Showing papers in "Television & New Media in 2014"
TL;DR: This paper explored the use of the Black American cultural tradition of "signifyin'" as a means of performing racial identity online and found that it serves as a powerful resource for the performance of Black cultural identity on Twitter.
Abstract: This article explores the use of the Black American cultural tradition of “signifyin’” as a means of performing racial identity online. In the United States, race is deeply tied to corporeal signifiers. But, in social media, the body can be obscured or even imitated (e.g., by a deceptive avatar). Without reliable corporeal signifiers of racial difference readily apparent, Black users often perform their identities through displays of cultural competence and knowledge. The linguistic practice of “signifyin’,” which deploys figurative language, indirectness, doubleness, and wordplay as a means of conveying multiple layers of meaning, serves as a powerful resource for the performance of Black cultural identity on Twitter.
187 citations
TL;DR: In the ongoing debates about the role of immaterial labor in digital media economics, the work of feminist researchers into affective labor performed in the home has barely featured in the discussion as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the ongoing debates about the role of immaterial labor in digital media economics, the work of feminist researchers into affective labor performed in the home—“women’s work”—has barely featured....
111 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined trans culture on the website Tumblr during the period from March 2011, when the authors began researching the platform, to May 2013, when Yahoo! paid creator David Karp over a billion dollars for the site, and explored ephemeral aspects of self-representation at the intersection of postmodern art practice, sexual politics, and queer subjectivities.
Abstract: For transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming people, emergent media technologies offer new outlets for self-representation, outlets that often last for only a brief moment. This article examines trans culture on the website Tumblr during the period from March 2011, when the authors began researching the platform, to May 2013, when Yahoo! paid creator David Karp over a billion dollars for the site. Through auto-ethnographic dialogue about the loose social networks within Tumblr to which the authors contributed during this phase, the article explores ephemeral aspects of self-representation at the intersection of postmodern art practice, sexual politics, and queer subjectivities. From at least 2011 to 2013, people collectively oriented in opposition to dominant discourses of gender and sexuality used Tumblr to refashion straight cisgender norms and to create everyday art in a hybrid media space.
83 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine a series of platform, content, reception, and lifestyle factors likely to shape sports fans' use of traditional and newer digital media, and conclude that sports fans will use newer media, with their interactive options and affordance of agency to supplement and enhance their viewing experience.
Abstract: In this essay, we examine a series of platform, content, reception, and lifestyle factors likely to shape sports fans’ use of traditional and newer digital media. Because of signal fidelity, screen size, presence, and the rights to air top-tier sports events, television is likely to remain the medium of choice for fans ready to watch live sports. Fans will use newer media, with their interactive options and affordance of agency to supplement and enhance their viewing experience. Although traditional and newer media are competing for fan attention and advertising dollars, use of these media for live sports is not a zero-sum game. This may not be the case for sports journalism and related programming about sports where, over time, fans may turn to newer media at the expense of the old.
48 citations
TL;DR: The authors identifies that the current literature on "distant suffering" lacks a nuanced account of the relationship between televised representations of suffering and the audiences that encounter them, and identifies the need for a more nuanced account.
Abstract: This article identifies that the current literature on “distant suffering” lacks a nuanced account of the relationship between televised representations of suffering and the audiences that encounte...
47 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how music videos are being used, how they are being made, and how money is being made from them, and describe the lingering role that older music and media industry paradigms might play in shaping the future of online video.
Abstract: At the start of the 2000s, there were dire predictions about the future of music videos. Faced with falling industry profits, ballooning production costs, and music television stations that cared more about ratings, music videos no longer enjoyed the industry support they once had. But as music videos were being sidelined by the music and television industries, they were rapidly becoming integral to online video aggregates and social media sites. The “days of the $600,000 video” might be gone, but in recent years, a new music video culture and economy has emerged. Exploring how music videos are being used, how they are being made, and how money is being made from them, the article not only documents the impact that digital convergence has had on music videos but it also describes the lingering role that older music and media industry paradigms might play in shaping the future of online video.
46 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the representations and tonal qualities of British "structured reality" programming, focusing on The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea, and investigated their glocalizing of the model established by MTV's Laguna Beach and The Hills, arguing that while they blur boundaries between docusoap, drama, and soap opera, the British programs also recognize and foreground issues of construction for their reality TVliterate youth audience.
