for 4-14

As a literature, feminist media studies stand together pretty well. Both classic and contemporary feminist media research have much to offer. Radway’s book is obviously a classic, canonical text. The idea that individuals use interpretation of media for essentially social subversive reasons will forever be relevant in media studies as a discipline. Despite my enjoyment, some critical comments are necessary.

A continuity between McRobbie (2007) and Gill is the conceptualization of a changing feminine sexuality. McRobbie’s “new sexual contract” (p. 719) is in essence, the same as Gill’s shift from “Sexual Objectification to Sexual Subjectification” (p. 100). Based on my reading, however, these concepts are similarly problematic as a flawed theoretical premise underlies both works. The claim is fundamentally the same. McRobbie poses her research question in such conceptual terms, “. . . how do we account for the range of social, cultural and economic transformations which have brought forth a new category of young womanhood?” (p. 721). In like fashion, Gill writes, “Indeed, what is novel and striking about contemporary sexualised representations of women in popular culture is that they do not (as in the past) depict women as passive objects but as knowing, active, and desiring sexual subjects” (p. 103). These authors fail to justify the inclusion of newness associated with post-modernity in light of the recognized hegemonic structural reproduction. To paraphrase Gramsci, things only change sideways. Therefore, I think the claimed newness is overstated. The means might look different, but the ends remain fundamentally the same.

I question Orbach’s methodological choice in “Chinks in the Merged Attachment.” The examination of her daughter seems problematic beyond repair. A description of one of the daughter’s friends in emblematic, “Anoushka is the 16-year-old daughter of a ‘feminist mother and feminist father,’ both academics” (p. 225). If this is an examination of upper-class girls with highly educated parents, then Orbach should have let the reader know. Additional information regarding the sample would certainly help locate this behavior in social space.

The exchange between McRobbie and Orbach could not have been any lamer. In many scholarly disputes, an element of “criticism” is common. Going against convention, the dispute closely resembled a congratulatory indulgence session. Orbach writes, “The space opened up by feminism is now, McRobbie argued, controlling young women ‘through their seeming freedoms’ . . . With that statement I surely concur for that is part of what my article was observing. However, I am less convinced . . .” (p. 254). Similarly, McRobbie writes, “To sum up, I welcome Orbach’s intervention in this field of debate. She raises many more questions than can be answered in the space of such a short article” (p. 244). Where is the conflict? It doesn’t seem reasonable to expect that each approach is equally effective.

Studying audience and how it relates to film is a refreshing change from looking at issues regarding TV audiences and Internet audiences. Film is an older medium than either TV or the Internet (obviously), but film is just as important an area of study as both TV and the Internet regarding media and the audiences who use media to consume culture, politics, and other areas of information. The intersection of the public and the private regarding film consumption is quite compelling. Until recently, films could not be viewed unless in a public space. Yet, many issues regarding the private sphere were still present (e.g., women using cinema as an escape from a home environment which was associated with intensive labor, interpreting the meaning of the film based on personal experiences), and issues that arise when discussing the private sphere (gender roles, intimate relationships, power relationships within families) are present within film study as well as issues that arise within the public sphere (class, race, and gender relations; economic power struggles). Although investigating TV as a medium and its relationship to the viewers is extremely interesting, examining film as a medium provides an abundance of interesting areas of study.

Reading The Place of the Audience: Cultural Geographies of Film Consumption triggered several questions regarding the study of film as a medium and its relationship with its audiences. By studying early film consumption from the early 20^th century Jankovich and Faire make the overarching argument that different types and styles of film consumption are directly related to their location within the cultural geography of the city, and that these types and styles of consumption vary along class, gender, racial, and age lines. In essence, where a cinema is in town, who frequents that cinema, the design of the structure, additional “shows” that are offered, the class and gender of the audience, among many other elements, greatly influence how individuals and groups interpret the text of the film and what meaning they tie to the excursion. I agree with this argument and find it compelling. However, three issues that relate to contemporary film consumption came to mind as I read The Place of the Audience: film as a social phenomenon, the changing nature of film consumption with the advent of video cassette recorders (VCRs), and study of the structure of the cinema.

Jankovich and Faire discuss how viewing film, especially early film viewing, was primarily a social phenomenon, and they make their point by rhetorically asking how many people are seen alone at the movie theater? Indeed, often when we see a person alone at the theater we think that something might be wrong and we fear that others will believe that something is wrong with us if we venture out to the theater alone. Why is this so? It is understandable why many individuals go to films in a group, but why is consuming film alone seen as socially deviant?

