Media Audiences Exam 2

Types of fan fics

-"Slash" fiction: eroticized fan fiction -Filking: song or poetry created for a fandom -Fanzines: fan magazine

Semiotics

-A focus on the process of communicating messages -Systematic study of signs and their significance in society

Moral Economy

-A home is a part of the moral economy -The house is both an economic unit, which is involved, through the productive and consumptive activities of its members, in the public economy, and at the same time it is a complex economic unit in its own terms

Mean World Syndrome

-A term coined by George Gerbner to describe a phenomenon whereby violence related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is -One of the main conclusions of cultivation theory

Cultivation Theory

-Argues that audiences' conceptions of reality are developed through exposure to television over a period of months and years -People who viewed more TV are more likely to view reality in the way it is perceived on TV

Negotiated Position

-Audience somewhat gets the message (MOST LIKELY) -Audience would interpret the message with a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements -They understand the dominant code but also filter media through the lens of their own individualized experiences and worldview

Dominant-Hegemonic Position

-Audience takes away the message that producers wanted them to -Acceptance of the message without a great deal of reflection

Erotic Intertextuality

-Beer and liquor ads often create erotic tension around the members of a threesome (man, women, and a bottle of beer) -This is accomplished between intertextual referencing between the advertising text and the sports text -Audiences are invited to make the connections between the advertised product and the cultural meaning implied by the cannibalized site -Placing a beer ad with cans saying "Yes they're big and yes they're real" right next to a page with a swimsuit model

Horse Race Coverage Effects

-Both bandwagon and underdog effects are contingent upon whether voters were paying close attention to the polls in an election, as well as their degree of support for that particular candidate -The more uncertain voters were about their candidate choice, the more likely they were to join the perceived majority opinion -During elections, news media provides constant updates on which candidate is leading in opinion polls -Poll-centered, strategy oriented news coverage rather than issues-oriented increased voter cynicism over politics in general

Second Wave Fan Studies

-Broadening the narrow understanding of fandom -Continuum of fandom: consumer, enthusiast, fan, producer

The Representative Public Sphere

-By the Middle Ages, public gatherings to discuss public opinion were dead -In its place, kings and feudal lords were the only individuals apart of the "public" -There were still events held in public such as marriages, trials, and hangings, but these events were largely ceremonial

Ritual View of Communication

-Comm is a central daily ritual that helps form and sustain communities over time -We consume media to retell the stories of our society -Communication - the construction of reality - represents, maintains, adapts, and shares the beliefs of a society in time

Transmission View of Communication

-Communication links the way messages are transmitted and received -Emphasizes the transmission of information from point A to B

Liebes and Katz

-Conducted empirical observations of Israeli viewers of Dallas -Invited over 400 participants to a central location to view Dallas with an in-depth discussion following -Family loyalties, notions of ethics, gender roles, and standards of success and wealth were heavily talked about amongst the discussion groups -Family issues were huge and many of the viewers used the program as a sort of documentary that related to issues in their own lives -Cultural contexts play a huge role in an audience member decoding a message

Culture Industry

-Culture is manufactured and we purchase it -We consume a specific social order in media & spend our time trying to get it -We crave "standardized" culture - no original thoughts or questioning factors (We are ONLY consumers) -The fact that pop culture is neither difficult nor demanding & that it offers simple & direct pleasures contributes to its complicity in capitalist ideology -We are unable to be critical of our society because of our culture There is no good (high) culture and no bad (pop) culture

Nationwide Audience Studies

-David Morley's study of Hill's decoding theory -Documented audience responses to Nationwide, a weekly show produced by BBC (British news & public affairs program) -Nationwide was known to speak in "common sense" language to audiences about social and economic problems -Studied audience interpretations of 2 episodes and realized that they were capable of producing their own meaning and messages out of the structure of the texts

Social Aspects of Media Fandom

-Developing communities and subcultures -Fans differ from other types of community building around media by the subject of their admiring gaze -Fans spread their enthusiasm by interacting with their peers in internet chat groups, etc. -Negative connotation around fandoms

Jhally and Lewis

-Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, & the Myth of the American Dream (1992) -Originally a book that used focus groups with white, African American, and Hispanic participants -Wanted to analyze different perspectives of decoding different interpretation positions of the Cosby show

