andrea-jacobs

[andrea-jacobs]

Chapter 8 - Reviewing Media Fandom and Audience Subculture

Fan culture is an age old idea that has been studies for centuries. As explained by Sullivan, (2013) originally, fans were given very litter merit – in fact, “fans” in the 17th century were nothing like how we know see and study them today. Their interest and infatuation was made to seem bizarre, even being compared to as demonic by some scholars.

Eventually, fans as we know them today became not only a popular practice, especially in regards to admiring popular media texts, but also became a focus of scholars. The common discourse around fan practice quickly shifted from the assumption that fans were simply ignorant consumers to the idea that they integrate these texts into their own lives and develop ideologies in regards to the media they actively consume.

This was made possible as scholars began to notice that fans were not simply digesting the media produced for their enjoyment, but were moving beyond simple consumption and were becoming emotionally invested in their favourite texts, to the point of even re-producing aspects of their favourite works. This is known as the Continuum of Fandom. There are four levels to this – first being consumer. For example, an individual who notices the newest Harry Potter film is on Netflix and decides to watch it. Next is an enthusiast, this is the type of consumer who enjoys the media text and is more engaged than a simple consumer. For example, this type of consumer might wait in anticipation for the newest Harry Potter film to arrive, and see it in theatres. The next level is a fan. This is the type of person that has created an emotional bond with their favourite text and has begun to incorporate it into their own life. This person may see the newest Harry Potter film, in theatres on opening night and will arrive in costume, dressed as their favourite character. Finally, we have producers. These types of fans have integrated the media text so much into their lives that they will go the step beyond a fan and create their own media after being inspired by their favourite text. This type of fan may not only see the newest Harry Potter film in theatres, in costume. But will then go home and review the movie on their fan blog, or create memes about the film to share with other fans who share their level of interest.

This brings light to the social aspect of fandoms. Biggest fans of media texts often collaborate and share their love of a media text with each other, and even the original content creators. Fans even create their own subcultures, that outsiders who have little or no knowledge to the media text in question would not understand. When a fans idea of how a media text should look is different from that of the original producer, conflict can arise. For example, a fan may not be satisfied with the original ending of their favourite show and will re-write it themselves and share how they believe their favourite character should have reacted and share it with other fans. Sometimes fans question and contradict the continuity of the original story. This, however, can cause conflict, as some fans even profit off their re-creation of a content creators’ original ideas. This can be described as textual poaching.

When I was younger, in middle school many of my friends had fan blogs about their favourite bands. One of my friends was very dedicated to One Direction and had a popular twitter account on which the posted regular updates and memes they created about the band, as well as a weekly-updated fan fiction story surrounding the group in which, she wrote herself and sometimes other friends into, creating a fictional life that included the band. She would often write stories that were “precuals” to her favourite songs, explaining a made-up backstory that resulted in the song being written about herself.

In her alter-ego online life, she was well respected by many other fans of One Direction due to her extensive knowledge of the group as well as her creativity and interesting ability to write the group into her own life. I quickly noticed through her twitter and blog activity that there was a hierarchy within the One Direction fandom. There were constant debates around who was considered to be a real fan based on their knowledge, how much fan merchandise they owned, how many concerts they had attended, how long they had been a fan, etc.

What’s even more interesting is how these fans were able to come together to creat change in regards to what the band produced and how they acted. Much like how Veronica Mars fans were able to come together and generate the ground funding for a rebirth of the show, One Direction fans had more control than one might assume over the groups’ actions. As outlined by Navar-Gill (2018) after Veronica Mars fans created a kickstarter campaign to get an ending to their favourite show, there was fear that the writers would write an ending based on what those who contributed wanted. This was similar to how One Direction produced music based on fan demands and not what the band members wanted to create. Interestingly, this actually lead to the separation of the group as their creative interests were too contrasting from the “boy band pop music” their fans wanted to hear. This is extremely evident in that the art each member has created post One Direction as solo artists has a significantly different sound than that of the group the all once belonged to.

