COMM 3P18: Audience Studies Blog

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Week 11 - Conclusion: Audience Agency in New Contexts

Welcome back and for the last time this time!

How we define audiences has changed throughout the years. Audience members are not only consuming anymore, we are also producing, as shown last week. Sullivan (2013) has helped us to explore the concept of media audiences from multiple perspectives: as objects, as active users, as fans, as subcultures, and as media producers. Sullivan (2013) believes that ‘’by now it should be clear that the definition of term ‘audience’ has been contested throughout its history’’ (p.239). Even I, as I grew up and gained knowledge on the topic, understands that I have been an audience members in so many different contexts. One of the audience shifts that Sullivan (2013) discusses is mobile platform audience experiences. Going from the printing press which allowed people to take the content that they read, to consuming and producing content on mobile phones at any time, in any place. He also discusses transmedia audience experiences. By this he refers to ‘’the coordinated use of multiple media platforms (or technologies) to craft a narrative’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.241). This phenomenon demonstrates the role of technology in media audience. An example of this could be how the movement Me Too used multiple media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, news broadcasting, etc., in order to raise awareness to a social issue.

This is closely related to paratexts. Paratexts refer to ‘’textual material that surrounds media narratives and informs us about them’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.241). An example of this could be the movie the Simpsons. It is not part of the main series, but it surrounds the same narrative of this dysfunctional family and gives us extra information on these characters.

Sullivan (2013) also talks about content on demand. The long tail represents this well and it ‘’demonstrates the result of fragmentation. Most audiences focus their viewing on a few very popular media products or hit programs (the head), but the rest of viewer attention is spread across a larger group of much smaller, niche content options (the tail)’’ (p.243). Examples of the head could be shows such as the Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory, etc. Examples of the tail could be shows such as American Pickers, Iron Chef, etc.

These changes mean that the power dynamic between media institutions and audience members has shifted in the direction of the audience. Sullivan (2013) argues that ‘’the concept (of the audience) is more important than ever but that scholars should pay careful attention to the shifting boundaries between media texts and the audience’’ (p.245).

In her article ‘’Audiences in an age of datafication: Critical questions for media research’’, Livingstone (2019) explains the shift in power for audiences. We understand this going from her article discussing interviews and how they give power to audience members in 2010, to audience research in the digital age as a focus. She explains that  ‘’in today’s heavy climate of media panics – over so-called fake news, election hacking, Internet and smartphone addiction, the algorithmic amplification of hate speech, viral scams, filter bubbles and echo chambers, discriminatory data profiling and data breaches, the crisis in quality journalism, the demise of face-to-face conversion, and a host of digital anxieties about youth – fears about audience gullibility, ignorance, and exploitation are again heightened in popular and academic debate’’ (Livingstone, 2019, p.171). She explains that this is happening because of this phenomenon called datafication, which is ‘’the quantification, recording, and analysis of a phenomenon or, more ambitiously, the world and the human activity it includes (Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, 2013, as cited in Livingstone, 2019, p.171). This phenomenon now gives power to people researching and gaining audience members’ data. But Livingstone (2019) insists on the fact that we should not assume we know the trajectory result of audience trends because of technology and datafication. This is a direction connection and opposing point to Athique’s argument seen last week. Livingstone (2019) explains this to be ‘’an invitation to attend to the conditions of meaning-making, to amplify audiences’ voices in the interests of social justice, and to imagine with them alternative futures.’’ (Livingstone, 2019, p.175). The synthesis of Livingstone’s article can be understood as her encouragement for us to stop seeing this debate as a media power versus audience power. 

This was your blogger Comm King, and this time it is not a joke, this is good bye. Hope you enjoyed these two seasons of Audience Studies with me! See you later!

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Welcome back guys! By this Tik Tok video you might be able to guess what this week’s topic is. Any guesses? Alright, then. I will tell you. Week 10′s topic is the online, interactive audiences in a digital world!

First, what does Sullivan mean by digital world? He means a world where audiences have power. As explained in lecture by professor Good on November 14th, 2019, we are no longer the recipients of one way information. We are now, more than ever, audience members as agents. This could even be called a digital revolution. People are using digital media to come together. What allowed for this? Many things. But let us start with digitalization, which ‘’refers to the standards by which media images and sounds are recorded and transmitted’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.216). The importance of digitalization comes from the fact that without new technologies it would be impossible for us to come together, at least not to the same level of intensity as this digital media world offers right now. This leads us right into what developed to be participatory culture. Simply put, participatory culture refers to how ‘’fans and other consumers are invited to actively participate in the creation and circulation of new content’’ (Jenkins as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.219). Jenkins mentions three aspects that allow for the fostering of this culture. As mentioned earlier new technology is one of the aspects that allow for participatory culture. Jenkins explains that do it yourself subcultures, and ‘’economic trends favoring the horizontal media conglomerates to encourage the flow of images, ideas, and narratives across multiple media channels and demand more active modes of spectatorship’’ are also aspects allowing for participatory culture (Jenkins as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.219).

