Q1B Genre to Audience links

tbc

Neale argued in his study of cinema genres that audiences bring with them expectations on genre codes and conventions, and that their interaction is central to the construction and definition of genre, an endlessly ongoing process. Katz and Blumler also argued that simply recognising common features is another source of audience pleasure, and motivation to view (and, crucially for the music video, repeatedly re-view) a video. Neale also noted the importance to audiences of "differences in repetition", while Abercrombie noted that audiences gain pleasure from observing manipulations of standard genre conventions. In our video we took the convention of [EX; seen with eg/s of videos] and gave it a distinctly different slant by [EX].

There are other ways in which we can see how Blumler and Katz's work helps illuminate the interplay between audience and producers when it comes to genre. Their best known concept, the uses and gratifications theory, sets out key motivations for audiences to select the media they consume, and its clear that genre encoding is crucial in the context of music video. Identification, one of their 5 categories, was a core consideration in constructing our video, and clearly for professional producers too. [The EX is distinct depending on the genre: rock = everyday, relatable clothing [detail!], low key lighting, de-emphasising glamour while pop/dance is typically the opposite BUT may mix it up to strengthen the brand and audience appeal. This concept can also be applied to your NARRATIVE! Some videos directly represent fans within a video - you all have viral elements you can tie in]. This can also be at the aspirational level, and [EX: instrumental ability for rock, dancing for pop/dance, but also costume...]

My genre is known for featuring what Altman refers to as [emotional/visceral pleasures or intellectual puzzles], which can be seen in the [existing vid EX]. In mine, we [EX]

Costume is a defining feature of genre conventions in music video, and we noted the following as typical, further backed up by our own audience primary research [you can BRIEFLY detail if you want to]. Hebdige placed distinctive costume at the heart of his concept of subculture, and that clearly applies here. Much of our own costume/make-up work [EX] would be recognised within the broader genre of ..., but we did incorporate specific signifiers of this sub-culture [EX]

Genre, as we've seen, is a crucial concept for commercially exploiting music and for artists to attract an audience, but the concept can prove very loose when examined closely. The postmodernist Baudrillard put it typically colourfully when describing genre as [use all or any 1 part of his quote: 'a principal of contamination, a law of impurity, a parasitical economy']. Katie Wales put it even more bluntly when arguing that 'genre is an intertextual concept'. I found many examples of [genre] videos that reflected this [EX], borrowing from film, Tv and wider culture as well as from within and beyond this music video genre. In ours, we encoded intertextual references to [EX]. This was one means of avoiding simply being what Negus describes as a 'generecist, rather taking a pastichist approach. As we don't expect every viewer to recognise these references, there also what Rick Altman, in discussing pleasures that audiences gain from genres, describes as 'intellectual puzzles'. Bourdieu, whose work fits well with Hebdige's subculture concept, would recognise the 'cultural capital' on offer to those who can correctly identify the influences from our work.

Richard Dyer's star system

This is a simple but highly useful audience/narrative theory, which also reflects standard marketing thinking (question 1 a potential distributor will ask of a film production: who's the star?). Richard Dyer's (Amazon book list) landmark 1979 book Stars argued that the star system was central to how the media operate, and how we read texts. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (his 1986 follow-up) used case studies of Hollywood icons from the golden era, examining 'the ways in which audiences simultaneously construct and consume a particular star's persona' (Wiki). You might see parallels here with much later web 2.0 theorists such as Gauntlett and Gillmor and such declarations as "the former audience" (see this post for associated material on this).

The point here is that your text's narrative extends well beyond the film opening, 4 minute video, or even the wider promotional package.

I thought about this when reading a Film Guardian feature on Tom Cruise and director Christopher Nolan's insistence on diegetic as opposed to CGI stunts:

It goes deeper still though, into the weird contract we draw up with ourselves when we watch film. “Tom Cruise is doing that for real!” we exclaim to ourselves as we see Tom Cruise doing some casual rappelling. “Whoa!” We never truly watch blockbusters as pure narratives, but instead are constantly aware in their place in a wider ecosystem of celebrity, in which Cruise also has divorces and jumps on sofas and twinkles next to fans. We’re in awe of Cruise-as-Hunt rather than Hunt himself. (Tom Cruise, Christopher Nolan, and the new anti-CGI snobbery)

The excellent MediaKnowItAll site has a useful entry on this, considering not just the film angle but also how the music industry inculcates this approach to its modes of operation:

A star is an image not a real person that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg advertising, magazines etc as well as films [music]).  