Abstract: This article explores the representations and tonal qualities of British “structured reality” programming. Focusing on The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea, it investigates their glocalizing of the model established by MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills. It argues that while they blur boundaries between docusoap, drama, and soap opera, the British programs also recognize and foreground issues of construction for their reality TV-literate youth audience. It suggests the programs play a key role in their respective channel identities and the ideologies of British youth television, connecting to larger issues of class, gender, and taste. This is articulated through their regional and classed femininities, with the article exploring how the programs draw on classed ideologies surrounding “natural” and “excessive” femininities and of the role of this in their engagement with construction and camp play. This play contributes to the tonal shift offered by the British programs, mixing the melodrama of the MTV ...
45 citations
TL;DR: Examining industry discourses on simultaneous media to longer-standing interest in audience inattention provides a foundation from which critical scholars can engage with the multiscreen contexts in which audiences use new media, while criticizing the presumptions of interactivity at the heart of convergence culture.
Abstract: Simultaneous media use has become a prominent part of the contemporary media landscape. While critical media scholars continue to presume that audiences engage media one at a time, industries and a...
38 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the ways in which lesbian consumers and programming are co-constituted, and examines lesbian programming on cable TV as a strategic method for attracting lesbians to cable TV programming.
Abstract: Paying particular attention to the ways in which lesbian consumers and programming are co-constituted, this article examines lesbian programming on cable TV as a strategic method for attracting aud...
31 citations
TL;DR: The FOX television series Glee has been lauded for its progressive portrayals of gay characters and criticized for trafficking in stereotypes as mentioned in this paper, and they position Glee within a transmedia framework, using...
Abstract: The FOX television series Glee has been lauded for its progressive portrayals of gay characters and criticized for trafficking in stereotypes. We position Glee within a transmedia framework, using ...
31 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that contrary to claims that scheduling has become obsolete, analyses show that it continues to be a central craft within the television industry, one responding actively to times of change, revising its tools and developing new ones.
Abstract: The article explores television scheduling in the phase of proliferation, a period following phases of monopoly and competition, characterized by a drastic multiplication of content, television cha...
TL;DR: The emergence of "prosumers" and "produsers" suggests that production and reception are more conflated now than ever before as mentioned in this paper. But is their mediation through the performance of hybrid roles new?
Abstract: The emergence of “prosumers” and “produsers” suggests that production and reception are more conflated now than ever before. But is their mediation through the performance of hybrid roles new? And ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the implications for the sport of the move to an age of screens and content and argue that patterns of continuity in the role played by television as well as evidence of change.
Abstract: The death of television has been long predicated in the digital age, yet it remains a powerful mediator of live sports. This article focuses on football and examines the implications for the sport of the move to an age of screens and content. These may be large screens in public places or in our homes or those at work or smaller screens carried in the palm of our hands, but what we use them for, how content gets onto those screens, and the implications for sports and sports fans remain compelling questions in the digital age. The article argues that through reflecting on major media sport events such as the FIFA World Cup, we see patterns of continuity in the role played by television as well as evidence of change.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how players do or do not hold one another accountable to sex category membership through their interactions, in so doing either reproducing or resisting normative forms of gender.
Abstract: Although most massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) remain entrenched in a binary system of gendered avatars, the limited representational framework of avatar creation is only one among many different strategies for what sociologists refer to as “doing gender.” This essay explores how a doing gender approach might be useful for analyzing the interactive dimensions of gender play in the rich communicative environments of MMOs. Specifically, this essay explores how players do (or do not) hold one another accountable to sex category membership through their interactions, in so doing either reproducing or resisting normative forms of gender. A doing gender approach, I argue, holds out the promise of being held accountable to a different set of rules for doing gender—of doing gender differently or, in a more utopian sense, perhaps doing away with it altogether.
TL;DR: The task of this article is to analyze the political economy of Wikipedia and the basic principles of what the authors call the info-communist mode of production are discussed.
