Media Studies 10

"The Operational Aesthetic" (MITTELL)

"Narrative special effects." Audiences enjoy trying to follow how the plot works. Long arcs and refusal of closure. Analysis of plot and style. Invites long-term engagement thru disorientation and confusion (LOST). RESULT: audiences focus on formal analysis in addition to content.

Constructing Realism

"Realism" is produced by codes and conventions.o apparent spontaneity. Example: The Office. Handheld camera and loose compositions, available lighting, acknowledge recording, verbal spontaneity, and narrative spontaneity.

Advantages of Content Convergence

1) Keeps audience engaged between airings and maintains attention across media. 2) Collects two kinds of viewers; demographically wide(TV) and desirable ("loyals"). 3) Requiring viewers to use multiple media → exposed to many more ads.

Popular culture analysis

1) how people use and interpret media 2) concerned with meaning at consumption, not producer intentions 3) The meaning making process turn mass culture into popular culture

Seven Principles of Media Literacy

1. All media are texts that can be read. 2. All media are representations that help construct our realities. This is how we understand the world and gain PERSPECTIVES. 3. Media are influenced by industrial pressures. They must generate revenue and attract advertisers. Facebook generates data for advertisers to utilize. 4. Media are influenced by political pressures. Gov't can restrict content and ownership- Gov't had to approve Comcast buying NBC. FCC. 5. Media are impacted by format. All media have their own characteristics and conventions- films use montages to show passage of time. Must fill time and space. 6. Audiences are active participants. We filter meaning through our unique experiences- producers show The Bachelor as a road to true love, but many audiences disagree. 7. People believe media tell us who we are as a society and influence who we are as a culture. So many people share mass media that media has larger cultural importance. Stereotypes, etc.

Star Text's four components

1. Body of work: album, movie, tv shows 2. Promotion: calculate image construction by image creators ex)Music, Talk Shows, TV ads. 3. Publicity: generated by the press, etc, and outside of direct control. producing and selling celebrity in order to appeal to consumers. ex)Reviews, Publicity photos. 4. Audience practices: ex) discussion, criticism, fan art, etc

Two Hybrid Production Logics

1. Combo of forms: Newspapers = commodities + ad- supported. 2. Economies of scope: Selling a product across multiple revenue "windows" and logics. (Movie → DVD → Cable → etc).

Three Media Production Logics

1. Commodities = paid in full by customer. One time sale (consumers keep product) and price covers all costs (including profit). 2. Turnstile media = sell access to content. Consumer "pays admission at the gate." May or may not cover cost and profit. Example: Movie theaters, concerts, premium cable. 3. Ad-supported media = "free" to consumer. Advertisers pay cost of media in exchange for access to consumers. Consumers pay in attention and increased product costs. Advertisers buy "impressions." Advertisers pay for the quantity and quality of audience. Can target: large and niche audiences.

Five Characteristics of Consumer Culture

1. Consumption beyond all other social dimensions (identify ourselves with what we wear, eat, etc.). 2. Produces products for undifferentiated audience (not for individual, but large anonymous audience). 3. Status> Function: Buy things because it'll elevate our social status, rather than because it works well or useful. 4. Allows experimentation of identity and latest thing. Exploits and intensifies the idea that identity is constructed and chosen by individuals. Isn't based on tradition; a continuous self creation. 5. Encourages insatiable consumer desire. Generates a products based on want over need. Never fully satisfied.

Dual Nature of Celebrity

1. Cultural and economic products. 2. The workers and the products.

Eight Advertising Persuasive Strategies

1. Famous person testimonial. 2. Plain folks pitch = product fits into lives of everyday people. 3. Snob appeal = product will elevate social status. 4. Association principle = associate product w/ positive image or value. 5. Bandwagon effect = claims being left behind. 6. Hidden fear appeal = plays on anxiety or insecurity. 7. Irritation advertising = produce name recognition by getting into your head. 8. Shock ad = edgy appeal cuts thru clutter.

Context for Experimentation (Complexity)

1. Improved cultural clout. 2. Viability of smaller audiences 3. New technologies enable "rewatchability." 4. Growth of online engagement.

Four Ways of Constructing Reality TV (Kraszewski)

1. Selecting participants: Represent a certain character type: extreme, combustible people who will come into conflict with others. 2. Overarching and Mini Narratives Structures: Make disparate events into a narrative structure with cause and effect, resolutions of conflicts, and deeper meaning. 3. Location: Provides opportunity to set up narratives. Decked out house, desert wasteland, etc. 4. Editing: Cameramen choose what to film, picking those more exciting. WE MUST BE CRITICAL of reality TV's "reality." Example: The Real World is constructed in its industrial utility AND narrative.