With participatory culture comes user-generated content. Sullivan (2013) explains this phenomenon as a result of ‘’media corporations are providing consumers the means to create, store, and distribute content that are designed by users themselves–serves as the operating principle behind some of the most popular online services today’’ (p.217-218). This is where Tik Tok comes into play. Tik Tok is a fairly recent media platform that has had proliferating growth and success.

In his article ‘’The dynamics and potentials of big data for audience research’’, Athique (2018) discusses possible outcomes of the use of big data. He defines as ‘’the analysis of numerical trends in those inputs (e.g., social media use) in order to make inferences about the future (e.g., future audience behavior)’’ (p.62). Sullivan (2013) goes in to talk about how big data and traditional data-mining processes might be becoming obsolete for two reasons. The first reason being audience fragmentation, which refers to how ‘’audiences have been continually fragmented into smaller and smaller groups thanks to the dramatic expansion in media channels’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.217). Platforms increasing this audience fragmentation include: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. The second reason is audience autonomy, which ‘’describes ‘’how contemporary characteristics of the media environment, ranging from interactivity to mobility to on-demand functionality to the increased capacity for user-generated content, all serve to enhance the extent to which audiences have control over the process of media consumption’’ (Napoli as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.217). For example, I personally like streaming services such as Netflix because they allow me to be mobile and time-shifting with my viewing experiences.

Athique also uses the principle of alchemy when talking about big data and the data-mining process. He explains: ‘’the primary motivation of the data-mining process is to create value through the aggregation of details which in their raw form are largely worthless. A base material is being transformed into gold, or at least mundane data are being transformed into a virtual currency unit’’ (Athique, 2018, p.64). Again using Tik Tok as an example, ‘’a medium without any content of its own’’, relying ‘’upon its users to supply the value of the service, and to do so freely and without payment’’ (Athique, 2018, p.60). According to Athique’s alchemy metaphor, the videos found on Tik Tok give value to the platform. This can also relate to Sullivan’s discussion of intellectual property concerns in this digital media world we live in. These concerns come from the fact that platforms such as Tik Tok gain revenue from ‘’freely distributed creativity has become increasingly monetized by corporations, transforming it into essentially free labor’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.232).

So, if I ever become famous because of my user-generated content on Tik Tok, I might have a few concerns surrounding my intellectual property as well. But for the moment, I still believe in audience members as agents, which will also be next week’s topic.

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 9 - Media Fandom and Audience Subcultures

Welcome my fellow fans! Here is the topic you have all been waiting for! As I mentioned in the first blog of the second season, I was not cancelled because of how engaged you guys are with my content. I am forever grateful! Now, let us get right into this week’s topic: media fandom and audience subcultures!

As Sullivan (2013) explains that fandom consists of fan audiences that are ‘’deeply engaged in their favorite media texts. Fans often reinterpret media content and create their own cultural productions in response’’ (p.193). He further explains that this concept of fandom can be observed as a continuum, also called the Continuum of Fandom. This continuum goes as follows: from consumer, to enthusiast, to fan, to producer, producer being the most highly involved and emotionally engaged fan. I personally have very little time to get involved or emotionally engaged with media texts so I would say I fall under the ‘’consumer’’ section of the continuum.

Sometimes fans are so involved with the media texts that they come together and create subcultures. Subcultures are groups that are ‘’distinctive cultural entities unto themselves’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.196). More specifically, we can look at the example of anime. Anime is a very popular fandom theme, so popular that subcultures of this theme formed over time. Subcultures, such as Naruto subculture fandom, Tokyo Ghouls subculture fandom, Seven Deadly Sins subculture fandom, etc., come to life. As explained by Sullivan (2013), ‘’media fans are members of subcultures in the sense that they adopt their own linguistic codes (specialized ways of talk, unique forms of greeting and address, and the use of codenames or titles, for example)’’ (p.196). This is true of Naruto fans. Many of them participate in this subculture using the specific dress code, language, and hand signs from the show. They often reunite at Cosplay events.

Sullivan (2013) then introduces Jenkins and the idea of textual poaching. Jenkins describes this practice as ‘’the repossession of the text by fans from the producers allows the former party to explore their own self-identities and to play with many of the textual elements found in their favorite popular narratives’’ (Jenkins as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.203). Some of the poaching processes that relate to Naruto include recontextualization and eroticization. Recontextualization refers to ‘’short stories or ‘’missing scenes’’ that fill in gaps in the existing media text (TV program, film, etc.)’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.205). Fans often write fan fictions about Naruto on platforms such as Reddit, Wattpad, fanfiction.net, etc. Eroticization refers to the exploration of ‘’characters’ sexuality and sexual encounters not seen in the primary narrative’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.205). This is especially true when looking at the show Naruto. A sexual narrative that is often explored by fans is the sexual relationship between Naruto and Sasuke, two of the main characters of the show. This textual poaching process is also relevant when looking at media text such as hentai.