Abstract: The task of this article is to analyze the political economy of Wikipedia. We discuss the specifics of Wikipedia’s mode of production. The basic principles of what we call the info-communist mode o...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that sport broadcasts on television in the twenty-first century do not merely provide a sophisticated view of what takes place at the stadium but a new creation with unique characteristics.
Abstract: One of the fundamental issues in the relation between television and sports has been the transference from watching a game or a sport in the field (the stadium) to the viewing experience through a proxy (the medium). The present article argues that sport broadcasts on television in the twenty-first century do not merely provide a sophisticated view of what takes place at the stadium but a new creation with unique characteristics. By using the latest technology-driven examples and assuming that other ones are already being used such as the “second screen” combination of watching TV and simultaneously using a smartphone or tablet for better statistics or social interaction, it is asserted that “being there” has become less imperative, as alternatives to watching matches live and in person at many sporting events have become in many cases better options.
TL;DR: In this article, the limits of new and social media to change the contemporary landscape of mediated sport in meaningful ways are discussed, and theoretical strains from the work of Althusser concerning ideological state apparatuses and the nature of mediated hailing are melded with Bauman on consumer sociality, and with Wenner on the communicative powers of sports dirt in a commodified environment.
Abstract: This essay comments on the limits of new and social media to change the contemporary landscape of mediated sport in meaningful ways. The first part of the essay speaks to the “limits of the new.” Here, the forces of “monetization” and the transition of new media into mainstream are considered. Arguments are presented that the “game” of new and social media will likely draft of media logics of legacy media rather than structurally change them. The second part of the essay speaks to the “lasting power of the mediasport interpellation.” Here, theoretical strains from the work of Althusser concerning ideological state apparatuses and the nature of “hailing” are melded, on one hand, with the work of Bauman on “consumer sociality,” and on the other, with that of Wenner on the communicative powers of sports dirt in a commodified environment. Consideration is given to the constancy of sport-anchored mediated hailing to establish (1) gender identities, (2) fan identities, and (3) consumer identities in ways that a...
TL;DR: In this paper, the interacting social forces that have shaped the development of the electronic media constitute complex and contrary developments, unlike that of the cinema, which took a long time to develop.
Abstract: The interacting social forces that have shaped the development of the electronic media constitute complex and contrary developments. Television technology, unlike that of the cinema, took a long ti...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the affective labor of nightlife photographers within the surveillance economy of social media and argue that the analytical capacities and modes of promotion they facilitate depend in the first instance on the cultural intermediaries like nightlife photographer.
Abstract: This article examines the affective labor of nightlife photographers within the surveillance economy of social media. I examine nightlife photographers as “below the line” cultural laborers who employ their identities and communicative capacities to create and circulate images of nightlife online. These images stimulate interaction that can be watched, tracked, and responded to by the databases of social media. The study draws on interviews with nightlife photographers to examine how they account for the creative and promotional aspects of their labor. I argue that the analytical capacities of social media databases, and the modes of promotion they facilitate, depend in the first instance on the affective labor of cultural intermediaries like nightlife photographers.
TL;DR: In this article, the digital media has played a key role in generating attention, creating controversy and showcasing changes in media coverage of women's sports, and social media have made sports coverage an...
Abstract: Globally, the digital media has played a key role in generating attention, creating controversy and showcasing changes in media coverage of women’s sports. Social media have made sports coverage an...
TL;DR: The authors argues that while the broadcasting of international football tournaments remains highly profitable for national television networks, their close relationship with national political agendas will continue to weaken, and argues that sport fans have access to matches from all over the world at all hours of the day.
Abstract: Throughout the history of the nation-state, political leaders have used sport as a means of promoting individual and national agendas. Over the last few years, their hold over sport appears to have weakened. In an era of commercialization, individualism, and globalization, many sport fans have access to matches from all over the world at all hours of the day. This commentary argues that while the broadcasting of international football tournaments remains highly profitable for national television networks, their close relationship with national political agendas will continue to weaken.
TL;DR: The experience of watching sport on television is changing with the proliferation of screens, the diversification of screen-based content, and the extension of interactive screen-facilitated communications as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The experience of watching sport on television is changing with the proliferation of screens, the diversification of screen-based content, and the extension of interactive screen-facilitated commun...