TV and our Conception of Celebrity

1. TV responsible for a boom in celebrity industry because of space filling needs and enormous reach. 2. TV changed our conception of celebrity by "downsizing" it, tying it to advertising images, and promoting familiarity through repetition (talk shows, soaps, sitcoms). 3. Can rejuvenate or manufacture careers. 4. Celebrity is audience-driven: Identificatory fantasies= desire star's/ character's life Identifactory practices= consume s/c's products 5. Star context can be interpreted by cultural meaning. 6. Industry chooses stars based on perceived bankability.

"The Medium is the Message" (McLuhan)

1. The sensory experiences of new media shape our thinking: great evolution through human history. 2. The medium itself is more important than the content. Medium impacts the society not by its content but by its use. Example: The innovation of light, books, smartphone.

Encoding/ Decoding's Value

All messages contains more than one potential reading. Producers can't close off all decodings. Our experiences color the reading. Leads to the struggle with getting people's ideological agreement.

Popular Culture as a Process (FISKE)

Assembled from mass culture resources. Creates new understandings, identities, experiences, and pleasures.

The Encoding/ Decoding Model (HALL)

Concept: At the level of production, the producers "encode" program with preferred meanings, which are usually ideologically and economically linked to the hegemonic elite. At level of consumption, texts are "decoded" in 3 ways: 1. Dominant/Hegemonic: Accepts/understands the preferred meaning. 2. Negotiated: Partially accepts/understands the preferred meaning. 3. Oppositional/Counter-Hegemonic: Rejects preferred meaning in favor of an alternative one.

Cultural Studies and Quality

Concept: Embarrassment occurs when social norms/taste hierarchies are disrupted. Overcoming embarrassment can challenge/change culture. Quality: Who has the power to decide? Whose taste is being marginalized? Example: Josh and Beautiful by Christina Aguilera.

Rationalizing the Consumption Process

Concept: Hedge the likelihood for success by using proven tactics and formulas. Example: STARS (hire stars or proven talent), SEQUELS/REMAKES (have pre-awareness), GENRES, COPYCATS, PRE-TESTING.

The Circuit Model of Communication (HALL)

Concept: Meaning is shaped in multiple stages. 1. Production (message is produced). 2. Circulation (message is distributed). 3. Consumption (message is received). 4. Reproduction/Feedback (message is accepted and reproduced).

Convenience Technology and What They Allow

Concept: Technologies that provide flexibility in what, how, when, where viewers consume media content Facilitates: TV w/o subscription, time shifting/re-watching, "binging," control viewing experience. MORE formats: Utilize the same content for diff screens/ revenue streams. Content: Can supports greater variety of material. Viewing flex: Active selection rather than linear flow. Result: Individualization of the consumption experience.

Critiques of the Frankfurt School

Critiques: Elitist, don't account for agency, don't account for innovation, don't account for failure of mass culture.

Social Cement(Mass Media Industrialization)

Definition: "Psychic adjustment" to the needs of capitalism (makes us "emotionally obedient"). IMPACT: Escapist media act as a mindless stimulant for overworked masses. De-skills, de-politicizes and de-sensitizes workers.

Celebrity

Definition: A person who attracts public and media attention. Three narratives: 1. "Magic and Talent" 2. Industry and Manipulation 3. Audience Fascination GOAL: Convert star text into capital and add value to a product.

Standardization(Mass Media Industrialization)

Definition: Assembly-line production (specialization, reusing the structure).

Convergence

Definition: Blurring boundaries between distinct forms of media into new types of media networks and delivery systems. Examples:

Audiences

Definition: Can be inside the story and or real individuals. Spectator: perceived audience of consumers.

Narrators

Definition: Can be specific individuals. Inside the story. Anonymous voices outside the story. The camera is a visual media narrator. Example: "The gaze" (Mulvey). The gaze is not neutral. Identify with the looker. POV, camera, editing, narratives ask aud. to identify with men and objectify women.

Characters

Definition: Characters are assigned traits that impact the story. Audiences are encouraged to identify with the character, especially the protagonist. Externally- "special attachment" and achievement. Internally- voiceover, POV, access to thoughts and feelings.

Episodic TV

Definition: Circular closure: return to original status quo. Econ adv. = same characters, similar situations. Audience becomes loyal but can miss/mix-up episodes. Econ disadvantage = can grow bored w/ quo.

Genre Recombinants

Definition: Combines elements of two established genres. Genre provides predictability and surprise. Generic elements can be mixed and combined. Media makers use, change, subvert, codes and conventions. Risks: Can confuse/alienate the audience.