Chapter 9 - Online, Interactive Audiences in a Digital Media World

Everyone is used to the idea of mass media and popular audiences by now. The idea is as old as time that there will always be a form of dominant discourse in society, often defined and determined by upper class people, as money is power. As Sullivan (2013) explains, new media and the digital era is offering sub groups the opportunity to find a sense of meaning in texts and incorporate that into their own lives. Today more than ever, audiences have ultimate control over what, when and how they choose to consume media texts. Audience members can even choose to reject a text altogether. They also have the option to keep certain texts and media content as a part of their everyday lives. This is due to technological advancements and the introduction of privatized and individualized media experiences. This has lead to the creation of more smaller, and fragmented audience groups that choose to stray from the dominant discourse. In my life I find myself a part of many smaller audiences.

I love country music, and when I fist started listening to it, I was introduced to the most popular artists who’s songs played on the radio. Artists such as Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood, and Thomas Rhett. They all had catchy songs and they mostly all resonated with me, as I grew up with similar values to those expressed in the music. That said, as I listened more, I became exposed to other smaller artists. Thanks to technology, specifically Spotify and its algorithmic recommendations, my taste and preference of country music has shifted towards smaller artists who I find sing about topics that resonate with me more so than what can be found on the radio. I look forward to the “For You” playlist generated by Spotify that I receive every week, as it exposes me to new artists every week that may not reach Grammy award level stardom, but will have music with themes that relate to me.

I have also found that new digital media has made it easier than ever to share and interact with not only these artists but also their media texts. I have the ability to reach out to them via social media, and they have the same opportunity to reach out to myself and other fans via their personal platforms, and no longer need to rely on major platforms such as tv commercials to promote their work.

With the new age of participatory culture, as Sullivan (2013) explains, artists and media producers now have the advantage of crowdsourcing. They no longer necessarily need a large corporation or label to back them up and create them. This means that more people have the opportunity to produce their messages and make them into large projects. Fans of these more niche groups who may have an emotional reason to be invested in said project, may want to see it enough to invest time and money into it as well to help it come to life. As a fan of some smaller artists I see them reach out to fans, pleading that they stream and share their work and at times, even ask for financial support. When I was in middle school, we were fans of a small band called Fake Shark. Their lead singers was friends with the lead guitarist of a more popular band we loved, Marianas Trench. Through his shoutouts on twitter, we came across Fake Shark and became fans. Since they were a smaller group, the often plead for help from fans to offer financial or promotional support for their work. My my friends and I went as far as to hang posters up for this band around our town after school, as well as handing them out on the street. It can be argues that this is beneficial to both the artist and the audience. For the band, it gave them more exposure and potential financial return, and thus more incentive and opportunity to continue to create music for a living. For us, it gave a sense of importance within a fan base. We felt as though we were not just blind consumer, but individuals who could help a group of people achieve their dreams, while producing art that had meaning for us as well. Because this band had such a specific message, that only resonated with a specialized group of people, they struggled to reach mass audiences. They did however, reach smaller demographics with people who were willing to go as far as free promotional labour sending financial support because they believed in and wanted to see the art from this group.

Athique (2018) outlines the realities of big data and where audience information ends up. What is mostly discussed is the number factor regarding algorithmic data collection. The article explains how data collection agencies use everything audiences members provide and how at times, due to the lack of human understanding of these searches, at times the big data results may not be precisely indicative of that particular audience member’s desired and interests. For example, I had an assignment in another class this semester, in which I did a lot of research about babies and fetal development. Days into my research, I started to notice ads for baby appliances, clothes, toys and even doctors appearing on my social media and home pages. I was not surprised to see these ads, as I knew the algorithm on my phone picked up key words in my latest searches and showed me ads specific to what the algorithm though my interest and needs were. This however, was clearly wrong and not only did I receive useless ads, but companies with ads that would better resonate with me, missed many opportunities to see their ads.

