Showing papers in "Critical Studies in Media Communication in 2013"
TL;DR: The It Gets Better project as discussed by the authors was developed to offer hope and outreach to alienated queer youths in crisis through personalized YouTube messages, however, it has been criticized by some marginalized groups as passive, impractical, homogenizing, and exclusionary.
Abstract: In 2010, responding to several widely reported Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and/or Queer (LGBTQ) youth suicides, the It Gets Better project was developed to offer hope and outreach to alienated queer youths in crisis through personalized YouTube messages. Queer critiques of the project and its founder, Dan Savage, were quick to challenge the privileged and homonormative investments from the outset of the campaign, rejecting the campaign as passive, impractical, homogenizing, and exclusionary. This paper argues that the queer critiques launched at It Gets Better work to both strengthen and obscure the radical queer potentials of the campaign. Read as a project of queering future, It Gets Better enacts a mediated form of generativity, while continually expanding the possible significations for the symbol of “better,” in order to queer sedimented logics that cast LGBTQ persons as without future. Rejecting critical tragedy in favor of a model of critical frustration, this paper works with and throug...
69 citations
TL;DR: In this article, through interviews with Xena: Warrior Princess fans, the authors demonstrate that longstanding conceptions of fans as losers who behave badly influence the ways fans understand fandom, and that they do not feel particularly mainstream.
Abstract: It has become something of a truism in media studies that fans are now free of the old stereotypes to which they were formerly subject and have been mainstreamed as a model for the new ideal active media consumer. However, when speaking to some of these fans, it is evident that they do not feel particularly mainstream. Through interviews with Xena: Warrior Princess fans, I demonstrate that longstanding conceptions of fans as losers who behave badly influence the ways fans understand fandom. However, though they accepted negative portrayals of fans as valid, my interviewees refused to take on that meaning for themselves, instead bracketing themselves out of it and shifting it off onto others. This simultaneous acceptance and refusal of stereotypes suggests that being a fan is a subject position fraught with baggage from historical and contemporary media representations, which troubles triumphalist renderings of a new media order centered on the fan.
43 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that while sociological popular music studies may rhetorically privilege real experience over abstract textualism, its methods are often limited to the dimensions of experience that can be readily observed and verbalized, or resort to the kind of abstract theorizing its practitioners claim to reject.
Abstract: Media and cultural studies are currently experiencing a renewed and intensified engagement with sociology and sociological methods, with studies of popular music especially affected by attempts to make media and cultural research “more sociological.” This paper explores recent methodological debates in media and cultural studies by critiquing the “ethnographic turn” in popular music studies, as well as the growing antipathy toward textual analysis methods. It argues that while sociological popular music studies may rhetorically privilege “real” experience over abstract textualism, its methods are often limited to the dimensions of experience that can be readily observed and verbalized, or resort to the kind of abstract theorizing its practitioners claim to reject. Using examples from heavy and extreme metal music, this paper argues that while all research methods are inevitably partial, textual analysis can offer creative ways to articulate experiences that would otherwise be inaccessible to empirical res...
43 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the YouTube-based vernacular discourses created by two of the most well-known and influential Asian American YouTube celebrities: Ryan Higa and Kevin Wu.
Abstract: Asian/Asian Americans, a minority group traditionally and systematically ignored by the American mainstream media, have become extremely vocal on YouTube. This study analyzes the YouTube-based vernacular discourses created by two of the most well-known and influential Asian American YouTube celebrities: Ryan Higa and Kevin Wu. For analysis, we provide a synthesized model, “hybrid vernacular discourse,” to explore the YouTube-based vernacular discourses from three aspects: content, agency, and subjectivity. The study found that Higa's and Wu's vernacular discourses did demonstrate some revolutionary potential, but the potential was largely limited.
38 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the inclusion of gay characters rearticulates this ambivalent position of the fantasy genre toward homosexuality, and the authors show that the ambivalence no longer serves to read the others as metaphors for homosexuality and/or queerness.
Abstract: Fantasy films and television series have generally taken an ambivalent position toward homosexuality. On the one hand, the genre has omitted representations of gay characters or displaced homosexuality onto the victims, villains, or nonhuman others. Hence, from a queer theoretical perspective, homosexuality has been represented as a threat to the hegemonic discourse of heteronormativity. On the other hand, deconstructionist practices have revealed how the other may be read as a form of cultural resistance and a powerful metaphor for gay men and women. However, a few 21st-century fantasy series are breaking the tradition by representing characters and themes explicitly marked as gay. Using a textual analysis of two contemporary fantasy series (Torchwood and True Blood), this study illustrates how the inclusion of gay characters rearticulates this ambivalent position of the fantasy genre toward homosexuality. The ambivalence no longer serves to read the others as metaphors for homosexuality and/or queerness...