Because of the historical nature of Jankovich and Faire’s study, they do not discuss how the home cinema experience relates to issues of film consumption. It appears that patronage to the cinema is not in decline, and considering that box office records are continually smashed, it appears that cinemas and film studios are thriving economically. How is this possible? With the advent of VCRs people can consume films in their home (and sometimes in their own home theater). Why has this not greatly reduced the number of film goers? The fact that individuals want to see the film as soon as it comes out seems to be a thin argument, especially when Jankovich and Faire point out that many viewers hadn’t settled on a choice of film until they got to the cinema. I would hypothesize that film consumption’s success today is directly related to its social nature. This would be an interesting area of research, if current research has failed to explore it successfully.

A third area of study that would be interesting to explore is the construction of the cinema itself. Jankovich and Faire argue that place and time is very important in understanding film audience, but it seems that today most films are consumed in “megaplexes” in suburban areas. This might not be so in huge urban areas like London, New York, or Los Angeles, but these are the same places that the authors were trying not to focus on in their selection of Nottingham as the focus of their study. Consequently, does that mean that nearly all film consumption in 21^st century America is similar? Is film consumption becoming analogous across time and space in modern America?

week 10?

The Place of the Audience is problematic. Methodologically, the authors choose to embrace the “provincialism of the local press.” While I agree that average people are sociologically relevant, it seems Jancovich and Faire place to much importance on the historical data. As they note, newspapers would only be important for the literate public. Theoretically, the inclusion of consumption as an analytic paradigm serves to compound the issues of mechanical research associated with earlier generations of active audience theory work (e.g. Morley). The authors write, “The analysis of television has therefore moved beyond a concern with the interpretation of programmes to a concern with consumption more generally. In other words, the consumption of television is not just about the watching of programmes but also about the consumption of the technologies through which those programmes are accessed” (p. 6). I disagree with almost everything in this argument. If analyses of television have moved beyond interpretation, which seems unlikely, I refuse to believe the extension of such research is consumption based. The second sentence starts off ok but quickly devolves. Where is the space for technologies that limit unwanted consumption? Watching Aladdin cannot be reduced to the consumption of DVD technology; the social interaction with media, which Jancovich and Faire call consumption, seems far more complex. To understand such an interaction the researcher should recognize that watching Aladdin involves the reception, the interpretation, and accounting for the cognitive impact generated by a culturally and physically determined media object created through of a variety of processes performed by countless capitalist interests.

In contrast, I liked the historical work of Rabinovitz and Hansen. In particular, I found the contextualizing approach of Rabinovitz to be very effective in addressing the interaction of social experience and media content. In Hansen’s work, I enjoyed the theoretical grounding in Habermas. Unlike a lot of research, Hansen uses Habermas’ concepts in such a way that her writing both remains true to her theoretical traditional and extends previous research.

Livingstone Visit

In Interactive, Engaging, but Unequal: Critical Conclusions from Internet Studies, Livingstone provides two case studies in which she discusses issues that researchers have focused upon in Internet studies. One of these case studies deals with the relationship between the Internet and online political participation and “e-democracy.” Livingstone notes that research does not clearly show whether the Internet serves as a means for elites to further dominate the political environment or provides a tools and a platform to challenge the status quo of the political process. Further, she notes that it is unclear whether the Internet will bring political groups closer together or whether it will expand fragmentation, individualism, and unequal access to political power. After reading much literature on the issue and writing a review, I am curious as to her opinion on the issue. Does Livingstone believe that the Internet and New Media will provide a means to revolutionize political involvement? Or, will the Internet be similar to other media when they became ubiquitous in society and provided changes but did not fundamentally change the manner in which politics (and society) functioned? She notes that she feels that society is shaping the Internet in its own image, which provides a clue as to her perspective, but I’m curious as to her point of view on these issues.

livingstone questions

It strikes me that there is one additional feature of the internet that bears mention. Communication online has the unique ability to be divorced from the physical body of the communicator.  This can take place in varying degrees: from the mediation involved with components like user-names up to full anonymity. This is, of course, entirely new – we’ve had pseudonymous publishing for centuries – but the high degree of ease and access involved seems to be fundamentally different from older forms. One result is the lessening of consequence online, an effect which can have positive (the “internet as moratorium” argument) and negative (e.g., simplistically, spam and flaming) outcomes. How do you see this as intersecting with some of the possible research programs in your piece? What do you think are some of the ways that we can study this effectively?