In her article ‘’Fandom as symbolic patronage: Expanding understanding of fan relationships with industry through the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign’’, Navar-Gill (2018) discusses the concept of affirmational and transformational fandom. She explains that ‘’affirmational fans celebrate the text as is and accept industry guidelines for textual interpretation and participation’’ (p.212). She further explains that transformational fans ‘’tend to twist and reimagine the text in non-sanctioned ways through creative work, asserting a kind of moral ownership over the text’’ (p.212). I believe I am both an affirmational fan and a transformational fan. I am an affirmational fan when it comes to most media texts I consume, but when it comes to anime specifically I sometimes stretch the original narrative through drawings and paintings. For example, I like to draw characters from the show Naruto and change the outfits they usually wear or their romantic partners. This also touches on the textual poaching processes mentioned earlier.

After discussing how fans interact with media texts in various ways, I would like to touch on power. In lecture, on November 7th, 2019, Professor Good linked the power relationship of signs and media fandom. She explained that media fandom has greatly changed throughout the years. In the past, signs and symbols were defined for us, and as explained in week 7, the people who defined those signs and symbols had the power. Now, more and more signs and symbols are defined by us, the audience members. Media fandom touches on the power that fans hold in the fact that they can modify, critique, and celebrate media texts. As explained previously, this concept of power and fandom comes from something called symbolic transgression. This concept refers to the process that fans use to interact with media texts on another, more intense level. It is the process of fans claiming symbolic significance from specific media context as their own. For example, Naruto fans using the dress code, language, and hand signs from the show. 

The symbolic transgression starts when fans get involved into the fate of the specific media content. The power focus switches from allowing for a passive audience to allowing audience members to claim and use media content related symbols. This switch in focus leads us back into this ongoing discussion concerning the constant debate between audience members as agents versus audience members as objects. This concept of the two waves of fan culture research allows us to observe how the media fandom and the power it holds has changed over the years.  The first wave took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s and showed fans as exerting power influence over the content, fans as agents. But the second wave, which took place in the late 1990s, questioned whether or not fans really had agency, or if they were only being taken advantage of. 

I leave you guys with this idea until next week. If you thought this blog was good, prepare to be amazed next week.

-Comm King

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Week 8 - Reception Contexts and Media Rituals

Welcome back to Comm King’s blog, how is it going guys? Hope you have had a great week so far! Let us get right into this week’s topic: reception contexts and media rituals.

As described by Sullivan (2013), media reception is ‘’the study of audience interpretation of media that occurs in specific contexts’’ (p.162). Context is ‘’the specific environments in which media consumption occurs… both to a place and a web of interpersonal relationships and interactions that occur within that space’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.163).  Now that I have defined the basics of this week with the help of Sullivan, let us talk about reception contexts. In lecture on October 31, 2019, Professor Good discussed reception contexts. She explained that the printing press was the dawn of choosing where we wanted to be audience members, the start of choosing our reception context. We understand that consumption of media now happens in all kinds of contexts. For example, technologies such as our cellphones have allowed us to be in public with our devices and the media that we consume. Reception contexts can be understood in four aspects; appropriation, objectification, incorporation, and conversion. As seen in lecture, appropriation is how communication technologies have been acquired. I remember as a kid, my parents bought a huge television. The box of this television became a cardboard house for me. I remember how big it was and how much focus was put on this new television. 

This brings me to the second aspect of reception is objectification, which refers to how the technology object is displayed or organized in the home. Our living room and the things that we had in it, such as our sofa, coffee table, DVD display furniture, DVD player, etc., were organized around our television and our viewing time. 

The third aspect of reception context is incorporation. Incorporation refers to ways in which technologies are used by those in the household. For example, I used the television in the morning when I woke up. My dad had configured a special remote. The remote displayed a button with my name on, taking me straight to the cartoon channel. This remote was making it easier for me to watch television while my parents were still sleeping.

The last aspect of reception context is conversion. Conversion refers to how information is carried via communication technology, and then becomes a part of our everyday social interaction and builds social capital outside of the home. In my case, this became relevant when I started at Brock University. I use information that I receive through communication technology, like the news on CBC for example, and I then use it to foster conversations with other students.

During the same lecture, Professor Good also discussed media rituals. She explained that media rituals have changed greatly throughout the years. From small communities celebrating and interacting around fires, to personalized media environments. In seminar on November 6th, 2019, we also discussed how rituals can mean different things. They can mean an individual’s habitual activities, but they can also mean activities that are part of society and culture as a whole, such as weddings or funerals for example. Media rituals usually depend on three factors. Space, which is ‘’the concrete, physical dimensions of the location’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.163). There is also social environment, which is the part of context that is ‘’defined by the people and relationships that are found there… encompasses people (family and loved ones), relationships, vivid memories of past experiences’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.163). Finally, time, which is divided between punctuation and time-shifting. Punctuation is the way we ‘’use media to structure our day into discrete time segments’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.165). Time-shifting is the way ‘’viewers can choose to watch… at more convenient times and on a variety of media platforms’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.165). My ideal media ritual would happen in my bedroom, in company of my boyfriend, using a time-shifting manner since I love binge watching shows.