Media Rituals

-Every day routines of consuming media -Rituals can be influenced by religion and culture -Durkheim: Religion and its rituals are a series of social practices and beliefs that bonded people together as members of a group

Parasocial Relationships & Predictors of Parasocial Breakups

-Eyal & Cohen article about the ending of Friends -Parasocial Relationships are the relationships viewers develop with characters on a TV show to the point where the feel deeply connected to these characters on a personal level -Some people go through grief when a show comes to an end or the actor leaves the show and they have to "break up" with these characters they have connected with

Fan/Fandom

-FAN: someone who is enthusiastic about the text, but being a fan does not automatically mean one is part of the fandom community -FANDOM: the community of people who interact with one another around a particular text -Someone can start as a fan and then find his/her way in to the fandom community -Fandom communities transcend their traditional role as consumers of media to become media producers themselves -Participation is the key term in studying fan culture - the acts of participating in the creation of content related to a movie, TV show, etc.

Fan studies

-FIRST WAVE: Set out to debunk many of the negative stereotypes that had been associated with fan activities -Fans were misguided at best, delusional at worst -Media fans often displayed as brainless consumers -Social misfits, intellectually immature, & feminized -Viewing fandom as "political resistance" helped these scholars debunk claiming fans as " commodity audience"

Fiske, Polysemic texts

-Fiske argued that the categories of text and audience should be dissolved, in essence, because without the interpretive intervention of the audience, media texts do not have existence or meaning -This takes away the interpretive power of the media text itself and places it solely in the hands of the audience -Argued TV was an "open" and polysemic text due to its many gaps in narrative structure and lack of flow -POLYSEMIC TEXTS: structure of the narrative and its presentation allows for a multitude of interpretations by different audiences -TV is the continual interpretation of a narrative unlike a book that you can start and finish in one setting

Screen Theory

-Focus on the ideological messages embedded within the structures of the film text -Suggests that mainstream media representations also reinforce the middle class status quo through narrative and visual strategies, therefore preventing the audience from any attempt to subvert the text -The theory condemned all mainstream media texts as incapable of maintaining any critical distance from the economic and social status quo -Advocated textual determinism (audiences' interpretations of mainstream media content were already predetermined by the structure of the text itself)

Functions of the Romance Genre

-Functions of the romance genre from women are escape, agency, self care, hope -Reading is a productive activity -Feminist reaction = romance reading perpetuates patriarchy by making women feel complacent in their roles in society

Ideology (Marxist School of Thought)

-Going back to a passive audience -Looking in to "ways in which meaning and power intersect ... ways in which meaning may serve, in specific socio-historical context, to sustain relations of domination" -1940's: looking at the culture industry (companies & corporations)

Types of Public Opinion Organizations

-Governmental Agencies (ex. Dpt. of Labor & Dpt. of Justice) -Academic Institutions -NORC is responsible for the General Social Survey (GSS), which is an annual nationwide public opinion survey -News corporations -Independent companies and organizations (ex. the Gallup, Roper, & Harris organizations)

Gendered Technologies

-Gray interviewed women and had them place a pink or blue label on technology around the house -The record, play, & rewind functions of the VCR were lilac while the timer was blue because women usually depend men to set the timer for them -Technologies themselves are not gendered but become that way through social construction within the home -Women will purposely in a way be ignorant of certain technologies so that it is not their responsibility to be in charge of them (not knowing how to work the TV so dad does it)

Public Opinion

-Group consensus about matters of public concern which has developed in the wake up informed discussion -The purpose is to communicate public sentiment and policy preferences back to government -Feedback from citizenry to those in power is an essential feature of a participatory democracy

Context

-The specific environments in which media consumption occurs -Contexts refer to both a place and a web of interpersonal relationships and interactions that occur within that space -Time is also a important part of the definition of context because we engage with media at specific moments throughout our day -These three elements (space, social environment, and time) situate our media reception experiences and shape their meaning for us

Interpretive Community

-Groups of viewers or readers may begin to construct similar meanings based on mutual shared interests or demographic similarity, social pressures, or past experiences -Fish: Different groups of readers or audiences will develop interpretations that coincide interests and experiences with a text or collection of texts -These interpretive strategies exist prior to the act of reading and therefore determine the shape of what is read -Just as interpretations of text can shift, so can interpretive communities because they are not natural or universal but learned -Interpretive communities come in to being only through the actions of their members and are subject to change over time

