Encoding Crime, Decoding Morality: Audience Reception and Social Media Engagement of a TV Show

• In Event: Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 5. Boundaries & Crime

Abstract

Despite significant transformations in media technologies and consumption patterns, television continues to play a central role in everyday life in Türkiye. Although average daily viewing time has gradually declined since the mid-2000s, recent data demonstrate that television still occupies nearly four hours of daily attention. At the same time, internet and social media usage have reached unprecedented levels, with individuals spending more than seven hours per day online. Rather than replacing television, digital platforms have become intertwined with it, extending television content beyond the traditional broadcast screen. Programs now circulate through platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, X, and Ekşi Sözlük, enabling audiences to watch, comment, debate, and reinterpret content in real time. This convergence has transformed viewers from passive recipients into visible and interactive participants.
Drawing on Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, this study investigates how audiences interpret media messages in this interactive environment. Focusing on the Turkish daytime crime-reality program Müge Anlı ile Tatlı Sert, the research analyzes more than 22,800 user-generated comments related to a specific murder case discussed on the show. Combining quantitative content analysis and critical discourse analysis, the study categorizes audience responses into dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings.
Preliminary findings indicate that while dominant readings—aligned with the program’s moral and ideological framing—are prevalent, negotiated and oppositional interpretations also emerge. Viewers actively reinterpret themes of gender roles, morality, masculinity, and social media use, though their critiques often remain within culturally familiar boundaries. Platform-specific differences further shape reception, suggesting that meaning-making is mediated not only by individual perspectives but also by digital affordances and norms.
Overall, the study demonstrates that contemporary television must be understood as a cross-platform communicative process in which encoding and decoding occur continuously across broadcast and social media environments.

Author

• Idil Akin, Kadir Has University