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COMM 3P18-Blog#3

I have recently been sucked into Netflix and have been binge watching many shows. The show that I have been binging recently is The Good Place. To be completely honest, at first I wasn’t a huge fan of the show, but I’ve somehow grown to love it because I’ve watched about two and a half seasons of it in the past two weeks. I feel like this started because I was bored and now that I am hooked onto a TV show I don’t know how to pace my consumption. The show is similar to parks and recreation. Both are comedy’s, produced by the same people. The similarities are that they use the same type of humor and episode structures. This example will be highlighted throughout to illustrate further examples. The focus of this blog post is on chapters 7 through 10 of Media Audiences: Effects, Uses, Institutions, and Power by John Sullivan. It will also focus on seminar readings and other information from lecture.

Key aspects of Chapter 7: Reception Contexts and Media Rituals

The focus of this chapter is the idea of reception contexts and media rituals. The chapter breaks the media contexts into two parts: Social or Situational and Time or Media Use. Social/situational states that “media consumption always takes place in a Spatial or Physical context which is defined as; the concrete, physical dimensions of the location (Sullivan, 2013, P.162).” The part that goes hand in hand with physical dimensions would be spaces such as someone's living room and how it is viewed in the social context of media consumption. The example Sullivan provides is a home, it is not just rooms, it’s different rooms because they all have separate social contexts. Meaning gathering around to socialize in the kitchen and watching TV in the living room. The third component that is focused on is Time. Sullivan talks about media reception and how it coincides with specific times such as the information you pick up on by having the radio on in the car on the way to work, etc. With social media and other platforms such as Netflix the ability to choose when we want to recept our media is much easier, as we can now consume Netflix away from work more so in our down time.

In seminar Shelby and I talked about the research paper by Kim, Cheong and Kim study the difference between watching sports in a movie theater versus watching from on your TV at home. In the research paper they outline: The influences of sports viewing conditions on enjoyment from watching televised sports. They studied this by testing 240 people who were randomly selected to watch the 2014 FIFA World Cup on a TV vs in the theatre. Upon this study they brought up the idea of presence. “Presence is defined in the article as; …the phenomenon in which an individual develops a sense of being physically present at a remote location through with media (Kim et al., 2016).” Presence is then constructed into multiple dimensions, which are immersion and realism. Immersion is “the degree to which an individual feels involved in a particular experience (Kim et al., 2016)”. Realism is “the degree to which an individual perceives the naturalness of media content as if he/she is experiencing the content directly as part of his/her audience (Kim et al., 2016)”.

The research paper and chapter relate because of what is being studied (the media reception and rituals). The chapter focuses on the situation and the research paper focuses on the real world examples to explain this. In theatres it is dark and on a large screen with added sound etc. so it is less of a social context because you are not sitting around with direct family and friends in your living room. It becomes much more of a physical context as you get higher quality image and sound. For example, watching the world cup at home with friends is both social and physical, but much more of a social context than the theatre because you get to hang out and interact with people, while watching the game. However for someone whose sole focus is on the game the social context at home takes away from the physical context, which is how theaters came into the picture. Neither version of watching the game would be considered time shifting because either way the game is being streamed live in both the theatre and at home.

The chapter also focuses on the context of rituals. Sullivan states that “a ritual can simply mean your regular, habitual activates – eating dinner in front of the TV. (Sullivan, 2013, P.178).” This is where The Good Place comes into play again. The show has become a media ritual that I also find myself time shifting with as well. This is because of the convenience of having a show on cable and on Netflix along with all the electronic platforms available to me as well. The show isn’t even my favorite but it’s on Netflix, it is funny, and I have adopted the habit of watching it whenever I am eating dinner or procrastinating on my much needed work. I am able to consume it on my phone, my laptop and my apple TV etc. whenever it’s most convenient for me. To apply it to a social/physical context, I watch it mainly in my house when I just want to separate myself from my roommates as the episodes are a nice 20-minute length.

Key aspects of Chapter 8: Media Fandom and Audience 

Sullivan defines media fandom as “exploring how fan communities extend their interactions with media texts by logging on to discussions on the internet, collecting artifacts associated with their media interests, and even by participating in fan conventions and other related social activities. Fans are emotionally invested in their favorite media by thinking deeply about the plots, characters, and messages of those texts. (Sullivan, 2013, P.191).” A fan is broken into four categories. The Consumer, then to the Producer, which is someone that is so invested, to the degree of that media that they create and produce more content that goes beyond the text, for example a twitter engagement about audience members favorite characters. Enthusiast and Fan fall somewhere in-between the two. The chapter also focuses on subcultures and how people change their lives to align with the thing they are a fan of, which almost creates a double life. 