for week 9

Theoretically, Livingstone and Lunt present a convincing argument. The comparison of post-Frankfurt (Habermas et al) and post-modern (labeled “oppositional”) paradigms is effectively used to develop an understanding of the relationship between media and audience. In addition, the new roles of media identified by the authors (p. 5) seem to be confirmed by the expansion and increasing prevalence of 24-hour news networks since the early 1990s. The characterization of these changes is also apt in retrospect, “As television gives ever more space to public discussion, television itself enters into these debates, framing the discussions, offering its own perspectives and opinions molding the discussion to meet its own demands and purposes” (p. 5). For example, Jon Stewart’s interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer showcases both an insider and outsider media perspective (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwUXx4DR0wo).

As we have not read the entire book, I am hesitant to offer criticism. However, one issue caught my attention. Livingstone and Lunt write, “While aberrant or diverse forms (of either text or reception) may occur, in general, audience and programmes operate within a fairly predictable framework of mutual expectations, for example, a framework of known genre conventions” (p. 6). This seems a rather odd treatment of productive or receptive outliers. I would be interested in reading the rest of the book to see if non-normative texts or interpretations receive an appropriate level of theoretical and empirical attention.

Speaking of Abortion is an interesting text. I enjoyed the overlap of the larger social debate within an empirical study of audience reception. Instead of obstructing discourse, issues of social conflict are shown to create the opportunity for individuals to make their own meaning. However, I have two criticisms.

First, the division of working-class women into working-class identified and middle-class identified is a choice I don’t fully understand. The significance of identity is not sufficiently addressed. And, more importantly, why should the respondent’s ignorance of their own social location become incorporated with the research? Would it not make more sense to divide the sample along a more objective scale such as income? In addition, some additional information about the class position of the pro-life women would have been useful.

Second, Press and Cole characterize both the pro-life and pro-choice interpretations as oppositional. Regarding the former, the authors write, “In other respects their [pro-life] readings are oppositional as well, in that they are specifically critical of many of the values predominating in our mainstream secular culture and in the media that reflect it” (p. 43). Regarding the latter, they write, “In this way, some women constructed oppositional readings of television’s narratives based on alternative notions of working-class identities” (p. 95). It seems that both groups of women are cast as oppositional. This fails to correspond to my conception of social reality. While pro-life women might feel excluded from mainstream culture, this level of marginalization is both self-imposed and relatively minor in a historical sense. Furthermore, what exactly are the pro-choice women “opposing?” They have come armed with policy recommendations, not radical demands for social change.

I enjoyed the Merton piece. The candor is appreciated, “We never used the term ‘focus group’ – at least, not as I recall . . .” (p. 563). In addition, his retrospective provides a very interesting perspective on the history of a convention that has become ubiquitous in modern economies. Merton’s perspective on the adoption of the focused interview by commercial forces would be unthinkable to members of the Frankfurt School. For contemporary sociology, focus groups provide the researcher with the opportunity to observe respondents actively decoding and interpreting social issues in a similar manner as they would in the milieu of social reality.

for 3/24

I really enjoyed Skeggs, Wood, and Thumim’s work. The variety of methodological approaches is seamlessly interwoven with issues of class in an appropriately self-reflexive manner. However, like much scholarly work, these authors allow their middle-class status to negatively impact the quality of the research. In the section on interviewing, the authors note, “The interview was a much more difficult and uncomfortable event for women who were not middle-class (across different race categorizations). Some of the working-class women offered more truncated responses to our questions about television without much elaboration of the kind that was gleaned from the middle-class women” (p. 11). Similarly, regarding text-in action the authors note, “The text-in-action method produced both comfort and discomfort for our research participants, depending upon their cultural resources. Some working-class women were suspicious of us . . .” (p. 12). The social distance between the observer and the object of analysis is clearly problematic in both methodologies. Yet, the focus groups are unproblematic, “ . . . the middle-class women could mobilize a straightforward position of authority through reflexivity and knowledge of public debate and taste, whilst the working-class participants found a moral position through their affective responses to their immanent knowledge of parenting and their economic position . . .” (p. 20). For some reason, focus groups, it seems, reduce the problematic social distance. This leads me to the conclusion that it is only when the middle-class researcher role’s is reduced that class ceases to be a problematic issue. It seems likely that other efforts to reduce social distance would be similarly useful methodologically.

