zoesaudienceexperience-blog

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Week 6: October 10-16

Hello everyone and welcome back to my COMM3P18 Audience Studies blog! This week we discussed chapter five, Uses and Gratifications as well as audiences in the news. In this week’s blog I’ll go more into depth about audiences in the news, the notion of needs as well as the uses and dependency approach that Sullivan touches on in the textbook.

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Audiences in the News

This week we talked about a positive side of audiences and media. A lot of money has been raised for a homeless Russian opera singer who was discovered when a police officer asked if he could record her singing and share it. The video blew up and donations started to pour in to help this musician get back on her feet. This demonstrates how media can have a positive impact on audiences and those who have the audience. The officer sharing the video online enabled a wide audience to hear this women’s voice and raise awareness about her story. This is positive for the women as well as media consumers as her story touched many people and got them to donate to her cause. A similar example that comes to mind is a celebrity Justin Bieber and his story of being discovered and becoming famous. He sang outside a theatre in Stratford Ontario, someone took a video of him and posted it online, next, a record label found him and his life was changed forever. These two stories are similar as both people rose to fame through videos being shared online, both Justin Bieber as well as the homeless women were in tough situations and in need of some help. Media enabled both of these people to get another chance and to share their musical talent with others. I think it is important to remember how media can have a positive impact on society as sometimes it can be easy to forget, and this news story was a good reminder.

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Uses and Gratifications and the Notion of Needs

The uses and gratification approach basically states that “audience members actively choose media channels and content to suit their own needs at a particular moment” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 113). Media does not always have a negative effect on audiences. The notion of needs comes in to play with uses and gratifications because audiences bring their needs to their experiences and it plays a part in their interpretation. One way to look at needs in relation to media use is through Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The levels are physical needs, safety needs, belongingness needs, self esteem needs and self actualization needs. This hierarchy is relevant in my own life as I have met physical, safety and belongingness needs, and am currently working on my self esteem needs and feeling confident in myself. Media fits into the top two levels of the hierarchy; self-esteem and self-actualization. An example from my own life of how media fits into the self-esteem category is falling victim to counting how many people have ‘liked’ my photo on Instagram and this affecting my feelings about my own confidence and sense of achievement even though someone double tapping a screen really says nothing about me personally. An example of self-actualization is when I realized that counting Instagram ‘likes’ and being affected by that number was not contributing positively to my life at all and I could find a place to have my needs met elsewhere. The notion of needs is important when studying audiences and media use because needs are specific to individual people so they change people’s experiences. People consume things with specific needs and these needs affect how they interpret what they are consuming or doing and how they consume things.

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The Uses and Dependency Approach

In the textbook, Sullivan (2013) defines the uses and dependency theory. This approach “Considered media-related needs not as innate survival mechanisms, but instead as learned behaviours that are ‘the product of social experience’” (p.125). This basically means that through the social experiences that you have, your personal needs relating to the media are created. The approach positions potential effects as the result of complicated relationships between society, media and audiences (Sullivan, 2013, p. 125). An example of this theory that is demonstrated in my own life was my need online to have many people ‘like’ my posts on Instagram, as I stated above.

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I believe that the reason I paid so much attention to this was because of my previous social experiences and relationships with society and audiences. In high school I struggled a lot with making friends and hanging out with a good group of people. I often felt left out and alone. I believe that this experience made me want to feel liked online. Having a lot of people ‘like’ my posts on Instagram made me feel like I had friends and was not alone. “When an individual’s need satisfaction relies almost completely on the media, then media can have a more pronounced ability to alter the audience’s belief’s attitudes and behaviour” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 126). I feel that my need satisfaction relied a lot on media as I was not having this need to be liked met in person. This is why how many people ‘liked’ my posts was so important to me and affected my beliefs, attitudes and behaviours. I think the uses and dependency approach is relevant in many heavy media user’s lives as people are increasingly relying on media to meet their needs opposed to seeking them in the real world.

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Week 7: October 24-30

Hello and welcome back to my blog! This week in lecture we discussed chapter 6 of the textbook: Interpreting and Decoding Mass Media Texts as well as Granelli and Zenor’s paper on the TV show ‘Dexter’. In this weeks blog I’ll talk about audiences in the news, Stuart Hall’s three subject positions and Granelli and Zenor’s four modes of audience reception.