29 citations
TL;DR: The video game play of individuals, in particular those who game alone, is rarely studied outside of effects-based research or autoethnographic explorations as mentioned in this paper, and this study situates the analysis of game play with the individual, solitary player.
Abstract: The video game play of individuals, in particular those who game alone, is rarely studied outside of effects based research or autoethnographic explorations. Rather than focus on gaming groups and gaming fans, this study situates the analysis of video game play with the individual, solitary player. There were three main goals in this project. The first was to see how video game play fits within the lives and media diets of those who do not identify as hardcore video game fans. The second was to interrogate the hardcore/casual and social/solitary gaming divides that define much popular understanding of video game play. The final goal was to investigate the process of identification in video games in a qualitative manner. While a small-scale pilot study, the methodology discussed herein should be useful in future research on video game audiences and identification.
29 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that paratexts perform a complex "double work" that facilitates wider discussions about gender and sexuality, represent transgender individuals as part of the national family, and focus attention on the everydayness of being transgender.
Abstract: Operating on the textual periphery, paratexts such as film reviews, movie posters, and director commentary on DVDs have the ability to neutralize and domesticate potential threats a narrative poses to a social or cultural status quo. Using the film TransAmerica (2005) as a case study, I illustrate how, despite the intent to shut down certain possibilities of textual decoding, what I term “paratextual domestication,” paratexts create spaces that explore, validate, and celebrate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) life and subjectivity. As a result, I argue paratexts perform a complex “double work.” In the case of TransAmerica, although the film's paratexts subordinate transgender themes and advance certain reductive tropes and stereotypes, they also facilitate wider discussions about gender and sexuality, represent transgender individuals as part of the national family, and focus attention on the everydayness of being transgender.
28 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the comic frame is used to argue that sports media frame Tebow in transcendental terms, the consequence of which is a discourse of absolutism and symbolic division.
Abstract: As one of the most widely covered athletes of recent years, Tim Tebow is both beloved and resented. In this essay, I critique sports media coverage of Tebow to demonstrate how tragic framing constitutes this opposition. By emphasizing his character both as a football leader and a Christian missionary, sports media frame Tebow in transcendental terms, the consequence of which is a discourse of absolutism and symbolic division. What is required, therefore, is a turn to Kenneth Burke's notion of the comic frame, a position of humility that is well-suited to the agonistic ethos of commercial sport.
23 citations
TL;DR: The broadcast reform movement of the postwar 1940s as mentioned in this paper was composed of labor activists, African Americans, disaffected intellectuals, Progressives, educators, and religious organizations, and it would succeed in registering significant victories as well as laying the necessary groundwork for future reform.
Abstract: The postwar 1940s witnessed the beginnings of a full-fledged broadcast reform movement composed of labor activists, African Americans, disaffected intellectuals, Progressives, educators, and religious organizations. Although this reform movement would never realize the full sum of its parts before it was quelled by reactionary forces, it would succeed in registering significant victories as well as laying the necessary groundwork for future reform. The following analysis draws from archival materials and interviews to recover a largely forgotten moment in broadcast history, one that holds much contemporary relevance for current media reform efforts and media policy issues.
22 citations
TL;DR: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report are two television programs venerated for their comedic criticisms of mainstream media and society as discussed by the authors and exemplify the art of sociopolitical satire, using humor to expose hypocrisies in media coverage, illuminate inconsistencies and facetiously reveal folly.
Abstract: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report are two television programs venerated for their comedic criticisms of mainstream media and society. The shows exemplify the art of sociopolitical satire, using humor to expose hypocrisies in media coverage, illuminate inconsistencies and facetiously reveal folly. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report arguably represent a legitimate form of news media, but they are distinct from the traditional media that Herman and Chomsky (1988/2002) assailed when formulating their propaganda model for US mass media. Notably, the two shows parody an industry that routinely propagandizes on behalf of powerful societal interests, and they satirize the status quo in an ostensibly subversive fashion. Using the propaganda model as a theoretical lens, this study examines The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to throw light on how the satirical news format informs the propaganda model. With the model as an analytical guide, this essay explores instances in which the two sho...