In the Kim, Cheong, and Kim’s (2016) article ‘’The influences of sports viewing conditions on enjoyment from watching televised sports: An analysis of the FIFA World Cup audiences in theater vs. home.’’, the three authors conduct research that investigates reception context, media rituals, and how all of these affect audience members’ viewing experiences. They discuss the concept of the three types of perceptions was discussed. The first perception is the one of immersion which ‘’refers to the degree to which an individual feels involved in a particular experience and is caught up in the presentation of the media’’ (Kim, Cheong, Kim, 2016, p.392). For example, last night I watched the movie Scary Stories to tell in the Dark, I was so caught up in this media presentation that I forgot about the time and my curfew. The second perception is the one of realism which ‘’refers to the degree to which an individual perceives the naturalness of media content as if he or she is experiencing the content directly as part of his or her environment’’ (Kim, Cheong, Kim, 2016, p.392). Relating this perception to the same movie mentioned above, I experienced the content directly as part of my environment. I was looking around to make sure no monster would come out of a dark spot. The third and last perception is the one of physiological responses which refers to ‘’the adverse physiological reactions audiences experience while consuming media contents’’ (Kim, Cheong, Kim, 2016, p.392). Again, relating this perception to the movie mentioned above, I experienced several physiological reactions due to fear, such as sweating and a racing heart.

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 7 - Interpreting and Decoding Mass Media Texts

Comm King back for another week of audience studies, fun, and excitement. Have you ever wondered how powerful signs really are? If so, welcome back to the best blog you have ever and will ever read. Be ready to learn about semiotics, power, and how interpreting and decoding mass media texts can be a useful technique for us, audience members as agents.

As seen in seminar on October 30th, 2019, interpreting and decoding refers to the understanding of how the processes of communicating ideas and experiences take place. When it comes to mass media texts, signs, and semiotics or semiology, are used to achieve this understanding. Semiology is defined by Sullivan (2013) as ‘’the systematic study of signs and their significance in society’’ (p.136). This study divides signs into three components; the sign, the signifier, and the signified. Sullivan (2013) explains that signs are anything that has meaning, such as ‘’words, images, objects, acts’’ (p.136). The signifier refers to ‘’the form of the sign’’, such as an image or a word representing the sign (De Saussure as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.137). The signifier refers to ‘’the form of the sign’’, such as an image or a word representing the sign (Sullivan, 2013, p.137). The signified ‘’is the concept the signifier represents’’, or what is cognitively evoked (De Saussure as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.137). Sullivan (2013) reminds us that ‘’the connection between signs and referents is never natural, it is therefore always changing and subject to power relations’’ (p.138).

In lecture on October 17th, 2019, the relationship between power and signs was explored. Ms. Good explained that the people who construct signs and their referents have the power. They have the power to define things such as: ‘’the good life’’, success, happiness, enough, common sense, who we are and what is important. This power is so important because as explained in lecture, cultivation theory shows that we are socialized by the content we receive, meaning we are affected by the mass media texts that we consume. If other people are defining what is common sense or normal through mass media texts, this means we might read mass media texts in a dominant or hegemonic way. This is the dominant or hegemonic reading of mass media texts, ‘’…in which they might accept the media message exactly in terms of the code in which it was produced.’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.142). We are individuals and we have individual experiences of mediated communication but ‘’individuals’ interpretations of mass media may be connected in some way’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.134). As audience members we have a tendency to read mass media texts in a dominant or hegemonic way. For example, in the first picture here, we can observe what seems to be an innocent little girl and a weird looking man. This is the dominant or hegemonic reading.

But informed readers, such as my followers should know that this reading is not the only option we have. We, as audience members, are agents. We decode polysemic media in a way that Sullivan (2013) describes as ‘’…audiences as active decoders of media texts, leaving conceptual room for them to challenge these meanings’’ (p.140). Hall (1980) believed that decoding could happen in various ways. Hall believed that mass media texts are ‘’…capable of being interpreted in distinctly different ways by different viewers due to the affect that each viewer has different experiences and cultural knowledge of signs’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.142). I already discussed the first main reading which is the dominant or hegemonic reading. The second main reading is the negotiated reading, in which ‘’…the individual would interpret the message with ‘’a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements’’’’ (Hall as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.142). The third and last main reading is the oppositional reading, which 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). In the following picture, we can observe the oppositional reading of this media text, when put in comparison to the first picture presented above.

In Granelli and Zenor’s (2016) article ‘’Decoding “The Code”: Reception theory and moral judgment of Dexter.’’, we can observe their attempt to understand how audiences negotiate mass media texts, in this case specifically, the show Dexter.  They explain that ‘’for many decades, media psychologists have also been interested in how audiences interpret texts, especially media that contains behavior that is considered to be morally reprehensible’’ (Granelli and Zenor, 2016, p.5058). After reading this article, I decided to observe how I personally negotiate mass media texts. My personal audience experience with interpreting and decoding mass media texts has evolved, especially after taking the course 3P18. As previously stated earlier, mass media texts are read in ‘’different ways by different viewers due to the affect that each viewer has different experiences and cultural knowledge of signs’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.142). I believe this is true because of my audience experience with Disney movies, specifically the movie Cinderella. As a kid, the way I interpreted and decoded this movie using a dominant or hegemonic reading. I was understanding the text as it was encoded. I believed I needed a prince charming to come save me. As I got older, I gained in experiences and in cultural knowledge. I now interpret and decode this movie using an oppositional reading. I do not believe I need a man to come save me. I believe in being a strong and independent woman.