Mass Culture

Definition: Commodities produced for maximum profit. Went from a culture debating society to culture consuming. Goal is to promote economy for consumerism, manufacture a sense of desire. Mass media promotes conformity. Deludes people into think that they're in control. Promotes a lifestyle of continuous consumption. Not from the masses, FOR the masses. What it Provides: 1. No sense of collectivity (isolated, no interaction). 2. Absorbs leisure time - watching dance shows instead of dancing. 3. Artificial concerns - promotes disillusionment. 4. Escapist media unhinged from reality - detract from own issues and problems by getting invested in character's lives.

Hyperreality

Definition: Constructed to suit audience expectations. Reality TV is manipulated to be exciting but also retain the appearance of reality. "More real than real." Shaped through codes and conventions. Examples: The Bachelor, Real Housewives.

Serialized TV

Definition: Continual change of the status quo. Accumulation of detail and history. Econ disadvantage = alienate viewers. Econ advantage = potential for revision/ "loyals."

Arc

Definition: Crosses several episodes or seasons. Storyline or character arcs. GOAL: continued audience engagement.

Genre Innovation

Definition: Deviate from generic codes and conventions. Result: Adds difference and solves problem of repetition.

Transmedia Entertainment

Definition: Draws viewers from TV to other content platforms. Examples: Affective economics= how emotion drives viewing and purchasing decisions, gets viewers more emotionally involved. GOAL= create "loyals," foster appointment TV for advertisers, "Brand advocates" who generate buzz/awareness, more likely to pay attention to and recall ad content.

The Digital Divide

Definition: Gap between those w/access to digital texts & those w/o. Also quality of access, familiarity w/ tech and social interactions. In terms of convergence and entertainment media: Creates a "participation gap"

Industrial Utility of Genre

Definition: Industrial role of genre = management of consumer interest/expectation managed through promotion. Reason: 1. Attempt to make successful predictable. Production trend = if people like the genre, make more. Reduces risk and organizes production 2. Contract between producers and audiences. We use genre to suit our mood.

Cultural Studies and Methods

Definition: Interdisciplinary approach argues that media change society AND society changes media. It is not just the study of texts but contexts TOO- how and why it was made/consumed. The relationship with media is complex and related (industry, culture, and everyday life are INTERRELATED). Methods: Text, Audience, Industry Textual Analysis: Interpretation of the text itself. Look for formula, themes, representations, etc. Audience Studies: Study of the reception of the text. Interpretation, role, reason, etc. Political Economy: Relationship between industrial media power and influence on politics/culture. Mainly consumer/commercial media.

Technological Determinism

Definition: Machines change us- you don't use media, you are used by it. Technology is central in transforming society.

Mass Culture Incorporation

Definition: Mass culture scans popular culture for tastes/interests that it can commodify. Examples: Torn jeans.

False Consciousness

Definition: Mislead people into thinking that the route to contentment comes from consumption rather than upward mobility.

Genre Codes

Definition: Modes of productions external to the narrative (STYLE). Examples: Length, visual style: lighting, camera work, editing, animation.

Technological Convergence

Definition: Personalized content through a single machine. Combines a variety of technologies in a "black box." Examples: iPhone, XBox, Playstation.

Popular Culture Excorporation

Definition: Popular culture scans mass culture for resources that it can appropriate. Examples: Jeans.

Extratextual

Definition: Private life outside of stars' media contribution.

Counter Hegemony

Definition: Reject the preferred meaning for an alternative one.

Beat

Definition: SCENE. Smallest mode of narrative (1-2 minutes). Builds to plots, but also contain drama and purpose.

Ideology (FISKE)

Definition: SET OF VALUES. Structuring social relations provides value systems to which we understand and orient ourselves and therefore grants power to some groups over others, but this can be contested. Ideology are the values and beliefs people have to make sense of the world. It is usually unquestioned and considered common sense. It can be widely shared, but not universal. Conditioned through family, friends, school, etc. Indoctrinated by culture, government, religion, education system.

Pseudo-Individualism(Mass Media Industrialization)

Definition: Same product hidden by a veneer of difference (one may think that the choice they made is unique, but it is in fact a choice others had already made for you to pick it out.)

Anthology

Definition: Self contained; closure brings new/final status quo Econ disadvantage = inefficient because each episode need new set, cast, etc

Content Convergence

Definition: Similar content available through a variety of devices. Shared across different media. Examples: Netflix on TV, smartphone, computer, etc.

Narrative Complexity

Definition: Some TV is "narratively complex" in order to: Appeal to desirable and "loyal" demographics and take advantage if new technology and enable audiences to re-watch. Economic Utility=keeping people engaged & rising more publicity.

TV and Multiple Plotlines

Definition: Some stories have multiple plotlines. Example: "A Plot" = Primary conflict (most screen time) usually with lead character. "B Plot" and "C Plot" etc. = secondary conflicts (subplots) usually with secondary characters.

Genre Conventions

Definition: Specific narrative elements (STORY). Examples: Setting, character type, plots/ narrative structure, iconography (common images), emotional affect, ideology/ social values.