Media Use and Overcoming Space/Time

-Hobson interviewed British housewives -Most of these wives made it a point to listen to specific radio shows in the morning about cleaning, child care, and other domestic responsibilities -Listening to music and entertainment programs was a vital lifeline for these women in order to relieve themselves from isolation and connect with the outside world -Women actively avoided listening to or watching the news (this was masculine) -The home was a place of leisure for men while it was a workplace for women

Quick Article

-How the television portrayal of doctors on Grey's Anatomy alters viewers perception of real-life doctors -Discussed cultivation theory and how people that view the show more are more likely to think it is an accurate depiction

Bourdieu Sociology of Cultural Consumption

-Individuals place their class status on display via their "taste" or consumption patterns

The Internet & New Media in the Home

-Internet is taking over in the home and taking some time away from what used to be TV watching -Many families felt pressured to buy computers so their child wouldn't be left behind in school -Fewer mothers and older women were interested in new digital technologies -Younger audiences are adapting to greater intrusion of more media technologies within the home, and their experiences with these technologies are becoming increasingly individualized and privatized

Major Ad Tropes

-Losers & Buddies -Hotties & Bitches -Real Friends, Scary Women -Winners & Losers -Revenge of the Regular Guys

Critical Approach to Audience Reception

-Media audiences might not be as truly autonomous as the uses & gratifications theory suggests -Focusing on only short term effects of media ignored historical shifts, questions of power and social domination, and the role of economic and other institutions on social structures -You have to analyze how messages are received in particular contexts

Media Events

-Media events are rituals that occur in the public eye such as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth -The point of these media events is to bring audiences together to reflect on the nature of society as a whole and ultimately to "invite reexamination of the status quo" -Media religions offer a interruptions of everyday life

Cosby Show Representations

-ON THE ONE HAND: Had a positive aspect, showing that the African American community has resources, not only marginalized -ON THE OTHER HAND: Reinforces the myth that African Americans who are not successful only have themselves to blame - further "othering" the African American community in US context

Straw Polls

-Oral or pen and paper surveys that measure the popularity of a political candidate or policy -Little regularity to the method of these polls, therefore there were often conflicting results -Political candidates could usually find a certain straw poll that favored them -Straw polls animated citizen discussions about the results, thereby building of the strong tradition of public discussion

Sampling

-Pollsters will select a sample (or subset) of individuals from the population in order to conduct their survey -The method of selecting the sample is critically important to the validity of the survey (probability or random sampling) -Pollsters will typically pick the smallest sampling possible in order to be cost effective

Crossroads

-Popular British daytime soap opera that revolved around the lives of group of working class characters employed at a motel -Because of its focus on conversation, romance, etc. Brudson argued the program textually implied a female viewer -Dorothy Hobson went to homes of female viewers and watched the soap with this in their natural domestic setting -Realized that most women watch the soap in small windows of free time (feeding children, half-watching, etc.) -The TV was an integral part of women's daily lives and was rarely the main thing they were doing when viewing programs (played in background while doing house work) -Many women were apologetic about enjoying the soap opera and said it was a "guilty pleasure" because of mainstream media

Janice Radway

-Reading the Romance, 1984 -Gave 42 women questionnaires and interviewed them -Asked about their romance novel reading, how many books they regularly read and what type, what romance novels meant to them, & what kinds of stories and characters commanded their attention -Most women enjoyed when intelligent women became submissive to a caring and tender man (they said the endings were the most important part) -Women used these novels to fill their emotional and psychological voids as housewives and mothers

Surveys

-Refers to a quantitative research technique for counting or describing characteristics of a population -Beginning in the 1930's, became the most widely utilized research method for measuring public opinion -While straw polls reported the political whims of groups of people in specific contexts, surveys measure their respondents more scientifically by utilizing the statistical technique of sampling -Surveys also capable of measuring larger groups of citizens more accurately

Ethnography

-Researchers were freed from relying upon self-reports of research subjects, allowing them to distance themselves from their subjects and critically analyze individuals' media consumption behavior -This form of study offered audiences the opportunity to speak for themselves, instead of having their voice and sense of agency suppressed by institutional market research and scholarly investigation