Tune in next week to learn more about reception contexts and media rituals, including some insight into my own!

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 6 - Uses and Gratifications

Hehehe. Just kidding. You really thought you were done hearing from Comm King? I guess my fellow blog reader fans showed enough affection and support to keep this blog from being cancelled. But this is a topic for week 9. For now, I am back to talk to you about the Uses and Gratifications Theory.

As seen in lecture on October 10th, 2019, Uses and Gratifications Theory allows us to make a case for audience as agents, agents who use specific media to fulfill their specific needs. Under this theory, audience members are seen as active. They choose the content they watch, the platforms they watch the specific content on, and those with whom they share their audience experiences. As explained by Sullivan (2013) in his textbook Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power, ‘’…the shift from questions of widespread media influence to those regarding the utility of the media for individual viewers heralded an early shift toward a uses-oriented view of audience experience.’’ (p.113). Professor Good explained during lecture on October 10th, 2019 that those needs include the need for surveillance, correlation, entertainment, and socialization. These needs can also be divided into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As explained by Sullivan (2013), ‘’Abraham Maslow’s (1970) theories of needs and human motivations could serve as the foundation for understanding how needs related to media uses. Maslow outlined a basic need hierarchy as the foundation for the motivation of all human beings…’’ (p.115).

Four years later, Blumer and Gurevitch came up with the five basic assumptions of the Uses and Gratifications Theory. During the 1980s, Rubin came up with two broad categories of audience motives to use media, ritualized and instrumental. Ritualized audiences, which as Sullivan (2013) explained, ‘’tended to use TV more habitually, watching in order to consume time or to be diverted from other activities.’’ (p.117). Instrumental audiences, as explained by Sullivan (2013), ‘’would search for specific kinds of message content, often seeking out and selecting informational material in a purposive way, suggesting greater care and selectivity over media as well as increased involvement with the programming itself.’’ (p.117). I believe I am more of an instrumental audience member. I do not watch many shows but when I do, I always a reason. For example, my reason to watch Big Mouth was to fulfill my need for stress relief, to think about something else than my school-related stress and sorrows.   

Sundar and Limperos (2013) studied the emergence of new gratifications in relationship with new media in their article ‘’Uses and grats 2.0: New gratifications for new media’’. Their research allowed them to come up with the MAIN model which ‘’identifies four classes of technological affordances in digital media—modality, agency, interactivity, and navigability—that have been shown over the years to have significant psychological consequences.’’ (Sundar and Limperos, 2013, p.512). I will be using this model to explain how I use social media, which are new media, to fulfill my needs. M, or modality-based gratification ‘’refers to the different methods of presentation (e.g., audio or pictures) of media content, appealing to different aspects of the human perceptual system (e.g., hearing, seeing)’’ (Sundar and Limperos, 2013, p.512). Simply put, modality refers to how the content that I consume is displayed on each social media platform. To be very specific, this relates to the format and colors of the posts, how they are displayed on Instagram, the way audio is played on the app, etc. These are all things that my perceptual senses are attracted to.  

A, or agency-based gratification refers to how new media allow ‘’us all to be agents or sources of information.’’ (Sundar and Limperos, 2013, p.515). More specifically, agency-based gratification relates to the ability to be a prosumer. Instagram allows me to be prosumer. I produce by posting pictures on Instagram, and I consume by scrolling through my feed and looking at other people’s content.

I, or interactivity-based gratification refers to how new media allow ‘’the user to make real-time changes to the content in the medium… allowing users to interact with and through the medium.’’ (Sundar and Limperos, 2013, p.513). This type of gratification refers to the ability to interact through comments, likes, and shares. This relates to my use of Instagram live. This use is instant and I receive real-time participation and feedback from my followers. 

Finally, N, or navigability-based gratifications refers to how new media allow ‘’user movement through the medium’’ (Sundar and Limperos, 2013, p.516). This type of gratification refers to the ability to multitask, going from one social media platform to the other. I use navigability-based gratifications when I switch from Instagram to Snapchat. Instagram fulfills some of my needs, such as my need for self-promotion, and Snapchat fulfills other needs, such as affiliation.

Come back next week to learn more about how I interpret and decode mass media texts!

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 5 - Media Ratings and Target Marketing

Welcome again, and for last time! I will be discussing how audiences become quantifiable institutional constructions through the use of media ratings and target marketing, also called the political economy of audiences.