21 citations
TL;DR: The authors analyzed how journalists framed the 2008 interview with Katie Couric prior to and following a Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit that parodied the exchange and found that before the skit aired journalists tended to overlook the interview or attribute blame to those in the McCain campaign.
Abstract: This study analyzes the sourcing role alternative news outlets can play for mainstream news by focusing on one particular late-night comedy program. Quantitative and qualitative content analyses were conducted on the how journalists framed Sarah Palin's 2008 interview with Katie Couric prior to and following a Saturday Night Live (SNL) skit that parodied the exchange. Findings suggest that before the skit aired journalists tended to overlook the interview or attribute blame to those in the McCain campaign. After the skit was aired, however, journalists overwhelmingly attributed the fault to Palin herself and raised questions about her qualifications for office, especially when the SNL skit was included or referenced in the news story. Furthermore, a qualitative reading analyzed the context of including the skit by journalists and found that when the skit was used as a lead-in or reference, journalists tended to attribute the blame to Palin, yet gave agency of the critiques to others. This incident demonst...
TL;DR: A few years after the release of the film Downfall (2004), which portrayed Adolf Hitler's final stand and the subsequent fall of the Third Reich, so-called "Downfall parodies" overtook YouTube.
Abstract: A few years after the release of the film Downfall (2004), which portrays Adolf Hitler's final stand and the subsequent fall of the Third Reich, so-called “Downfall parodies” overtook YouTube. The bulk of the parodies riff on a scene that has Hitler holed up in an underground bunker learning of the Russian army's breach of Berlin, recasting Hitler's outcry with subtitles that encompass the most politically consequential topics as well as the most trivial social matters. Given their multiplicity, plus their singular standpoints, the parodies constitute a unique instance in which the value of rhetorical play with Hitler can be examined in terms of representational (and, to be sure, misrepresentational) politics. This essay approaches the image of Hitler as a complex and collective articulation on which numerous representations converge. I argue in particular that, in playing with (texts) of Hitler, Downfall parodies trouble a powerful cultural configuration that operates on a dynamic, and indeed disturbing,...
TL;DR: The relationship between fans and producers in an era of technological and cultural change is explored in this paper, where the authors focus on the case of Doctor Who, a cult series revived by a fan turned producer, and the love-hate relationship between him and the show's fans.
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between fans and producers in an era of technological and cultural change. Focusing on fans' new liberties in the Web 2.0 environment, we study the ways in which fandom—previously conceptualized as a “powerless elite”—copes with increased status and influence. We focus on the case of Doctor Who, a cult series revived by a fan turned producer, and the love–hate relationship between him and the show's fans. Using grounded theory, we analyze discussions in the LiveJournal community doctorwho and chart the strategies used by members to negotiate their new place in the world. In an age marked by a rapid increase in fan power and blurring of the boundaries between producers and consumers, we find Doctor Who fans working intensively to disempower themselves and keep the fan/producer separation in place.
TL;DR: The authors analyzes media coverage of and audience reactions to a gay celebrity's death and its aftermath to see how it triggers discussion about socially and ethically sensitive issues, and finds that audience reactions do not simply mimic these frames, but are mediated in different ways by personal experiences, peers, and parasocial relationships.
Abstract: Taking a case study and framing approach, this article analyzes media coverage of and (on- and off-line) audience reactions to a gay celebrity's death and its aftermath to see how it triggers discussion about socially and ethically sensitive issues. It starts from the assumption that the celebrity construct is not just a commodity but also acts as a forum to discuss social and ethical issues, norms, and values. Media coverage of the suicide of Flemish singer Yasmine is revealed to be dominated by frames relating to the soap of life (especially divorce), the celebrity's status as a lesbian icon, and her position as a victim of abuse, with framing differing according to media and journalistic style. Audience reactions do not simply mimic these frames, but are mediated in different ways by personal experiences, peers, and parasocial relationships, resulting in active negotiations of the media frames, even creating counter-frames, particularly regarding the act of suicide and the gay status of the celebrity.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors connect prisoners' radio production with notions of active citizenship and show that prisoners' participation in radio production can strengthen the empowerment of prisoners' engagement in media production.
Abstract: Defining prisoners' radio programming is no easy task. The most important element to note is that programming broadcasts outside of prison. Prison radio does exist inside prison confines; however, this research focuses on programs that broadcast to the wider community, as it is this connection to the “outside world” that strengthens the empowering nature of prisoners' engagement in media production. This article connects prisoners' radio production with notions of active citizenship. While the concept of citizenship is highly relevant to alternative media practice, the issues are compounded when we consider prisoners because of their tenuous position as citizens.
