Paddy Scannell’s analysis of broadcasting as a ‘for-anyone-assomeone
structure’ (2000: 5) remains a key theoretical delineation of
the role radio, television (and, now, digital media) play in everyday
life. In essence, the development and deployment of the ‘for-anyone-assomeone
structure’ allowed the speech patterns of broadcasting to gain
and retain relevance to individual listeners and viewers within a mass
context. As recent research has demonstrated (Ekstrom et al 2013),
Scannell’s model remains relevant to contemporary mediascapes,
particularly in relation to formats, like news, where broadcasting
“speaks” directly to listeners and viewers. There is, however, another
level on which broadcasting speaks its listeners and viewers – the
wider, systemic level set by the rules, standards and norms within
which individual networks, stations, and people “make” broadcasting
happen. From this perspective, one can note that Scannell developed
his model within the British context where commercial messages,
where they are present, are relatively limited in reach and scope by
regulation and professional practice. This paper will argue that a
different category of listener and viewer exists within highly
commercialised media environments like New Zealand’s – the
commodified listener / viewer, who is spoken to by her broadcasting
system as “someone special”.
