The audience of the popular: From Eco to Fiske

The paper analyzes the works of Umberto Eco and John Fiske, which are dedicated to the consideration of the audience of popular culture/arts. It is a comparative analysis performed from a sociological-aesthetic standpoint. The author of this paper claims that the oeuvres of these two theoreticians differ in both their scopes and their theoretical aspirations. However, they are close in at least one thing, and that is the relation toward the audience of popular culture. Eco's 'open' or 'empty' form of literary and artistic works allows for the activity of the audience in the communication process, while Fiske finds that the activity of the recipients of popular culture is not merely allowed but also compelling. On the one hand, Umberto Eco examines art in the wider sense, touching upon the phenomenon of the popular as well (pop-art, beat literature, film, television), while John Fiske, on the other, dedicated his entire body of work to popular culture - understanding the popular, reading the popular, the audience of the popular. They treat it as free, active and creative, and believe that it, more or less, participates in the act of creation and final shaping of a work. The audience, therefore, not only receives the aesthetic messages but also creates them. For Fiske, the study of popular culture is the study of the circulation of a text meaning, and each act of cultural consumption an act of meaning production as well. However, while Eco does not observe 'openness' as indeterminacy and creation in the chaos of uncontrolled freedom, Fiske gives the audience total freedom in the selection of meanings and pleasures. He excludes any value (aesthetic and moral) criteria, and deems the activity of the audience subversive in relation to the mainstream culture. Finally, the author provides a critical review of Eco's and Fiske's notions of the audience of popular culture. The critique implies emphasizing both the negative and the positive aspects of the analyzed theoretical concepts. The paper also contains the opinions of other theoreticians of popular culture who criticize Fiske's anti-aestheticism and 'cultural populism'.