Their entry is copied in below, but is best appreciated on their site, where you can also click around and find further useful material.

YOU/audience are the product: Julian Assange

When we consider audience theory in Media Studies, the degree of flux and changing views on this is quickly evident, and a major theme in itself. Which, if any, of the long-established audience theories continue to hold true in the digital age, the web 2.0 era? Is it enough to write of "the former audience", Dan Gillmor's (2011) striking phrase? David Gauntlett even went as far as to declare the "end of audience studies" (2007, 2011), although Julian McDougall's (2009, in a very readable, student-friendly book) more moderate point that audiences are fragmenting, making it more difficult to meaningfully analyse or discuss/define audiences, is perhaps more useful.

There are those who see the blurring of the audience/producer line as full of democratic promise, not least Gillmor, though Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture (2008) is perhaps the most striking statement of this.

Is Jenkins too utopian, optimistic? [image source]

On the face of it, the democratisation of 'UGC' (user-generated content), fan-made videos etc seems a good thing in weakening the power of the global conglomerate giants who dominate every media industry, often straddling several industries (as even the post-split Murdoch corporations do). But ... the 'new media' (an increasingly redundant term) giants have evolved themselves into even greater corporate behemoths than their old media predecessors. Is Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (still stuck in an asylum limbo in the Ecuadorian London embassy) right when he proclaims:

People who use Google are the product
Every time you go to a party and take a picture and post that picture to Facebook, you’re being a rat. You’re being a narc.

The first statement takes me back to the early days of my Media (and Politics) degree, when a simple enough statement immediately reformulated how I looked upon the media: newspapers sell readers to advertisers; when you buy a paper you're actually packaging yourself and selling yourself. Is the newspaper itself the product or a mere enticement for the actual product, a coalition of demographic types sufficiently attractive to a range of advertisers for the newspaper business to be economically viable?

A popular meme, Google is/Dr Evil [image source]

Fanbase not Audience the future say YouTube

A nudge/reminder that I often post materials on topics such as audience and web 2.0 on the BritCinema and MusiVidz blogs, such as this...

Sample marked Q1b essays E-A* grade

As of April 2014 these (barring some U examples) are the sample marked essays made available by OCR on A2 exam section A: question 1b.

   Q1b Exam Board Sample Answers With Marks

Applying U+G theory

(to be adapted)

See the links lists for links to resources on Uses + Gratifications theory. You'll also find many Googlebooks references if you google this! (eg)
Here's the Wikibooks link.

A very useful theory not just to discuss in terms of the general active v passive audience debate, but also to apply...

Take any text we have looked at, or that you have personally studied, for this exam. Consider the four uses Blumler and Brown, building on Lasswell's (1925) work suggested audiences apply to the media:

Diversion—Escape from routine and problems; an emotional release.
Personal Relationships—Social utility of information in conversation; substitution of media for companionship.
Personal Identity or Individual Psychology—Value reinforcement or reassurance; self-understanding, reality exploration.
Surveillance—Information about factors which might affect one or will help one do or accomplish something (Severin and Tankard, 1997) [from wiki]

How would different audiences respond to a given text? Consider Scots and English audiences for Braveheart; Northern Irish and English audiences for Mickybo and Me; Scottish and English audiences for the Scottish Sun's "cocky English" cover story; Unionist and Nationalist N.Irish for Hidden Agenda - you can apply this to any text.

When doing so you could also make reference to Stuart Hall's theory of readings, in which he argues that meaning resides as much in the audience as the text itself, reversing traditional 'passive' audience theories for a more 'active' conception of the audience.

There are many audience theories you can consider... [slideshare Ppt should appear below]

Audience Theory from zoe currie

I might embed an A2 pack on audience theory later

Here's a clear U+G summary from the BBC.

Here's an excerpt from a detailed overview of the theory, breaking down Dennis McQuail's original categories, with examples of how specifically they might be applied when engaged in semiotic, especially audience (including 'mode of address'), analysis;

An empirical study in the U & G tradition might typically involve audience members completing a questionnaire about why they watch a TV programme. Denis McQuail offers (McQuail 1987: 73) the following typology of common reasons for media use:

Information

• finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world
• seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
• satisfying curiosity and general interest
• learning; self-education
• gaining a sense of security through knowledge

Personal Identity

• finding reinforcement for personal values
• finding models of behaviour
• identifying with valued other (in the media) 
• gaining insight into one's self

Integration and Social Interaction

• gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
• identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real-life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society

Entertainment

• escaping, or being diverted, from problems
• relaxing
• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
• filling time
• emotional release
• sexual arousal

...