I have a common criticism of Watkins and Boyd. Theoretically, both scholars claim the initial appeal of MySpace is related to some essential elements of the child-adult dyadic relationship. Watkins writes, “Part of MySpace and Facebook’s initial appeal among young people was the fact that even though the vibrant lives they were forming online were so strikingly public most of their activities communications, and identities were largely hidden from the adult world” (p. 17). Similarly, Boyd claims, “The power that adults hold over youth explains more than just complications in identity performance; it is the root of why teenagers are on MySpace in the first place. In the United States, the lives of youth – and particularly high school teenagers – are highly structured” (p. 18). This conception, however, fails to correspond to the historic diffusion of social networking websites. MySpace opened February 2004 while Facebook opened October 2003. If some essential element of youth spawned the growth of online social networking, then the popularity of Facebook in its earliest moments, within elite northeastern colleges, remains unexplained. It seems unlikely that in these particular moments individuals of college age were particularly concerned with escaping the gaze of either parents or teachers.

During this most recent reading of Women Watching Television, I was reminded of what I enjoyed the first time I encountered the text. The tendency for middle-class viewers to “like” television less yet “identify” with characters more, as compared to working-class viewers, begs for further explanation in light of working-class viewers’ tendency to value realist content. However, there are some critical points that should be raised. I question the use of consumption as the appropriate paradigm for addressing the interaction occurring between individuals and television as a medium. In my mind, consumption implies an economic relationship which doesn’t necessarily exist between a television viewer and the content of the programming. Furthermore, the concept of interpretation employed in the qualitative analysis treats decoding is static and un-reflexive. Television viewers are not machines decoding information to be processed in a vacuum outside the self. The audience is not active enough. The relationship between television content and identity formation remains unexplored.

for week 7

The third dimension of the methodology presented in “Global Ethnography” is particularly interesting from a perspective valuing the roots of social theory. Generally, Burawoy succeeds in marrying Marxism and ethnographic methodology. His brand of Marxism is in direct relation to the work of Frankfurt School critical theorists. Reference to Lukacs is explicit. Burawoy writes, “For us the macro-micro link refers not to such an ‘expressive’ totality, but to a structured one in which the part is shaped by its relation to the whole, the whole being represented by ‘external forces’” (p. 27). Such a conception works within the concept of totality rather than usurping it. Using ethnography, global or otherwise, Burawoy has effectively turned the traditional top-down Marxist orientation on its head.

Screening Culture is an excellent example of mixed method qualitative research. I was particularly impressed with the use of a variety of kinds of data. In addition to ethnographic fieldwork which includes participant observation and interviews, Mankekar employs newspaper research, production research, and interpretative research. This variety aids the combination of post-colonial and feminist theoretical perspectives. The combination of the methodological and the theoretical allows Mankekar to arrive at general conclusions without losing the perspective of the individual. The following quote is emblematic, “Nationalism creates the horizon for women as it constitutes them as citizen-subjects, leaving little room for radical critiques of women’s position within the family and nation, and importantly, also foreclosing discussion of inequalities among women along axes of religious identity, caste or class” (p. 153-154). It seems that it is only through the engagement with multiple data types that such poignant observations can be made effectively.

As an anthropological study, I liked “Internet: An Ethnographic Approach.” However, as a work of media studies, I think this text loses some value. In the conclusion to chapter three, the Miller and Slater claim, “With respect to the family the Internet is used largely to roll back changes that were dissolving some family relations.” This statement, it seems, is problematic as there is an absence of the necessary frame of reference for a comparative analysis. What is so special about the internet? Is this a technological issue or a cultural issue? Doesn’t Mankekar’s research demonstrate similar effects being produced by communal engagement with television? If the internet is unique as a medium, regarding the potential for social good, this chapter fails to prove so effectively.

for week 7

The third dimension of the methodology presented in “Global Ethnography” is particularly interesting from a perspective valuing the roots of social theory. Generally, Burawoy succeeds in marrying Marxism and ethnographic methodology. His brand of Marxism is in direct relation to the work of Frankfurt School critical theorists. Reference to Lukacs is explicit. Burawoy writes, “For us the macro-micro link refers not to such an ‘expressive’ totality, but to a structured one in which the part is shaped by its relation to the whole, the whole being represented by ‘external forces’” (p. 27). Such a conception works within the concept of totality rather than usurping it. Using ethnography, global or otherwise, Burawoy has effectively turned the traditional top-down Marxist orientation on its head.