Episode

Definition: Structured by culmination or theme. 3 or 4 acts (curtains before commercials).

Star Text

Definition: Sum of everything we affiliate with them.

Texts as Polysemic

Definition: Texts are not fixed in meaning, they can be understood/decoded in a multiple of ways.

Hegemony

Definition: The process of maintaining power through the struggles of seeking ideological consensus. The dominance of one's ideology over another. Multiple ideologies competing to assert dominance over others. It's an ongoing process of maintaining power through struggle of seeking ideological consensus. Must re-present your ideology to remind people and counter against counter-hegemonies.

Genre

Definition: Type or kind, encompassing categories, describing any media with story, setting, and characters. "Content sharing the same conventions and codes." An attempt to manufacture success. A means of creating familiarity in new texts.

Intertextual

Definition: What is presented on the screen.

Rise of Convergence

Due to: Concentration of media ownership, interactivity-ability for users to "talk back" (social, technical, textual).

Criticism of encoding/decoding

Few perfectly dominant or oppositional readings Works better for directly ideological texts over scripted ones ex) News Multiple motivations behind production/encoding

Material Function VS Cultural Function (FISKE)

MF: Rule in the circulation of wealth (something made to be made, sold, purchased). CF: Role in the circulation of meaning. BUT: There is a difference between the power of the cultural industry and the power of its input.

"Realism"

Measured in plausibility. All media representations impacted by commercial concerns, creator bias, the acts of recording, editing, etc. SO: no unbiased, objective representations of reality.

Genre as a Cultural Category (MITTELL)

Old Approach: Compare a set of shows belonging to a genre. Predetermined categories. Problem = circular reasoning. New Approach: Genre is a cultural category. Genre = interrelations btw texts and industries and audiences. SO: Our understanding of genres change with how they're defined, interpreted, and evaluated. Because discourses change, genre categorizations change EX. Animation (Flintstones). Considered "for kids." South Park = controversial because it defies that. Acceptable once animation = adult.

Popular Culture and Immediacy

Popular Culture texts are "throw away." Tied to immediate social conditions. Represents immediate values and concerns.

Criticisms of Popular Culture

Populist celebration. Spreads repressive representation (stereotypes, etc.). Validates dominant/ commercial interests. Audience can be active but not necessarily powerful.

Reality TV and Celebrity

Pros: Normalizes celebrity, fans are active and invested. Cons: Celeb based on culture of humiliation, not talent.

Results of Consumer Culture

Results: Isolated from tradition and community, we become open to manipulation (through media), and it creates inexhaustible dissatisfaction.

Dominant Ideology

Struggle for the dominant ideology. The powerful express ways of being in the world that benefit themselves, more so than others. Always a struggle to possess the dominant narrative.

Social Shaping of Technology(SST)

TECH INFLUENCES US: 1. Technologies have "logic" that influence but don't determine use. 2. Machines can reinforce certain social structures while eroding others. 3. Considers: - Social circumstances - Possibilities and constrains of techs - Actual practice SST shows how tech adaption can 1) be predictable ex) using facebook as inventor intended 2) be unexpected ex) using smartphone as a flashlight 3) disrupt previous practices ex) dating was used to be happen through 소개 but now there are dating sites 4) affirm previous practices ex) texting helps people to keep in touch with others

Domestication of Technology

Techologies become invisible as they integrate into our lives and the fear of them diminishes. Example: Cellphone, Skype, Facebook

Social Construction of Technology(SCOT)

Techs are a consequences of social factors/people are primary of social change Tech development guided by investors, government regulation, media user etc Plus-access, price, marketing, influence of peers Techs are adopted, adapted, modified, or subverted

Dystopian View and Critique

View: Medium is bad or was good but is getting worse. Medium is passive and addictive, prevents communication/interaction/cognition, exploitative and formulaic, no style and heart, regressive, simple, stereotypical, consumerist, directly harmful to society, makes us swear/disrespect/ mimic TV -> susceptible to children. Critique: "Totalizing," generalizes, romanticising "good ole days," nostalgic, elitist, dismissive of how consumption can be active (watching TV together).

Utopian View and Critique

View: Medium is good or was bad but is getting better. YOU ARE IN CONTROL. There's something for everyone, you can turn it off, it can effect positive change, publicize corruption/injustice, act as an educational/ informational source. Critique: It is totalizing, employs the myth of progress, ignores commercial interests, ignores production hierarchies, content represents the network more than audience.

Mirror View and Critique

View: Medium reflects reality or the audience interests, likes, wants, represents. Mirrors major social changes. Critique: It ignores the selective process of production (scripting, shooting, editing, framing), the agenda-setting function of media (race, gender, law, etc), and the possibilities that the audience might disagree or interpret things differently.