Birmingham School

-Screen theory did not sit well with scholars at the Birmingham School in England -Convinced the reception process was more nuanced and audiences were much more active in interpretation of media -Audiences will approach media with a set of cultural competencies and experiences that will shape their view -Audience members were decoders of messages -Tried to show that there's no good or bad media in culture -Stuart Hill wrote extremely important essay "Encoding/Decoding" about uses & grats and screen theory

Media Spaces

-Shaun Moores argues that our "presence" in the virtual space of the online world exists side by side with our physical presence in another space -New media allows for people two inhabit two present spaces at the same time -Webcams used to share more private and intimate details -Audiences engage in "self commodification" by expending their own labor in order to allow themselves to be marketed to by advertisers and external corporate forces -Major shifts in audience experience thanks to space-time distanciation and the collapse of the public and private space in modern society.

Transactional System

-Silverstone outlined 4 elements of the transactional system in which the moral economy of the household is expressed 1) Appropriation: when the family takes hold of the communication technology itself 2) Objectification: when the technology object is displayed in the home and becomes apart of the spatial environment 3) Incorporation: the way in which these technologies are used in the household 4) Conversion: when the info that is carried via these comm technology becomes part of everyday social interaction

Social and Situational Context

-Spatial or physical context is the concrete, physical dimensions of the location -Although many people could be viewing the same content, the experience can be radically different based on the dimensions of the technology -The influence of spatial context on reception of media is inseparable from the role of social contexts in our media experiences

Encoding/Decoding Model

-Stuart Hill referred to phases in model as "moments" -MOMENT OF ENCODING: the institutional practices and organizations' conditions and practices of production -MOMENT OF THE TEXT: symbolic construction, the form in which the message is produced or broadcasted -MOMENT OF DECODING: how the audience receives the message

Fiske

-Studied Madonna and how consumers were being duped into her capitalist culture through interviews and textual analysis using semiotics or signs -Argument based on semiotics: yes, texts have meaning, however, audiences have agency in how they interpret those message -Madonna constantly presents conflicts in her attitudes, in her looks, in her personal life and relationships, and in the meaning of her songs (religiosity/secularism, being in control/being subordinate, sinister/saintly, virgin/sexually experienced)

Messner & Montez de Oca

-Studied beer and liquor advertisements in mega sports media events -Beer and liquor ads evoke a "lifestyle branding" and shows a desirable lifestyle

Radway and Interpretive Communities

-Studied women who read romance novels through qualitative research (interviews, focus groups) -People who "by virtue of a common social position & demographic behavior, unconsciously share certain assumptions about reading as well as preferences for reading material." Ex. Harry Potter fans

Decoding Dallas: Ien Ang

-Studied women's responses to the show Dallas (about a very wealthy family involved the the oil business) -Dutch women wrote Ang letters with their feelings on the show -Many women felt they related to the trials and tribulations of family life within the show which was odd considering the difference of socioeconomic status between the family on the show and these women -Ang concluded that these women were more focused on the connotative and deeper meaning of the show than the denotative meaning

Subcultures (Hebdige)

-Such forms of cultural expression not only established a sense of self identity for these groups, but also functioned as acts of emancipation from traditional authority -Who are the authorities? TV Networks, Movie executives, film studios... -The creators of "the Canon": groups of texts that are considered significant or valuable

Viewing Habits

-TV viewing has become more present due to the ease of access from the small screen -More viewing is done alone now than ever (used to be centered around family) -TV is now less of a social experience (it is typically played in the background- multitasking) -Shift from outside child play to watching TV -Shift from living room to "bedroom culture" where everyone watches what they want on their own TV

The Domestic Sphere

-Television in the home life -TV became central to many family social interactions within the home -Focal point for sharing ideas, opinions, desires, etc.

Historical Techniques for Expression and Assessment of Public Opinion

-The notion of the public was quite important to the political life of Greek and Roman societies (public discussions only open to male land owners) -Public opinion started with Plato (common people didn't have to knowledge to make decisions/ doxa & episteme ways of thinking) -Aristotle's (Plato's student) view of public opinion did not constitute the ideas and sentiments of the common people, but instead it was more of a holistic term that encompassed "the values, norms, and tastes of civilization."