As seen on Thursday, October 3rd, 2019, one way of making sense of media ratings and target market is to think of audience members as agents. By choosing what we want to watch, it is possible for rating agencies such as Nielsen to turn our viewing experiences into ratings. Sullivan (2013) gives the example of Walmart to explain the relationship of power that the marketers and rating agencies have over us. He explains specific ‘’tools are often used by powerful institutions and organizations to advance their own goals, thus bringing into play fundamental issues of power’’ (p.78). In this case, the model of audiences as outcome or as ‘’object’’ comes into play. Vincent Mosco described this political economy to be ‘’the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources (Mosco, 1996, p.25, as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.78). As seen in lecture, Mosco has a 5 questions approach to the political economy. Under the first question he critically reflects on choices, which often are a result of target marketing and indicated by media ratings. He discusses choice architecture. Choice architecture is a concept in which consumers are not always rational in their decisions, they don’t always base their decisions on what is good for them if they are provided with more appealing options. An example of this could be when I choose to consume trendy Netflix shows instead of writing my assignments. He also discusses nudges, a process in which people make decisions based on unconscious things. When I pick a show on Netflix, I can now critically reflect on whether or not I am watching this show because I really want to watch this or because of this unconscious hype culture that we live in

Under his second question, he discusses the possibility of our leisure time being, in fact, work that we unconsciously accomplish for marketers and rating agencies. Thomas Streeter (1996) explains that ‘’what the industrialization and wage-labor system has created (…) is an artificial divide between the realm of production (in other words, our work lives where we are economically productive)… and consumption (our leisure time, where we are consuming instead of being productive)’’ (as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.80). Mosco also relates this to Marx’s blind spot debate which states that we are socialized to think that our use of media is leisure time, when in reality we are doing audience labor (Sullivan, 2013, p.81). Mosco’s third and last question that I will discuss is surrounding the concern for ratings and marketing turning us into data. ‘’no picture of the audience is complete without a close analysis of the systems for measuring those audiences’’ (Sullivan, 2013, referring to Eileen Meehan, p.82). Mosco argued that we are turned into numbers by these marketers and rating agencies because numbers are easy to understand, exchangeable for money, and have an air of objectivity. Buzzard (2015) explains this in her article ‘’the rise of market information regimes and the historical development of audience ratings’’. She explains that the ratings ‘’were really but an extension of this system of audits to provide feedback and greater control of the selling process’’ (p.511). These last two questions relate to my consumption of shows on Netflix. While I think I am relaxing and watching this new show, I am in fact responding to marketers’ efforts and producing data for rating agencies.

That is all for me friends!

-Comm King

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Week 4 - Public Opinion and Audience Citizenship

Welcome once again! Let us begin with the evolution and importance of the public opinion.

The beginning of the recognition of public opinion was during the 4th century. As Sullivan (2013) explains, ‘’Plato was respectful of the powers if the public to make decisions but he was generally skeptical about the wisdom of common people to make decisions in their own best interest or to ‘strive toward the creation of a morally sound state’’ (p.58). Plato made the distinction between ‘’doxa’’, which he explained to be the ‘’popular opinion that was fickle and unshaped by the rigors of philosophy’’, and ‘’episteme’’, what he defined a ‘’sure knowledge about the true unchanging nature of the world which informed by scientific principles’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.58). During the 5th and 15th centuries, also known as the Middle Ages, Habermas introduced the concept of the public sphere. On Thursday, September 26th, 2019, professor Good explained this concept to be members of the audience coming together to discuss the public good. She further explained that the public sphere was a form in which the authority of the state could be judged, based on a principle of publicness, hence allowing for rational critical debates between critical citizens. This concept of public sphere came to exist because of the fall of the feudal system and the invention of the printing press. According to Sullivan (2013), ‘’the press not only made things public, but it actually made publics by opening up the affairs of state to citizens who had no other way of knowing’’ (p.60). Professor Good explained that this concept led to democracy, this idea of people coming together, voting and allowing them to have a say on matters. My personal audience experience that relates to this would be the Canadian federal elections of 2019. This year was my first time as voter and I finally felt like I had a say in how who was to be elected. Instead of just absorbing information from debates that made the news as a consumer, I was now allowed to produce and share my opinion into the public sphere, making me a prosumer and more powerful citizen.

An issue that comes with the public sphere is figuring out what is actually important to the public and what is framed in the news as being important for the public. Walter Lippman explains this phenomenon with this concept he calls pseudo environment. He explains this concept to be a social environment created by the press where only some stories, values and beliefs are shared, creating a bias for the audience (as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.66). Sullivan (2013) also tries to explain this phenomenon through the Agenda Setting Theory, which states that the media’s priorities often become people’s priorities. This is true of the Canadian federal elections. This year, part of the Conservative party’s agenda was to win against the Liberal party. In order to set this agenda, the Conservative party was believed to search and release old pictures of Justin Trudeau that showed him wearing blackface. This ‘’brownface scandal’’ as seen in many news sources happened about a month before the federal elections, advantaging the Conservative party and their agenda.

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 3 - Effects of Media Messages

Welcome back! I am so glad you could make it for another week of the best audience studies blog ever. Let us get right into it.

According to Sullivan (2013), ‘’media messages carry potentially damaging information for the public, and that these messages need to be carefully monitored and potentially restricted’’ (p.26). As I explained in last week’s blog post, Sullivan’s audiences-as-outcomes (or objects) model justifies the negative ideologies surrounding the effects of media messages. Professor Good explained during lecture on Thursday, September 19th, 2019, representation matters, especially in media messages since we are exposed to a lifetime of media messages. A study by George Gerbner called the cultivation theory tried to prove this. This theory argued that ‘’audiences’ conceptions of reality are developed through exposure to television over a period of months and years’’ (Sullivan, 2013, 46).