Chapter 10 - Audience Agency in New Contexts

Audiences and the way we study them is an ever changing, extremely complex and theoretical study. As technology continues to change, so do they way we as humans interact with each other and the media. We have more messages, on more platforms and more access to these messages as well as means of transmitting them than ever before. That means, as Sullivan explains that there is a constant change in the way audiences view, demand, participate in, and invest in media. This can be a good thing, as audiences can consume media they find interesting and meaningful to them. This is especially important to smaller demographics and segmented audience that do not feel they connect with the dominant, mainstream discourse. They can find refuge in smaller, less popular works which are as readily available to them with streaming services as any other media. This also means that audiences can refuse to consume and even acknowledge media they do not have an interest in or liking for. Sullivan (2013) argues that this can lead to an even more divided society, as we no longer have to consume media we don’t want to. I noticed growing up that everyone at my school watched the same three tv channels growing up on tv. When a new movie came out such as High School Musical or Camp Rock, it was all my class talked about for the day leading up and the following day. If you didn’t watch the movie on the day of it’s release you would surly be left out of every conversation at school the next day. I can remember notifying my parents days in advance that I absolutely needed to be home and in front of the tv at the time to movie aired, as if I missed I would have to wait for it to come on again, probably not a for a few days. There were always a couple kids in my class who either didn’t have a tv at home, or who’s parents didn’t let them watch the movie, they could not take part in all the conversations surrounding the movie. Today, with streaming services and portable devices, popular texts are much more easily accessible to audiences. There are also many more options to watch at any given time. For this reason, my younger sister, who is in the same grade as I was when all these popular movies came out, has almost no kid in her class who does not have the opportunity to watch the newest popular film, as they can even watch it from a peers Netflix account during lunch. She has also pointed out to me though, that times in which the entire class is speaking about a specific show or movie is much less common than it was for me. Today, there are more options to watch at any time, and like I have noticed for my friends and I as well today, we watch what we want, not what we think everyone else wants us to watch.

This however, also means that there are almost too many choices to choose from. Audiences now have to spend more time screening their options and make the right choice as to what to watch. I find myself spending sometimes up to half an hour scrolling through Netflix deciding on what to watch. We have access to reviews and recommendations online as well. Which brings in the variable of the engine the audience member is using to search. I have noticed that every time I go onto google on my phone, there is a list of news articles waiting for me. At first I didn’t think much of it, but read most of them as I always found them interesting. I then started to notice a trend, that these articles all interested me. They were always about by favourite artists, shows, sports teams and the world news stories always came out of places I was interested in. I realized that this list of news was generated by Google, specifically for me, based on my recent searches and activity on social media. I then started to wonder what other media content I receive on a daily basis, based on my past activity. As Sullivan (2013) explains, billions of dollars go into the collection of viewers data and information regarding their media consumption habits to create and promote content that will be relevant to them and get them to consume said media. This raises the question of how much power the audience actually has in regards to media consumption. Although programs and content is becoming more diverse, peaking interest and connecting with more individualized audiences, these messages are still being intentionally sent to us with an expectation of capital return.

[andrea-jacobs]

COMM 3P18

Chapter 5 - Uses and Gratifications

Media and messages are such a large part of our everyday lives, that we may consciously partaking in viewing and media consumption without much thought. When I’ve had a long day and climb in bed and put on Netflix, I, without much thought, turn on a show like Friends, or This Is Us and watch. What we may not consciously think about, but what still plays a large factor in our media selection is the uses and gratifications theory. As explained by Sullivan (2013), this theory attempts to understand why people choose specific media to consume and what motivates these decisions. The theory focuses on how people use media in their everyday lives as opposed to how the media influence people. When I think about it, I choose a show like Friends after a long day, as opposed to say, an information documentary, for a reason. I am searching for something to fulfil some needs – a show that can be easily consumed and is not too though provoking, something I can relate to my own life, and thus find a sense of belonging in, a show that is popular, so that should one of my roommates come in and ask to join, they can watch too and can even converse about, provided they know the specific show. All of these factors of gratification play a role in what may seem like an arbitrary selection. Because all of these factors arise in my own head and may even seem unconscious, it is hard for researchers to understand all motivations and gratifications that come into play when audiences member are making selections.

Some instances in which we make choices regarding media consumption are much more conscious and deliberate. For example, setting plays a large role as to what we choose to consume. It is probably obvious that when I am visiting my parent’s house, and have control of what we watch as a family on TV, I will not choose to stream a movie like 50 Shades of Grey for its mature content and themes that likely would not be comfortable to watch in an open setting with my family around. That said, many other factors will come into play when I make a decision, if my father is in the room, I will not choose a movie or show that would fall into the romance category, as he dislikes that genre. If my mother is in the room, I will not choose a movie or show that would fall into the action category as she dislikes that genre. As Sullivan points out, different scenarios, demand different gratifications to be met. At a time like this, with my family, we would likely watch a classic family movie or sports together. Both would trigger feeling of nostalgia and togetherness for us, as we used to watch those when I was younger together, and now with me being moved out, rarely get to experience that. We also search for something that relates to all of our interests. Sullivan also makes reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in which scholars use a formulated hierarchy to explain human needs from the basics of food and water, to self actualization. In keeping up with the example above, of my family watching tv together, we are able to place ourselves on the third step of Maslow’s hierarchy – belongingness and love needs. Together we are able to consume a specific media text and find common meaning and value in it. We are also physically brought together and can use the connections these texts offer us to better connect to each other in our physical world.