Underdog Effects

-The opposite of bandwagon effects -The happens when the public shifts its support to the minority position or political candidate

Intertextuality

-The process of connecting our media experiences together -"The fundamental and inescapable interdependence of all textual meaning upon the structures of meaning proposed by other texts" -Audiences never interpret media in isolation from other texts -Instead, we create meanings out of our media universe by relating specific messages to others that we have seen or heard

Quantification (of Public Opinion)

-The rise of quantification in the 19th century marked an important shift in the definition of the public to mean the majority sentiment as measured by numerical counts -The rise in quantifiable social data is likely due to the growth of the insurance industry, expansion of foreign trade, & concern of the number of dead during the Great Plague -Key innovation was the use of secret balloting for all public elections

Bourgeois (Middle Class)

-The rise of the middle class in the public sphere, less dependencies on feudal lords (new opportunities for citizen and merchants to challenge those in power) -The press played a vital role (Lords had less power and ordinary citizens became the primary subject of news) -Key aspects was that the public was not centralized to one location or controlled by one identity -Conversations facilitated through the development of coffee houses and salons

Media Reception

-The study of audience interpretation of media that occurs in specific contexts -Our media experiences can occur during specific times and in particular physical spaces, and these contexts can play a powerful role in shaping our understandings of media context

Sign, Signifier, Signified

-This being the relationship between the signifier and the signified that create the sign -We need to be critical about signs in the media because we cannot take signs as natural societal order and the signs and meanings contained within them are not always beneficial

Bandwagon Effects

-This occurs when individuals hear news reports of opinion polls that differ from their own opinion, which causes them to shift their outlook to match the majority opinion -Commonly found during election season

Haralovich

-Used architecture and design relationships as example to ways TV naturalizes programs and representations -In WWII women took on men's jobs and when men returned they got their jobs back and women went back to doing housework -1950's: American society accustomed to a specific way of suburban life -Gender roles as they're performed on TV are a source for real world learning -The audience according to Haralovich is seen as passive (media showing us how life should be and we are taking it at face value) -Cultivation and hypodermic needle model fit with this

Time Shifting

-Viewers choosing to watch their favorite shows at more convenient times and on a variety of media platforms such as computers, video game players, iPods, etc.

Oppositional Position

-Viewers may take the media message and decode it in a globally contrary way -They detotalize the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize the message with some alternative framework of reference -They focus exclusively on the connotative meanings of the signs in order to mount an ideological struggle against message

Agenda Setting Theory

-Walter Lipman: precursor -News creates pseudo-environment (Selecting certain ideas, events, and perspectives to present to the public) -News Agenda Vs. Public Agenda (News determines what you think ABOUT, not what you think)

Framing Theory

-When journalists/media producers choose to show some aspects of a perceived reality and place more importance in certain aspects -Promotes a particular problem, definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation

Jurgen Habermas

-Wrote the book "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" -Representation in the Middle Ages referred to the "public-ness" of the King, which was continually staged before the people in elaborate rituals and ceremonies -He stated that "this publicness of representation was not constituted as a social realm, that is, of a public sphere; rather, it was something like a status attribute" -The King represented the body politic and the commoners were just supposed to be spectators

Fans and Poaching

-de Certeau's conceptualization of the act of reading is an inherently creative & imaginative process, full of play and "invention" within the mind of the reader -The circulation of stories between fans allows them to give supportive feedback and critiques to one another, cementing a strong sense of community -Fans inhabit the media space and make it their own for a second -Creating fan fiction or new media from that media

Spiral of Silence

If you have a different opinion than what is displayed in the media, you are more likely to stay quiet

Merchants of Doubt

A documentary that looks at pundits-for-hire who present themselves as scientific authorities as they speak about topics like toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and climate change

Polysemic

Capable of being interpreted in distinctly different ways by different viewers because audiences approach texts with a plethora of experiences and cultural knowledge of signs

Connotative Level of Meaning

Contextualized understandings of signs (subtext)

Agenda Setting Effect

The ability of the mass media to transfer salience of items and their attributes to the audience

Denotative Level of Meaning

The literal, "near-universal", or common sense meaning of the sign (surface)