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Audiences in the News

This week we talked about a few things in the news but I am focusing on the recent federal election. The video showed in lecture stated that this election was one of the nastiest Canada has seen. This relates to us as audiences because the election is everywhere. It is all over the news, all over social media, all over people’s lawns and we help to participate in the nastiness. There have been many aggressive political ads on TV as well. Party leaders bashing other party leaders influence our perceptions on our options and therefore effects our decisions on who to vote for. I believe social media had a large impact on forming my opinion on the best candidate and who I chose to vote for in the federal election. Throughout the whole month of October I saw a variety of content posted online regarding the election. Some people were spreading the word about the importance of voting and sharing information on the candidates, other people shared their personal opinions. Some posts were making humour out of candidates, others were straight up bashing them. Some posts just shared information on the party. I believe that this array of different content I was exposed to before and during the election really played a part in shaping my own opinion because I was able to get information about my options easily through social media, but I was also able to see others opinions and why they felt they way they did. I am happy with my decision and feel that my vote reflects my personal beliefs but I also feel that social media played a role in shaping my opinion. This example is also a demonstration of audiences as objects. We think we have the choice to vote for who we want but media is still there, leading and shaping us in the way that they want.

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Polysemy and Three Subject Positions

In lecture we also discussed Stuart Hall’s three subject positions from which he states that media decoding could take place (Sullivan, 2013, p. 142). I believe that I have participated in each of the positions that he states and that most other people have as well. The first position is dominant-hegemonic. This means you don’t put much thought or reflection into what you are seeing, you just accept the dominant ideology of the message. I often do this when I am texting. I usually do not put much thought into messages I am sending or receiving. I take most messages exactly as they are sent and say exactly what I mean when sending my own messages.

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The next position Hall names is the negotiated position. This is explained as “Viewers making negotiated readings of texts relate to and understand the dominant code, but also filter media content though the lens of their own individualized experiences and worldview” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 142). An example of this that comes to mind is when I was watching a Netflix show “Good Girls’. The women in the show do some bad things and get away with them yet I still respect these characters because I can relate to the reasons that they are doing them; family.

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The last position Hall talks about is an oppositional position. This “focuses exclusively on the connotative meanings of the signs in order to mount an ideological struggle against the message and/or its producers (Sullivan, 2013, p. 142). This basically means that you are against a specific media message based on your personal experiences. An personal example of this is based off an experience at the Fallsview Waterpark in Niagara Falls. My boyfriend and I went to the waterpark as we had heard about it and seen advertisements. When we got there we were disappointed because it was dirty, the pool was cold, there was limited seating areas and every food and drink option was very expensive. Our visit was even cut short when the entire waterpark was shut down for an undisclosed sanitary reason. I often see advertisements online and on TV for the waterpark and I see many people going. While I understand why people do want to go, I did not like it and would never go back and I am reminded of this every time I see an advertisement for it. These three positions are ways of decoding media and although they are used differently by different people, everyone uses all of these positions to understand media.

Granelli and Zenor and The Four Modes of Audience Reception

In Granelli and Zenor’s paper, they discuss the TV show ‘Dexter’ and how people decode and morally judge the show. I have not seen ‘Dexter’ but a similar example that comes to mind is the television show ‘Breaking Bad’. The main character is also an antihero yet a fan favourite. In the reading, there are four modes of audience reception discussed, transparent, referential, mediated and discursive. When analyzing myself as an audience member of ‘Breaking Bad’ in the context of these four modes, I feel that I fit best into the transparent category. It is defined as the individual getting lost in the text and developing emotional ties to the characters and themes (Granelli & Zenor, 2016, p. 5058). I think that I fit into this section because I cannot really relate to the show but I found that it very intriguing and interesting. I would get immersed in it while I watched it and felt like I was really in the show. By the end of the series I felt emotionally invested in the characters and the story and was sad to see it come to an end.

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Week 8: October 31-November 6

Hello and welcome back to my audience studies blog! This week in lecture we looked at chapter seven: Reception Contexts and Media Rituals as well as The Influences of Sports Viewing Conditions on Enjoyment From Watching Televised Sports by Kihan Kim, Yunjae Cheong and Hyuksoo Kim. In this weeks blog I will discuss Dorothy Hobson’s housewife study, individualized viewing behaviour and the variables in the sports viewing study.

