Audience Readings and Meaning Negotiation in the Film Viewing Space: An Ethnographic Study of Nollywood’s Viewing Center Audiences

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the social experiences of Nigerian film audiences in viewing centers to examine the possibility that social experiences are a potent influencer of the meaning construction process in the film viewing space. This study was conducted among other existing studies of the Nigerian film audience and it took on a performative approach. It involved the use of ethnography and unstructured interviews. The study examined Nollywood viewing center audiences during their shared practice of film viewing. Observing these audiences revealed several ways in which audiences negotiate meanings within the viewing center space from film texts based on their social identity and actual social experiences. It majorly revealed that viewers develop interpersonal understanding of each other’s similar relevant social situations through self-identification and then use this understanding in the interpretive process of meaning production.