This leads to the idea of even more social media consumption, and how certain media texts play such an integral role in how our society operates. As media messages today are simply unavoidable with technology constantly at our fingertips, the ones we choose to consume over other, especially in regards to news, speak to the idea that audiences seek out content that will give them gratification. For example, popular news stories that get shared around the world make for common topics of what can seem like universal interest. No matter your preferred news source, all will cover the same large topics, such as political elections, natural disasters, and other universally impactful events. That said, they will all have these stories told in a different way and will also have different smaller scaled stories in their publications. This was very evident on my last family road trip to Florida. We drove through many states, and stopped at many restaurants and gas stations along the way, almost all, always playing the news. At this time, the 2017 federal election was taking place and all news stories were focused on that. What I found interesting, was that depending on the state or even community we were in, determined the news channel they watched. In states like North Carolina, where we stopped for a night on the way, all the news stories we saw favoured the Republican Party, as many of the residents in this state agreed with Republican policies and ideologies. These publications met the desires, emotional needs, and even social needs, as it provided opportunity for conversation with others of many of the people in this community.

Chapter 6 - Interpreting and Decoding Mass Media Texts

Messages, no matter the type, can be interpreted in many different ways. Many factors contribute to one’s understanding of any given text. Sullivan (2013) explains that be it social class, gender, age, or any other demographical barrier, as well as simply having (or not having) prior knowledge, one person’s understanding of a message can be completely different than that of someone else. To send a well received message, the author must first have an intended audience and create the message in a way that will best resignation with them. When I was little, I had an older sister. Sometimes my parents would explain something to her that made absolutely no sense to me, just because of lack of knowledge on the particular subject. They would then have to reconstruct the message, or encode it, in way that would make sense to me, being four years younger. Sometimes I would assume I understood the message, and act as though I did, when really my decoding was not successful. As Sullivan (2013) outlines, individual’s values play a large role in their perception and understanding of media messages. As an example they use women’s responses to soap operas. This highlighted perception based on gender made me think of audience experiences I have had in which I had a different perception based on my identity. I have never had an interest in action movies, be it fiction or non-fiction, especially war movies, as I do not find an interest in learning about the severity of the violence of the war. That said, growing up I had a close friend who’s dream was to join the army. His grandfather was in the military and he was brought up to respect and admire the troops. He loved movies and books about war found deep meaning in them. As he was also a part of cadets, and had a general interest in the military, he understood all the coded language used by soldiers in these movies, he also understood the different rankings in the military and could identify certain badges and medals of honour that I did not. For that reason he was always very keen on watching movies about the wars and war heroes, where I was not. When we would watch war movies together as children, I could see the excitement and enjoyment he got from those films that I did not.

I think sporting events are one place where I really see mixed perceptions of the messages and mixed audience experiences. Viewers who understand the game are going to have a different experience from those who do not. Just like how those in attendance with emotional connections to one team playing are going to have different experience and find different meaning than those who do not. This was especially clear to me during the 2019 NBA finals this year when the Toronto Raptors won the O’Bryant Trophy, the entire country seemed to be excited and behind them, but for many different reasons. I have some older friends at work who have followed the raptors since the team first formed. For them this was a very emotional and meaningful event. They watched interviews of players and raved about the feelings of excitement they got when watching promotional ads and messages that supported their beloved team. This is because they had a deep connection to these texts. For myself, I have only watched a handful of basketball games in my life, and have a very basic understanding of the game. This was an exciting time for me, but mostly because everyone else was excited. I used it as an opportunity to visit Toronto to watch games in the street and felt part of a community, but did not feel much emotional investment in the games. I didn’t get anything out of post-game interviews or promotional ads because I didn’t even always understand what they were talking about. This also speaks to how polysemic the texts are as they were interpreted in many different ways.