TL;DR: Using E. Patrick Johnson's theory of appropriation, the authors argue that social media users frame Dodson's identity as coonery, which appropriates gay, Black, masculinity in limiting ways.
Abstract: Antoine Dodson's Black, gay, southern, lower class, seemingly unintelligent identities create space for media to exploit him as a Homo Coon—a sexualized form of the Zip Coon that frames Black, homosexual masculinity negatively, and appropriates a stereotype that denies it authenticity by reducing it to coonery. However, if we see Dodson through a critical lens, his story complicates notions of class, education, access, femininity, and masculinity. His business savvy marketing moves and self-promotion challenge stereotypical notions of poor, undereducated people. His gendered performance coupled with his ability to care for his family physically, emotionally, and financially complicate gender roles. Using E. Patrick Johnson's theory of appropriation, I argue that social media users frame Dodson's identity as coonery, which appropriates gay, Black, masculinity in limiting ways. However, a more critical reading of Dodson illuminates the ways in which his identity complicates binaries and creates space for mu...
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of Moroccan and Indian film structures in the city of Antwerp (Belgium) is presented based on 27 semi-structured interviews with experts such as distributors, exhibitors, social workers, and programming managers.
Abstract: How and to what extent are diasporic film cultures influenced by power structures and power shifts? This question is addressed in a twofold case study of Moroccan and Indian film structures in the city of Antwerp (Belgium). The analysis presented here is based on 27 semi-structured interviews with experts such as distributors, exhibitors, social workers, and programming managers. The research results, uncovering a complex model of multileveled power structures, demonstrate that developments in diasporic film cultures are not only dependent on homeland production, but are also crucially influenced by local actors, who determine those developments to a large degree. It is further demonstrated that networks of both legal and informal/illegal transnational and transdiasporic circulation play crucial, intertwining roles. The case studies thus show how diasporic media consumption and film in particular can only fully be grasped when attempting to understand the tension between local environment, its position wi...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigate how members of the show's production, Big Brother viewers, and I performatively rendered gay identity in the immediate contexts of the program and its fan forums.
Abstract: In this autoethnographic account, I critically interrogate my experiences on and off the set of CBS's reality show Big Brother. Pulling from phenomenological theories of time and narrative, I investigate how members of the show's production, Big Brother viewers, and I performatively rendered gay identity in the immediate contexts of the program and its fan forums.
TL;DR: It is suggested that the burgers' transgression of healthy eating edicts not only reveals the limits of public health education's ascetic agenda, but also highlights the complex and interdependent relationships among media, food, health, and its discontents at a time when eating and nutrition are sources of heightened anxiety, surveillance, and control.
Abstract: Controversies involving calorically extravagant fast food hamburgers are not only significant manifestations of nutritional surveillance and policing, they are also important sites of debate about food, health, and eating during a so-called “obesity epidemic.” This paper examines the media coverage and controversies surrounding two “fat” burgers that were sold in the Australian market in 2008 and 2011. It argues that the almost total subsuming of the “meaning” of these burgers into a framework of health simultaneously limited comprehension of their pleasures and provided opportunities for resistance to public health agendas. By locating the consumption of these burgers as part of a broader, masculine “turn to the extreme” in contemporary culture, this article suggests that the burgers' transgression of healthy eating edicts not only reveals the limits of public health education's ascetic agenda, but also highlights the complex and interdependent relationships among media, food, health, and its discontents...
TL;DR: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, opening ceremonies of world's fairs were routinely consummated with a "touch of a button" on an ordinary telegraph as mentioned in this paper, and United States presidents began triggering these ceremonies, as well as machines, fountains, and fairground lights, from a distance in early experiments with teleoperation.
Abstract: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, opening ceremonies of world's fairs were routinely consummated with a “touch of a button” on an ordinary telegraph. Yet in a striking shift from co-located events, United States presidents began triggering these ceremonies, as well as machines, fountains, and fairground lights, from a distance in early experiments with teleoperation. This article interrogates how media discourses framed and interpreted long-distance acts for readers, with particular emphasis on how these narratives imagined touch was transmitted—and communicated—through wires. It calls first for increased scholarly attention to the ways that bodies assert themselves through acts of long-distance connectivity, past and present; and second, for the creation of a robust cultural history that examines precursors to teleoperation and telepresence within the broader historiography of communication and media.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the films' much-praised minimalist style positions consumption as abject, as that which both disgusts and attracts audience members but offers no release from the dizzying drive for more.