Professor Good also explained that the brain’s primary function for thousands of years was survival, we had to pay attention in order to stay alive, making us aware even if we are not necessarily conscious that we are aware. This was seen during the industrial revolution. Before this period of time, people from rural used to hear stories from family members and neighbors. People in small communities like this were called Gemeinschaft and the people in the cities were called the Gesellschaft (Ferdinand Tonnies, 1957 as cited by Sullivan, 2013, p.30). The industrial revolution forced the people who lived in those rural areas to move where employment was available, which resulted in the creation bigger masses in smaller concentrated areas. This shift resulted in an increase in production and consumption, which greatly increased the need to appeal to people as consumers. This need was fulfilled by an increase in advertising content which was found in newspapers, where the people went to get mediated forms of stories. The industrial revolution was a turning point in the understanding of the effects of messages to audiences.

In his article ‘’ Examining four processes of audience involvement with media personae: Transportation, parasocial interaction, identification, and worship’’, Brown (2015) is proposing a way of making sense of audience relationships with mediated characters. He calls this involvement, ‘’the degree of psychological response of a person to a mediated message or persona’’ (Brown, 2015, p.260). He then proceeds to define persona as a ‘’real person or fictional character encountered through any form of mediated interaction’’ (Brown, 2015, p.261). He uses four processes to explain involvement. The first process is transportation which is ‘’a highly transported individual is cognitively and emotionally involved in the story’’ (Brown, 2015, p.262). The second process is parasocial interaction (also called parasocial relationships) which is ‘’imaginary interaction between a television viewer (media consumer) and a television personality (media), which over time may develop into a self-defined one-way relationship’’ or a ‘’relationship that results from a false sense of intimacy created during media consumption, which strongly developed (Brown, 2015, p.262-263). The third process is worship which is ‘’a form of PSI in which individuals become obsessed with one or more celebrities, similar to erotomanic type of delusional disorder”’’ (Brown, 2015, p.266). The fourth and last process is identification which ‘’requires that we forget ourselves and become the other, emphasizing how media consumers take on the identity of the object of identification’’ (Brown, 2015, p.264-265). An example of this could be audience members’ involvement with the character ‘’Joker’’. The audience members’ are emotionally connected to the Joker through anger, fear, and excitement. Some audience members’ might even imagine themselves as the Joker’s side kick when it comes to parasocial interactions. In the identification process, some audience members might dress up as the Joker for a Cosplay event. Lastly, associating the worship process with the Joker has been a huge fear reflected in mediated messages lately because in this case an audience member would turn themselves into a danger for society.

As seen in lecture, many theorists tried to measure the effects of media messages, including Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin DeFleur in 1976. As explained by Sullivan (2013), Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur came up with the dependency theory which states that the more dependent the audience is for the mediated message, the more of an impact the message will have on them. Hugo Munsterberg, another theorist discussed in lecture, showed the impact of mediated messages through films. He explains: ‘’Films introduced an altered reality for audiences such that the sight of crime and of vice may force itself on the consciousness with disastrous results’’ (Sullivan, quoting Munsterberg, 1916, p.95). Sullivan (2013) explains that this led to moral panics which were described as ‘’very strong negative public reactions to the spread of a new social behavior’’ (p.29). It also led to media panics which are ‘’a specific type of moral panic that surround the introduction of a new type of media or content’’ (p.29-30). This is a current issue with the example of the Joker. Concerns of violence surrounding the new movie ‘’Joker’’ have been circulating in the news. Audiences are scared of the repercussions of this mediated persona on vulnerable audience members. The other main study that we talked about in lecture was the Payne Fund studies. As discussed in seminar on Wednesday, September 25th, 2019, these studies explored the effects of movies on audience members. The Payne Fund organization defined one of their findings as emotion contagion, or the viral-like spread of emotion states.

Lastly, we touched on Paul Lazarsfeld and his People’s Choice research. Lazarsfeld was very interested in measuring how people were influenced by mediated messages, especially when it came to voting. He discovered that people were not necessarily being influenced but that the ideologies that they might have had were reinforced (Sullivan, 2013). 

The People’s Choice research is a nice transition into next week’s topic which is the public opinion and audience citizenship. I will tell you all about the creation of the public sphere as we know it today and quantification of opinions.

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 2 - History and Concept of the Audience

Comm King is back with another blog post for you! This week we are talking about history and concept of the audience, just in case you would not know how to read, if not then hopefully you are enjoying the gifs and images.

Starting with the concept of audience, On Thursday, September 12th, 2019, professor Good gave the definition of audience. She described it to be a group of individuals consuming and engaging with content. According to Sullivan (2013), in his textbook Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power, ‘’the root of the word (aud) suggests the processing of verbal information (e.g., audio or auditory process)’’ (p.3). All these definitions of audience bring us to think that the meaning of audience is constantly changing, in part because it is a social construct. Sullivan (2013) continues to explain that audience is a social construct that is ‘’a situated role that people temporarily perform, and in their performance people produce representations of audience’’ (Butsch, 2008, p.3, as cited in Sullivan’s textbook). 