Working in the media industry such as events for radio stations you are exposed to examples of this. A relevant is example is fans or enthusiast that dress up for Comicon events I’d work at, these people aren’t just wearing a silly costume they are actually in full character in costumes that sometimes take years to create. An example of this is in The Good Place, I would consider myself a consumer but more so in the form of transmedia such as Marvel. I would consider myself a fan and an enthusiast now for The Good Place. The producer of the TV show tweeted saying that in The Good Place everyone is a combination of two characters. This allowed fans to get to comment back on that about what characters they thought they would be, mine were Eleanor and Janet. I am an enthusiast and fan because I engaged with these tweets that were brought to be in a context outside of the show. This allowed me to pick two characters that I thought represent me personally making me a fan of the show.

In the research paper on: Crowdfunding: A Spimatic application of digital fandom by Booth, he focuses on crowd participation. The way that audiences fund projects otherwise known as crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, etc. This is when people come together to support a particular issue that means something to people personally. You could consider for example, the California wildfires, which would be a form of crowdfunding. Personally because my family members lived in Paradise, California and had their homes destroyed I donated money to the cause but so did many other individuals, which makes it called crowdfunding.  The more popular forms to donate money in today’s age is online through things such as Kickstarter or Go Fund Me pages. Kickstarter is a website that allows the general public to create campaigns and Go Fund Me is a place where individuals can donate money say to a car crash victim’s family to help pay the victims medical bills. Booth showcases this in the research paper: “There are different levels and types of participation within a project and for many fans, donating money can offer participatory pleasures (Booth, 2013).” This highlights how the feeling of being a part of creating something can be an incentive to fund certain projects that a person feels connected to as a fan. This is often the case in TV shows such as the one mentioned about Doctor Who and how the fans raised money to try and get another season. In the case of Doctor Who I don’t personally relate, as I am not a fan of anything enough that I would want to spend my hard earned money to get a TV show created.

Key aspects of Chapter 9:  Online Interactive Audiences in a Digital World

In this chapter Sullivan focuses on the audience being more prominent in terms of being online. We as people shape our own media that we receive: “Instead of ‘passive’ receivers of media, 21st century audiences ‘become much more actively involved in shaping their own media and network usage’ (Sullivan, 2013, P.218).” The rest of the chapter talks about trends such as YouTube and other social media and how they would be a form of participatory culture because of its platform. Examples of this are creating your own videos and circulating it such as beauty bloggers etc. This relates to The Good Place, on YouTube and Facebook people are compiling scenes from The Good Place such as their favourite scenes from shows and releasing them on YouTube in a compilation video or creating memes from certain clips that show up on my Facebook feed. I got into The Good Place because I had seen these snippets in one of my lectures. I would also be watching snippets of parks and recreation online and then it would recommend The Good Place due to the similar structure of the show I’m assuming. I am more of a passive viewer because I am not a creator as nothing watched on YouTube or Facebook was created by me. This goes to show how the internet plays a huge role in content that we chose to interact with.

In Framing News in 140 Characters: How Social Media Editors Frame the News and Interact with Audiences via Twitter, Wasike quickly defines the common trend known as Social Media Editors or SMEs which is both a hashtag used on twitter and a means they are tech savvy journalists.This article outlines the uses of journalist media frames over twitter. A media frame is broken into two categories one is generic and the other is issue specific. Generic frames are more broad themes that are limited to conflict such as economic impact. Issue specific frames are more subjective for example more politically inclined depending on the context. The research study focuses on how SME’s utilize Twitter to paint certain stories, they looked at 950 tweets to better understand this. It found a difference between TV news and Print Media related SMEs in terms of what they tweet. As someone who uses twitter a lot I consume a lot of my news from that source. The sources I follow are CTV, which is helpful for my commute to school with all the GTA traffic. I find on their twitter they use very short snippets of information and don’t put any of their controversial news on that platform. It’s helpful because other drivers can live comment on the tweet about any new road problems in the area. This is why I personally find Print Media to highlight more controversial topics whereas twitter is more along the lines of human interest such as traffic and weather.