Abstract: The essay analyzes how Paranormal Activity (Schneider, Blum, & Peli, 2009) and Paranormal Activity 2 (Peli, Goldsman, & Williams, 2010) render consumption as a site of abjection. Our analysis begins by noting two prominent interpretations of the films: as genre-changing minimalist works and as soothing morality tales in which overleveraged suburbanites are punished. Putting these readings into conversation, we maintain that these films entrench audiences in the grip of consumption – the drive that fuels consumerism and materialism. Using Julia Kristeva's work on abjection, we argue that the films' much-praised minimalist style positions consumption as abject, as that which both disgusts and attracts audience members but offers no release from the dizzying drive for more. We maintain that these films display consumption as an urge for possession that cannot be stabilized or sublimated. They accomplish this end by using stylistic strategies that violate horror conventions and ask the audience to become enra...
TL;DR: The authors adopt a critical discourse analytical approach so that it serves as a complement to the existing stylistic-variationist tradition and address the ideological aspects implicated in the mediation of sociolinguistic reality in mass culture.
Abstract: The way sociolinguistic phenomena such as linguistic variation are mediated through mass cultural texts has not been a privileged area of research in early variationist sociolinguistics. On the other hand, despite being a social theory of language, critical discourse analysis has not much examined how particular linguistic variation phenomena (e.g., geographical or social dialects) are mediated, and the (language) ideologies knitted to this mediation. In the present study, I adopt a critical discourse analytical approach so that it serves as a complement to the existing stylistic-variationist tradition. In this way, I hope to address the ideological aspects implicated in the mediation of sociolinguistic reality in mass culture. To illustrate this approach, I draw upon empirical data from Greek TV commercials, which construct images of youth language.
TL;DR: The authors provides an ideological case study of the press coverage of the Casement Report that circulated between 1904 and 1908, showing that when Consular Roger Casement returned from investigating alleged abuses of local populations in the Congo Free State, he brought back photographs that became a part of the ideological weaponry that would be used by the Congo Reform Associations.
Abstract: The author of this essay provides an ideological case study of the press coverage of the Casement Report that circulated between 1904 and 1908. This study shows that when Consular Roger Casement returned from investigating alleged abuses of local populations in the Congo Free State, he brought back photographs that became a part of the ideological weaponry that would be used by the Congo Reform Associations. King Leopold II's supporters and other critics of Casement's Report used a colonial hermeneutics of suspicion as they critiqued this British policing of the activities of rival European powers.
TL;DR: The authors argue that TCJP represents the evolving subgenre of "rehabilitative cooking", a form of makeover media that aims to normalize so-called "at-risk" subjects through highly supervised unpaid (or underpaid) culinary labor under the guidance of the Food Network.
Abstract: As one of the most popular entertainment genres in the US, food media continues to attract significant attention from communication and cultural critics. In an effort to complicate conversations regarding the relationship among food media, identity construction, and power, this paper examines Food Network's reality-based series, The Chef Jeff Project (TCJP). TCJP is a seemingly “groundbreaking” series featuring ex-con turned chef Jeff Henderson who attempts to change the lives of “at risk” youth through the power of food. We argue that, despite its altruistic appearance, TCJP appropriates normative politics surrounding kitchen culture, “good taste,” and food service in ways that reinforce participants’ Otherness, the privileged normalcy of their clientele, and the viewing audience. We argue that TCJP represents the evolving subgenre “rehabilitative cooking,” a form of makeover media that aims to normalize so-called “at-risk” subjects through highly supervised unpaid (or underpaid) culinary labor under the...
TL;DR: The forensic drama Bones as mentioned in this paper is reflective of forensic dramas generally, which tend to conflate persons with bodies, privatize and somaticize violence, obviate the confessional act, and privilege the visual mediation of the body as a way of knowing.
Abstract: This article examines the forensic drama Bones as reflective of forensic dramas generally, which deploy visual logics and a set of discourses that have emerged across a range of institutional spaces. These discourses tend to conflate persons with bodies, privatize and somaticize violence, obviate the confessional act, and privilege the visual mediation of the body as a way of knowing. Bones, and other contemporary forensic dramas, rearticulate older logics of the body to contemporary techniques of policing. I will argue that the convergence of these logics implies a social order where surveillance is privileged, the justice system is mechanized, and body-based modes of social sorting operate under the guise of scientific governance.