaning until interpreted (by the viewer).