Key aspects of Chapter 10: Audience Agency in New Contexts

The last chapter of Sullivan’s textbook is essentially topics touched on earlier in the book and the course. A focus that I relate to is transmedia productions and paratexts, as I find this a personal viewing experience as well as a topic that overlaps through multiple communications courses. Transmedia productions are defined as: “the coordinated use of multiple media platforms (or technologies) to craft a narrative. (Sullivan, 2013, P.241).” The idea is essentially using multiple outlets such a movies and TV shows to form a large media world, a well-known transmedia franchise is Marvel. “Paratexts are the textual material that surrounds media narratives and informs us about them (Sullivan, 2013, P.241).” I consider myself to be a consumer of the Marvel transmedia especially the movies, I have seen a lot of the movies and find the long drawn out story lines rather interesting to follow, especially since this isn’t a genre of movie that I would typically be interested in. The creation of transmedia allows for more interaction when viewing films and TV shows. However, with this being said I would not go to the extreme measures of creating an intricate costume for Comicon or anything like that.

Another topic mentioned is the idea that we more screens available to us such as laptops, smartphones, etc. this dramatically changes the audience experience. I definitely can connect this to my life as I usually have my phone on me and bring my laptop most places as well. In terms of The Good Place being on Netflix I find that because Netflix is available on multiple platforms I watch it on my phone and computer etc. You can also download shows on Netflix so that you can watch the show later on your phone etc. when you may not have internet connection. Netflix and other platforms have changed my audience experience as I don’t have to be at home sitting in front of my TV to watch shows I can literally watch stuff on my phone while sitting on the bus on the way to campus.

References

Ben S., W. (2013). Framing News in 140 Characters: How Social Media Editors Frame the News and Interact with Audiences via Twitter. Global Media Journal: Canadian Edition, Vol 6, Iss 1, Pp 5-23 (2013), (1), 5.

Booth, P. (2015). Crowdfunding: A Spimatic application of digital fandom. New Media & Society, 17(2), 149-166. doi:10.1177/1461444814558907

Kim, K., Cheong, Y., & Kim, H. (2016). The Influences of Sports Viewing Conditions on Enjoyment from Watching Televised Sports: An Analysis of the FIFA World Cup Audiences in Theater vs. Home. Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60(3), 389-409. doi:10.1080/08838151.2016.1203320

Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.

[audienceexperiences1013p18-blog]

COMM 3P18-Blog #1

We are surrounded by audiences sometimes we take place in one for fun such as a concert while other times we are part of a mandatory audience such as an airline safety video. We can also be the producer of content for certain audiences say for example there is so much social media nowadays like Instagram, which we control what we put out there. This blog entry will explore concepts that I found were important to me and applied best to the personal experiences that I wanted to talk about.

Important aspects I learned from chapter 1:

What is an audience?

- “The Oxford English Dictionary defines audience as ‘the action of hearing; attention to what is spoken.’ The root of the word (aud) suggests the processing of verbal information (e.g., audio or auditory processing)” (Sullivan, p.3)

Example:

Audience isn’t solely you being present at an event etc. It can also be just the act of you watching an awards show like the Oscars from home. We can be part of a physical audience as well without even realizing it like going to a trade show or festival.

Audience as the 3 models of audience (mass, outcome and agent)?

-Outcome: “sees people as being acted upon by media. Typically, it reflects a concern about the power of media to produce detrimental effects on individuals, and by implication on society as a whole” (Sullivan, p.6)

-Mass: “a large collection of people scattered across time and space who act autonomously and have little or no immediate knowledge of one another.” (Sullivan, p.6)

-Agent: “people are conceived of as free agents choosing what media they will consume, bringing their own interpretive skills to the texts they encounter, making their own meanings, and generally using media to suit themselves” (Sullivan pp. 7-8)

Personal Experience:

In my everyday life I am aware of the physical audiences I take part in but often forget about the other audiences that aren’t as physical such as the radio stations I chose to listen to. I think Audience-as-Mass is becoming much more real with social media and so many way to connect to others who are far away. It allows us to realize how many people live around us that we haven’t met. I think nowadays most people are able to use Audience-as-Agent because we are able to customize what we want to see. For example, if we aren’t into snapchat then we just don’t have to download the app/make an account. This can also be counter-productive because with it being so easy to share information on Facebook, false posts get shared leading to misinformed information. With Instagram and such we are able to choose who we want to follow say we are interested in fashion we can follow models and clothing brands. This vast customization available to us through social media etc. allows us to be very selective about what media we chose to consume.

Power?

-“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” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 19).

Real world example:

As a student we see power within the classroom audience that we are part of. We show up and give attention to the professor because it is a societal norm to listen to authority, which in this case is the professor. However, with so many student unions in university’s now it has become possible for students to have power in decisions regarding their education unlike ever before. I also find this at home as my parents are the authority and have power in key decisions. For example, I am at university today because it was especially important for my parents that I get an education and because it is there home and there rules I make sure to follow and do the things they expect from me. 