He further explains how ‘’this concept (of audience) has been imagined and used by communities and societies in specific historical and cultural contexts’’ (p.6). An example of this could be how historically, religion such as Christianity has been using the concept of audience. As a Christian, my audience experiences in church proved that Christianity’s strength is based on its followers, that we could also call audience members. Constructionism which is ‘’a metatheorical approach that treats audience as signifier and subject position rather than referent and autonomous subject’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.5), can also be connected to the example of Christianity. Constructionism is tightly connected to Sullivan’s trilogy, which includes audiences-as-outcome, audience-as-mass, and audience-as-agent. The important model in this case is the audiences-as-outcome model, which ‘’sees people as being acted upon by media’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.6). Religion is an institution that has historically been enforced to create a civilized society. A specific example of how Christianity acts upon its followers or audience members is this ideology that states that true Christians should not have sex before marriage.

As seen in lecture, the reasons why the audiences and their definition have changed throughout history could be because of the environment, which could include technological developments, demographics, etc. One of the main changes in audiences throughout was the size of audiences. Audiences went from thousands co-located in space to millions around the world co-located in time, to billion sharing the same content in matter of seconds. Another important historical change in audiences discussed in lecture was the danger of the crowds. The main focus of this danger was based on ‘’rowdyism’’. As professor Good explained, rowdyism was this 19th century concept that stated there was this sense of concern for the danger of the crowd. Audience members or the crowd, were thought of as a threat to the social order. Sullivan (2013) explains that the crowd ‘’referred to working-class commoners who came together at specific times and places to experience some form of routinized behavior’’ (p.13). Christian mass is a perfect example of audience members that still to this day come together at a specific time and place to experience a form of routinized behavior such as prayer. Also, as I previously stated, Christianity is an institution that has been trying to enforce ideologies in order to keep social order. The last important historical change in audiences discussed in lecture was audiences and power. Sullivan (2013) explains that ‘’power involves the ability of one actor to alter the decisions made and/or welfare experienced by another actor relative to the choices that would have been made and/or welfare that would have been experienced had the actor not existed or acted’” (Bartlett, 1989, p. 19, as cited in Sullivan’s textbook). Professor Good explained in lecture that historically, only certain people were able to tell stories to the audiences. These people were mostly males with formal education and often owned lands. Fortunately for audience members, a shift in the power structure occurred in conjunction with the invention of the printing press. Professor Good explained that the printing press took power from the ‘’establishment’’ and gave power to the people. As shown by Livingstone (2010) in her article ‘’Giving people a voice: On the critical role of the interview in the history of audience research’’, studies have proved ‘’the critical potential of giving the audience a voice’’ (p.569). The printing press did advantage the church but also created the opportunity for followers to critique the church without, or almost without any repercussions.  

-Comm King

[comm-king]

Week 1 - Introduction

Dear, TAs, students, Ms. Good, and unfortunately for some of you, other random visitors:

Welcome to my COMM 3P18 Audience Studies blog. Prepare to be amazed. Through this blog, I will be demonstrating my understandings of the course while also relating its content to my personal audience experiences.

The first thing I would like to do is present the concept of audience. As seen in lecture, audiences and their definition have changed multiple times throughout the years. Audience, as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, takes many forms. It takes the form of: ‘’the act or state of hearing’’, ‘’an opportunity of being heard’’, ‘’a group of listeners or spectators’’, and similarly it takes the form of ‘’a reading, viewing, or listening public’’. As explained by professor Good in lecture, the history of audience, like telling stories around a fire, is not something new. What is brand new, when looking at the timeline of what it means to be an audience, is what we do as an audience now, like social media for example. Social media open a brand new world to audience studies and allows for new definitions of audience.

My point of view as an audience member varies according to the occasion in which I find myself. I used to see myself as member of audiences that was mostly from a consumer point of view. After taking many communication courses, specifically COMM 3P18 Audience studies, I realize that I have been part of different audiences all my life. I am now also able to critically analyze the content I consume. Another main part of my point of view as an audience member is the fact that I do not only consume content, but I also produce content. In our very first class, professor Good talked about the concept of ‘’prosumer’’. According to Halassi, S., Semeijn, J., & Kiratli, N. (2019) in their article ‘’From consumer to prosumer: a supply chain revolution in 3D printing’’, prosumer means someone who participates in the ‘’production as well as consumption’’ (p.201). My blog will be the perfect example of ‘’prosumption’’. As a member of audiences, I consume content, which I then use to produce these blog posts.

A good example of this could be The Seven Deadly Sins, which is a Netflix series that I often watch is a very good example of content that generates a big audience and even prosumption. After watching this series, many fans, including myself, created fan art such as the one below:

In my next blog post, I will be discussing more about John S. Sullivan’s definition of an audience. I will also be further discussing the history and concept of the audience, so make sure you tune in next week!

-Comm King