Dorothy Hobson’s Housewife Study

In chapter seven, Sullivan touches on Dorothy Hobson’s study on housewives and their use of media in the home, and how it represents ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ programming. An example that immediately came to mind is the type of content I used to feel that I ‘had’ to consume online to be ‘feminine’. A lot of girls love makeup and hair and enjoy watching this kind of content on YouTube. Most boys enjoy watching video games and sports highlights on YouTube. When I was around twelve I noticed this and also began to watch makeup tutorials and other similar content. I did this because I felt that it was what I ‘should’ be consuming if I wanted to fit into the ‘feminine’ group opposed to the ‘masculine’. As I grew, I realized that there is not simply a ‘masculine’ group or a ‘feminine’ group that I need to fit into; everything is not black and white. This is also an example of audience as agent because I realized that I had the choice to consume what I wanted to and not what media or other people had made me feel that I should be consuming. Although this example is slightly different from Hobson’s study as all media consumption was taking place on the same medium, I believe it is still relevant to the study of audiences.

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Individualized Viewing Behaviours

Over time, consuming media has become much easier for people to do alone. “Since more sets in the home become available and more people live alone, more viewing is done alone - producing a more ‘individualized’ experience akin to that presumably fostered by the arrival of print media centuries earlier” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 172). I feel that I relate directly to this as most of my media viewing is done alone. Having a mobile phone enables me to access all of my social media at any time and in any place. Even if I am with people, I find that when I am viewing my social media pages I am not listening or paying attention to anything going on around me, I am simply consuming the media in front of me as if I was alone. Since websites like Netflix have been created, viewing TV and movies is more available to do alone. You no longer need to have a VCR or DVD player, you do not even need a physical copy of what you want to watch; all you need is an internet connection. I find that this plays a large part in me consuming most of my media alone. Netflix makes it possible for me to be alone in my own space but with the comfort of my own content. This relates to ‘bedroom culture’, which I feel I also strongly relate to. I spend almost all of my time in my bedroom, whether I am doing schoolwork, eating, or consuming media. My family and I never sit together and watch television or a film and I prefer it this way as I would prefer to consume content alone. I think I mainly like to consume content alone because I have grown used to it through the convenience of new media and ‘bedroom culture’, as well as the shift away from shared viewing.

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The Influences of Sports Viewing Conditions on Enjoyment from Watching Televised Sports (Kim, Cheong, Kim)

This week’s reading studied people viewing sports in the home and people viewing sports in a theatre, and how this affected individuals viewing experiences. When reading this paper, specifically the variables, I was reminded of watching Toronto Maple Leaf hockey games with some friends of mine who are huge Leaf fans. The first variable is realism which is how convincing, real and natural the content is, does it feel like you are really there watching it? My friends have a large TV in their living room and we gather there to watch the games, the giant television definitely helps create the sense that we are really in the arena, but obviously some things cannot be replicated, like the chilliness of the hockey rink or the smell of overpriced popcorn. The next variable is immersion which describes how involved an individual feels in an event. I always feel very immersed when I am gathered with my friends as we stand for the National Anthem and do not speak about other things while the game is on. Everyone is giving their full attention to the TV. The next variable is physiological response. A common physiological response I usually get while watching the games is goosebumps when someone on our team gets a breakaway or there is a tense moment or fight. I find that when others are loud and expressing their opinions it creates a more physical response in myself. The next variable is game attractiveness. The game is attractive to my friends and I because we enjoy watching hockey at a high level and keeping up with the competition of the league. Another variable, which is similar to game attractiveness, is suspense. Since my group of friends has already developed their positive disposition to the Toronto Maple Leaf’s, it is suspenseful to watch them play other teams and see who will win. We love to cheer on the Leaf’s and boo the opposing teams. This makes it interesting for us and keeps me intrigued to keep coming back to watch the next game. The last variable discussed in the study is enjoyment. I think that all of the above variables contribute to the overall enjoyment of watching the game as well as spending time with friends.

