A LEVEL MEDIA THEORISTS

DAVID HESMONDHALGH

What were his three ideas?

1. The idea that cultural industry companies try to minimise risks and maximise audiences through the use of vertical and horizontal integration and by formatting their products - e.g. through the use of stars, genres and serials.

2. The idea that the largest companies and conglomerates now operate across a number of different conglomerates.

3. The idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit-orientated set of cultural industries.

LIESBET VAN ZOONEN

What were her three ideas?

1. The idea that gender is constructed through discourse and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context

2. The idea that the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture.

3. The idea that in mainstream culture, the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as a spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.

LIVINGSTONE + LUNT

• The idea that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interest of citizens (by offering protection against harmful or offensive material) and the need to further the interest of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money and market competition)

• The idea that the increasing power of global media corporations together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to regulation at risk.

JUDITH BUTLER

What are their three main points?

• Sex - refers to physical, biological differences

• Gender - refers to differences in social roles, expression and identity.

1. The idea that gender is performatively (created through language) constructed through the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.

2. The idea that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender

3. The idea that performativity is not a singular act but a repetition and a ritual

JUDITH BUTLER

Why is performativity not singular?

Expression causes gender - a child become a boy when he wears blue, uses he/him pronouns etc

We have to constantly keep rebuilding and reinforcing our genders through repeated actions. We are scared of performing the ‘wrong’ gender.

JUDITH BUTLER

What is gender non-conformity and what is gender trouble?

Gender Non-Conformity

• Expressions which don'tfit heteronormaitge expectations e.g. expressions if LGBTQ+ identities and transvestism

Butler suggests that the Mainstream media often use parody and exaggeration to make gender and sexual non-conformity look ridiculous.

• Examples of gender non-conformity create ‘gender trouble’ - challenging simple and straightforward ideas about gender.

BAUDRILLARD

What is

• Intertextuality

• Self-reflexivity

• Parody

Intertextuality

• When one text makes reference to another

Self-reflexivity

• When a text refers to itself, which often points out that its not real

Parody

• A humourous or satirical imitation of serious work.

BAUDRILLARD

What is

• Narrative distortion

• Irony

• Anti-realism

Narrative distortion

• Working against simple, todorovian storytelling - complex webs of flashbacks or unordered narratives

Irony

• A contrast between reality and expectation, often producing a humourous or surprising effect

Anti-realism

• Reminding audiences that what they are watching is not real and doesn’t reflect reality perfectly

BAUDRILLARD

What were his three main points?

1. The idea that in postmodern culture, the boundaries between the ‘real’ world and the world of the media have collapsed and that it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and simulation.

2. The idea that in a postmodern age of simulcra, we are immersed in a world of images which no longer refer to anything real.

3. The idea that media images have come to seem more ‘real’ that the reality they supposedly represent (hyperreality)

BAUDRILLARD

What is

• Simulcra

• Hyperreality

• Media blending

• Meaning implosion

Simulcra

• Copies with no original

Hyperreality

• When media images come to replace the real things they claim to represent

Media Blending

• When media forms blend together. The news absorbs strategies of fiction. Fiction absorbs elements of news.

Meaning implosion

• When there are so many competing images and voices in the media that the audience can no longer create meaning from media messages.

JENKINS

Stereotypes about fans vs Jenkis

STEREOTYPES

• Obsessed with watching/reading/playing media but don't do anything ‘real’

• Socially awkward, struggle to make friends

• Love their chosen media unconditionally

Passive

JENKINS

• Fans engage in active practices to reinterpret media

• Fandom is a soci activity: discussion forums, cos play, conversations etc

• Fans use fan art, fan fiction etc to ‘talk back’ and fix issues in the media they love

JENKINS

Quote:

“Fan culture reflects both the audience's fascination with programs and the fans’ frustration over the refusal/inability of producers to tell the kinds of stories viewers want to see”

JENKINS

What was his theory?

1. The idea that fans are active participants in the circulation and construction of textual meaning

2. The idea that fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully authorised by the media producers (‘textual poaching')

3. The idea that fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and inflicting mass culture images, and are part of a participatory culture that has a vital social dimension

JENKINS

Fan Fiction 1:

• Fans write stories about their favourite characters and share them on websites like Wattpad and AO3

• Fan fiction is often used to tell romantic (or sexual) stories about characters who do not have that type of relationship in the original show

JENKINS

Fan Fiction 2:

• Fans use fan fiction to reinterpret the show and often add in LGBTQ representation where there was previously none. This type of ‘slash fiction’ is shared online today, but fan fiction has a history going back to the 1960s

• By writing new stories which address the underrepresentation of LGBTQ people, fans show that they are active participants in meaning making

JENKINS

Fan Art

• As with fan fiction, fans also create visual art. Again this shows that some fans do not simply consume media, but feel a need to participate as media makers.

• Jenkins might point out that fan art means that fans are not merely passive. They are taking an active role in helping to promote and spread word about the show.

JENKINS

Cosplay:

• Many Black Mirror fans engage in cosplay - carefully crafting their own costumes which imitate the characters on the show

• Some fans do gender-swapped cosplay - showing an active reinterpretation of the characters

• Jenkins would point out how creating and wearing costumes is a social activity, which creates a vibrant community.

JENKINS

Online Discussion:

• Jenkins points out that fans don't just consume media but engage in careful scrutiny of it

• In online forums like Reddit, Black Mirror fans analyse the show carefully and debate aspects of the show’s storyline and characters

• Far from praising it, fans often criticise it when they find something they dislike

JENKINS

Influencing production

• Jenkins suggests that fans actively influence how media productions are made

• Black Mirror Fans have used petitions to put pressure on Netflix to keep the exclusive, interactive episode ‘Bandersnatch’ available online

• In the past, fans have used letter writing campaigns to stop media companies from cancelling shows.

JENKINS

Breaking the Law:

• Technically fan art and fan fiction are illegal. Because of intellectual property law, fans do not have a legal right to make their own media featuring Black Mirror characters.

• Jenkins used the phrase ‘textual poaching’ and ‘appropriation’ to describe how fans take elements from a text and use them to meet their own needs

• Today, most mainstream companies tolerate fan art and fan fiction but have tried to put some limits on it.

JENKINS

Textual Poaching/Appropriation

Refers to practises lile fan fiction and fan art, which take and re-imagine characters and stories from mass media, even when it is illegal

JENKINS

Participatory Culture

Refers to a culture in which everyone can participate in meaning making. Jenkins suggest that the internet (as opposed to traditional mass media) helps to create a participatory culture

JENKINS

Audience-Producer Convergence

Refers to the ways in which media makers and consumers are coming together; it becao

JENKINS

DIY Media Practices

Fan fiction, fan art, fan films - unofficial, low-budget ways of ‘talking back’ to mass media.