Granelli and Zenor (2013) explain their theory on audiences interpretations of morally complex characters, using the show Dexter. Their work makes reference to four different dominant audience perspectives and use them to explain how audiences member react to texts in different ways. Personally, I resonated most with the perspective labeled as referential. I tend to compare texts, especially music to my own life in order to find meaning in it. I enjoy music that I fell most accurately depicts what I am currently going through. I tend to listen to country music as I find this genre to be the most storytelling of genres, with themes that I can relate to my own life, for example, the song The House The Built Me by Miranda Lambert depicts her going back to her childhood home, years after her family has moved out. In the song she explains how her father built that home from the ground up for her mother, and explains how she longs to go back to the place she made crucial memories. I too moved from my childhood home, that my father built and resonate with what she says, finding meaning in the message of the song. My friend, however, who has lived in the same house her entire life and has yet to move out, does not get these same feelings out of that song, because it does not relate to her life in way that she can easily connect with the message.

Chapter 7 - Reviewing Recetion Context and Media Rituals

I never really knew my grandmother, but my father always told me that when his family got their first tv, his mother believed the people behind the camera could see into their living room, and insisted they and the living room, was alway presentable in front of the tv just in case. This obviously is not the case, so how do content creators know what their audience is, what they want to watch and who in the family is watching? The way people watched tv in the 60s and 70s is quite different from the way in which we watch it today, witch is also different from how it was watched in the 90s. From the content shift on tv to the physical changes of tvs and living rooms, even in my lifetime, the way we consume media has changed drastically. The Social contexts in the moment that we are (or are not) consuming media has everything to do with how we consume it.

I grew up in a very tv friendly household. My mother was a stay at home mom until I was about six years old, and again when my younger sister was born when I was eight for two years. Although she considered herself very fortunate to be able to afford years off of work to raise my sister and I, she has admitted to me that at that time she felt very lonely all day, with no one around to talk to (for a real, adult conversation) until my father got home from work. I can remember as a child having not just tv on throughout the day, but specifically talk shows. These gave my mother a sense of contact and communication with others, though one way, talk shows have a way of making those watching feel as if they are part of a conversation. Rituals in our house also loosely followed the scheduled tv programming. In the early 2000s, my bedtime was 9pm. At that same time, there seemed to always be an “adult show” that came on tv that I was not allowed to watch. When the timer on the tv switched the show to NCIS, or Greys Anatomy, I knew it was time for bed. For me, this was annoying and I always almost put up a fight. For my parents, this was when leisure time began. Once they were finally able to put the kids to bed, they gave themselves one hour a night to watch whatever weekly special aired at 9pm.

The rituals my family had when I was young surrounding tv have changed quite a bit with the new convenience of streaming services. We no longer have to wait until Thursdays at 9pm to watch Grey’s Anatomy, as re-runs can be viewed at anytime via Netflix. Time is a huge determinate of media consumption. For example, as a student, I have very little free time. This has an impact on what media I chose to consume – if I have only two hours, I have to decide if I am going to use it to watch tv, read, socialize with friends, etc. As technology has progressed, we have the ability to watch what we want wherever we want. If I feel like watching tv while, cooking for instance, I can watch on my 5’ phone screen. This convenience, however, changes the viewing experience. Instead of distraction free-watching, on a large screen, we have the choice to consume media at any time and any place.

Viewing habits may also change depending on the dynamic of those living in the home. When I was younger and we only had one tv and what we watched was ultimately up to my parents. They had to make sure when my sisters and I were in the room, that what was on was appropriate for us. My parents generally agreed on what to watch, as there were somewhat traditional gender roles in my home, however, my father would never refuse to watch a program of my mothers choosing over it being to feminine, and vice-versa. That said, the remote was always in the hand of my father and if there was ever an issue in regards to connection being lost, needing to use new feature on the tv box, etc. It was up to himself or my older sister to figure it out.

When I was about eight years old, we got a second tv, that my parents decided to put in our family room, that my older sister and I used as a play room. I remember my mother and father spending hours re-arranging the entire room, just to add a box with a scree. They had to make sure the tv was against a wall with multiple outlets, that he could also run a cable to for the satellite. Then they had to reposition the couches and chairs in that room, so that they faced the tv, rather than each other. Although I loved having a tv in my playroom, this addition changed the dynamic of the entire room making the main focus the TV set. Having two TVs made a big difference in my home, as I finally had the opportunity to watch what I wanted all day, rather than having to suffer through my father’s desire to watch nothing but Sportsnet all day, and my mothers’ to watch talk shows and reality tv. There still, however, were some shows that we all watched together.