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Week 9: November 7-13

Hello and welcome to this week’s blog! This week we looked at chapter 8: Media Fandom and Audience Subcultures as well as Navar-Gill’s study on Fandoms as Symbolic Patronage: Understanding of Fan Relationships with Industry Through Veronica Mars Kickstarter Campaign. In my blog this week I will discuss my own example of fan culture and talk about fan activism and a couple of examples where fans impacted the outcome of a show.

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Fan Culture

The example of fan culture that was used in lecture was Star Trek; people dressing up as the characters and decorating their homes as a shrine, the endless conventions etc. A more recent example of fan culture that comes to mind is Justin Bieber and the crazy ‘Bieber Fever’ that happened when he became famous. Justin Bieber’s fandom called themselves ‘beliebers’ and when he became famous, there was a huge army of them. “A fandom is associated with the cultural tastes of subordinated formations of the people, particularly those disempowered by any combination of gender, age, class and race” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 193). I was also a ‘belieber’ so that is why this was the first thing to come to mind when I heard the term fan culture. I had my entire bedroom covered in posters of Justin and purchased lots of his merchandise including perfumes, t-shirts, hand creams and lotions etc. I was definitely a fan of Justin and I would even consider myself to have been a ‘super-fan’, which is the same as Brown’s concept of worship. I became even more engaged with Justin Bieber and the fandom when I created my own fan account on Twitter. My page was dedicated to Justin and I was constantly online, posting content and interacting with other fans. At this point I would consider myself a producer, which the most active kind of audience member (Sullivan, 2013, p. 194). Through this page I made friends online from all over the world and some even nearby. This is an example of us forming a community and a subculture about Justin Bieber. Having this platform where I had friends with the same interests as me enabled me to feel more confident and feel like myself as well as feeling as though I belonged. “The groups solidify a sense of mission and purpose for themselves, which can have the mutually reinforcing effect of expanding their ranks” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 196-7). I used my platform to share information about Justin Bieber and promote him constantly, eventually taking it to the next level. I began going to Toronto when Justin was also there and waiting for him at his hotel (it is creepy, I know. I regret it now). I would wait in the cold, for hours with my friends from Twitter, and never once was I lucky enough to even catch a glimpse of him. At the time I may have even fit into the extremism stereotype of fans discussed by Sullivan on page 193. I think this is a good example of fan culture and belonging to a fandom as there was a large group of us and we felt we had our own subculture and identities. “Instead of audiences’ viewing choices being totally determined by institutional constructions, fans develop their own sense of self-identity around their media consumption” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 193). I demonstrated this through feeling as though being a ‘belieber’ was part of who I was.

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Fan Activism: Challenging Institutional Producers

In lecture we also discussed how when there were talks of Star Trek being cancelled, over 115,893 fans wrote to the production company and got them to extend the show for another season (Sullivan, 2013, p. 197). A few other recent examples came to mind when I heard this. One example of this kind of audience influence is between Netflix and the television show ‘Friends’. There were talks of Netflix removing the fan favourite from their website and many people were upset. Netflix got enough of a response from their users that they were able to negotiate a deal with the production company to keep the show available on their site. “Close knit communities of fans can also offer direct challenges to exist authority. Fans can be mobilized to press producers and media corporations for change” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 196). This is exactly what happened here and it demonstrates the power fans can really have in challenging big media companies and producers. Another example is the popular sitcom television show on FOX ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’. The show was cancelled recently and fans were really upset. FOX did not want to continue the show, but NBC recognized the fan support behind the television program and bought it from FOX. The show will now run for at least another season. “This kind of activism often serves as a rallying point for fan movements. (Sullivan, 2013, p. 196). Fans can have a large influence on what kind of media content is produced and consumed and this has been increased by the digital age. All of the examples used in this week’s blog have been enabled by the technological advancements that have happened and are happening. Having a twitter page to produce fan content and Netflix users contacting the creators etc, demonstrates the impact that technology has had, and will continue to have on fan culture and fan activism.

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Week 10: November 14-20

Hello! Welcome back to my audience studies blog. This week in lecture we discussed chapter 9 in the textbook and looked at Athique’s paper on The Dynamics and Potentials of Big Data for Audience Research. In my blog this week I will look more into Rebecca Black and the ‘Friday’ phenomenon, as well as audience autonomy and user-generated content through digital media.