Important aspects I learned from chapter 2:

Four types of involvement

-From the seminar discussion readings we were able to understand the four types of involvement

- Transportation: A person who becomes emotionally invested in a story.

-Para social relationships: A connection with someone from a movie or book that you have no relationship with. Internally can pull you in and feel like you are within the story.

-Identification: This is when you forget about yourself to attempt to become someone else. It could occur in many forms such as in taking one’s beliefs, clothing styles and behaviors.

-Worship: Placing a person, commonly a celebrity to an extremely high standard one that would closely resemble that of Gods.

Personal Experience:

For me I experience transportation lots especially when you see things on socially media feeds and become immediately consumed in the event taking place. I often find this as I donate money to SickKids and follow them on all my social media. They often post on Facebook short videos of patient and family updates. I find these videos often really make me feel for the people in the video as well as transport me to full invest myself in the story. I always looks to check in on patient updates etc. because I feel as if they become a part of my life from an emotional standpoint. Things like this have made me even more thankful and to appreciate the little things in life that some of these kids never get to experience. This image shows everybody vs. SickKids and how we can help build a brighter future for these kids by donating.

The differences between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

-As we discussed in lecture. Gemeinschaft represents the community it can especially relate to small towns and how the people within it socialize for example, the expression “small town feel”. Where there is just a sense of close community. Geselleschaft is the opposite of this, where the relationships aren’t as close to those in Gemeinschaft. This often occurs in cities where there’s a lot of strangers that you could interact with/see on a day to day basis.

Experience:

When we were kids my parents would take me and my siblings to our ski chalet every weekend. This resembled Gemeinschaft because the chalet was in a very small town that you would miss if you blinked. This allowed us to form very close relationships with everyone on our street. These close personal relationships really allowed us to make lifelong friends because of the community feel it had.

Important aspects I learned from chapter 3:

Agenda Setting Theory?

-“Third, agenda-setting theory demonstrates that the extent of news coverage about a particular event or issue can have a powerful effect on whether or not the public thinks the actions of political elites and policy makers (Dearing & Rogers, 1996; Rogers & Dearing, 1988)”. (Sullivan, 2013, p.72)

Framing?

- “Framing occurs when journalists or media producers “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993, p. 52).” (Sullivan, p.71).

Real World Example:

The agenda setting theory relates to a lot of elections that take place. A bigger election say for prime minister will be broadcasted on so many channels and advertised all over the radio etc. Elections that are for a local councillor and such only get broadcasted on one channel at my house and are a lot less publicised. This places a lesser importance on them to the public eye as it is not as covered creating less urgency from the media. We see framing being used a lot in media today especially for the news. Take for example a simple headline it can frame how you feel about something before you even read it. If the headline grasps the audience interest it may get them interested in reading the story fully to discover more. The way things are framed can however be very misleading to the general public.

Spiral of Silence?

-As mentioned in lecture as a society we are social and just want to be able to fit in (in general). Without media we wouldn’t have as much access to how other people think and view things such as issues in the news

-Due to societal norms etc. we can often disagree with something but chances are no one speaks out because they worry about how others will judge them and that majority of people may not agree with them speaking out.

-“Claims that individuals naturally fear social isolation and will therefore monitor the political views expressed in the media and repress their own opinions if they are in the minority.” (Sullivan, 2013, p.71).

Personal Experience:

I find I am influenced by the Spiral of silence on a day to day basis. Say for example I am at my grandparents and my grandpa and dad start a conversation about politics and I say something they don’t agree with in that moment I will often change my stance. This is because I feel as I want to represent the majority and am afraid to take the stance from a minority perspective as I haven’t been around as long and don’t like to feel judged. It’s important for society to speak out because opinions do matter and can make changes for the better, someone may also be wanting to say what you said but was too afraid.

Bandwagon vs. Underdog effects?

-“This occurs when individuals hear news reports of opinion polls that differ from their own opinion, which causes them to shift their outlook to match the majority opinion.”

(Sullivan, p. 71).

-The opposite of this would be the underdog effect, where the public decides to support a minority view could be a certain position or candidate

Personal Experience:

I find that I more so partake in the Bandwagon effect then the underdog effect in my life as I often try to follow majority opinion especially in politics. I remember the one year when I was first able to vote, I hadn’t really fully grasped politics yet. I would keep changing my mind on what party to vote for as the stats would be shown on TV or the radio. That year I ended up just voting for what my parents and sister were voting for as it was the majority opinion in my house and I didn’t feel comfortable going against that.

References

- Sullivan, John L. Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power. SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.