Screening Culture is an excellent example of mixed method qualitative research. I was particularly impressed with the use of a variety of kinds of data. In addition to ethnographic fieldwork which includes participant observation and interviews, Mankekar employs newspaper research, production research, and interpretative research. This variety aids the combination of post-colonial and feminist theoretical perspectives. The combination of the methodological and the theoretical allows Mankekar to arrive at general conclusions without losing the perspective of the individual. The following quote is emblematic, “Nationalism creates the horizon for women as it constitutes them as citizen-subjects, leaving little room for radical critiques of women’s position within the family and nation, and importantly, also foreclosing discussion of inequalities among women along axes of religious identity, caste or class” (p. 153-154). It seems that it is only through the engagement with multiple data types that such poignant observations can be made effectively.

As an anthropological study, I liked “Internet: An Ethnographic Approach.” However, as a work of media studies, I think this text loses some value. In the conclusion to chapter three, the Miller and Slater claim, “With respect to the family the Internet is used largely to roll back changes that were dissolving some family relations.” This statement, it seems, is problematic as there is an absence of the necessary frame of reference for a comparative analysis. What is so special about the internet? Is this a technological issue or a cultural issue? Doesn’t Mankekar’s research demonstrate similar effects being produced by communal engagement with television? If the internet is unique as a medium, regarding the potential for social good, this chapter fails to prove so effectively.

week 6

On the whole, I enjoyed the readings this week. The complexity of Seiter’s work is notable and the lack of congruence between access and computer skills clearly indicates the negative potential of new media. Schofield-Clark’s experience with virtually dressing Barbie serves a similar purpose (p. 105). Turkle’s work regarding online experience and its effect on identity and cognition of self is quite interesting. The theoretical piece by Press and Livingstone provides a detailed overview of the emerging role of internet research within media studies. However, one big and two small critical observations are necessary.

The big critical observation is regarding Press and Livingstone’s essay. While it is true that there is a break in the literature between traditional television research and “new media” research, I disagree with the assertion that such a break is a necessary reflection of social reality. The “newness” of the internet as a form of mass communication is beyond question. Nevertheless, the elusiveness of “audience discourses and practices” does not become problematic only with the diffusion of internet access (Press and Livingstone 2006 p. 186). The presence of multiple television sets in the home (approximately the 1970s http://www.tvhistory.tv/tv-prices.htm) and the invention of video cassette recorders (VHS was introduced in 1976 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS) created many of the same problems Press and Livingston (2006) identify with the rise of the internet. While the “little-theorized interpretative relation between text and reader online” is problematic, scholarly claims of “newness” seem more related to incomplete knowledge of the relationship between audience and media rather than a unique product of a particular technology. If such “newness” does exist, it must be applied to media other than the internet. Regarding television, it seems that the prevalence of digital video recording (DVR/TIVO) and content on DVD (Netflix) should also be a form of “newness.” Regarding music, the prevalence of commercial free radio and MP3 players should similarly be considered as “new.” If television and radio are subject to their own conditions of “newness,” Press and Livingstone’s evaluation of the relationship between text and reader online could be applied to these media as well.

The first small critical observation is applicable to Schofield-Clark’s analysis of internet content. The description of her interaction with the young girls over the Barbie website is great. “One day, three girls between 9–11 years of age were seated at the computers . . . I pulled up the Barbie web site and spent the next three hours helping these African-American girls navigate it, changing Barbie’s hair, eyes, and clothes, and printing out various outfits for coloring. This was not exactly the skill development the funders had in mind, I imagine” (p. 104). Contrast this level of nuance with the reductive treatment of “violent” games. “Despite the director’s rule, Grand Theft Auto IV and Quake III were a few of the games that were loaded onto the computers many times over the summer. Neither of these games met the ‘no guns’ requirement” (p. 103). Where is the nuanced description of audience reception regarding this content?

The second small critical observation regards Turkle’s “Life on the Screen.” In the first page of chapter 8, Turkle makes reference to “LambdaMOO” in terms of Animal House. While the discourse to which she is referring might have been reminiscent of Animal House, “LambdaMOO” is a reference to the names of the focal fraternity and sorority in Revenge of the Nerds, Lambda Lambda Lambda and Omega Mu. This is relevant in terms of the subjective frame through which the individual engaged in such activities view themselves. These people clearly associate themselves with the NERDS (wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_nerds), as opposed to the brothers of Delta House (wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_house).