TL;DR: The authors examines drumnycorg, the website of New York-based South Asian activist organization Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), and interrogates the politics of the site within the overlappin
Abstract: This article examines drumnycorg, the website of New York–based South Asian activist organization Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), and interrogates the politics of the site within the overlappin
TL;DR: In this article, how-to screenwriting manuals both feed into and exemplify the new cultural economy and the position(s) of creative labor within that economy by offering the opportunity to dream up and invent one's own career and providing blueprints for doing so.
Abstract: Screenwriting has been the subject of extensive literature in the past three decades in relation to both the techniques of the trade and the pursuit of profit and fame. This article demonstrates that how-to screenwriting manuals both feed into and exemplify the new cultural economy and the position(s) of creative labor within that economy by offering the opportunity to dream up and invent one’s own career and providing blueprints for doing so. The article draws on a critical discourse analysis study of a selection of the most popular manuals and analyzes the discursive strategies the texts deploy to concretize aspects of screenwriting labor, from story structure and formatting to pitching and rewriting. The manuals are discussed as a type of psy-technology and as a sophisticated form of professional self-help, and they are also analyzed as precarious governmental tools that shape industries, practices, and subjects but in ambiguous and chaotic ways.
TL;DR: This article explored gendered practices in new media formations and found examples of how the fluidity of gender can be highlighted, the cultural specificity of some often taken for granted and naturalized practices can be more readily understood as constructed, and ironically, how the overt and self-congratulatory crowing of some gamer and geek cultures draws attention to their misogyny, creating a much bigger and more easily identifiable target for counterstrategies.
Abstract: This article explores gendered practices in new media formations. We consider the ways that emergent practices in new media bring to the fore and make more explicit some previously submerged practices. In identity construction, in spatial practices, and in the productive labor of users of new media, we see examples of how the fluidity of gender can be highlighted, the cultural specificity of some often taken for granted and naturalized practices can be more readily understood as constructed, and ironically, how the overt and self-congratulatory crowing of some gamer and geek cultures draws attention to their misogyny, creating a much bigger and more easily identifiable target for counterstrategies. The intersection of emergent technologies and sociocultural practices creates new areas of gendered negotiations.
TL;DR: The symbiotic relationship between sport and the media in general, and television in particular, has been described as a “match made in heaven.” This essay is a conceptual introduction to the special issue in Television & New Media on sport, television and new media at the beginning of the third millennia.
Abstract: Over the last five decades, the symbiotic relationship between sport and the media in general, and television in particular, has been described as a “match made in heaven.” This essay is a conceptual introduction to the special issue in Television & New Media on sport, television, and new media at the beginning of the third millennia.
TL;DR: The authors argued that it is not entertainment that is eating its way into journalism, but the other way around: Rather than having been absorbed by entertainment, journalism has differentiated, become more autonomous as a subfield of cultural production, and has gradually come to dominate both factual and entertainment television.
Abstract: This article discusses two trends in the debates about contemporary television journalism. First, journalism is said to be increasingly subsumed an economic logic, privileging entertainment before serious journalistic practices. Most often, this is framed as if entertainment is eating its way into serious journalism, affecting it negatively and thus being detrimental for the political public sphere and political reasoning. Second, it is often pointed to a changed relation between journalism and politicians, where the latter have lost some of their power, for example, in political debates. This article relates these two trends and argues, against a field model inspired by Bourdieu, that it is not entertainment that is eating its way into journalism, but the other way around: Rather than having been absorbed by entertainment, journalism has differentiated, become more autonomous as a subfield of cultural production, and has gradually come to dominate both factual and entertainment television.
TL;DR: In the past decade, the websites of Thai tourist agencies have expanded their offerings to include medical tourism, and medical tourism online has experienced dramatic changes in packaging and markings as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the past decade, the websites of Thai tourist agencies have expanded their offerings to include medical tourism, and medical tourism online has experienced dramatic changes in packaging and mark...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine an entertainment education program, The Team, which began airing in Kenya after the 2007-2008 postelection violence and argue that the producers' attempt to create less didactic storylines and more complex characters resulted in unanticipated audience opposition to the death of a character the producers understood to be negative but audience members viewed as sympathetic.
Abstract: This article examines an entertainment-education program, The Team, which began airing in Kenya after the 2007–2008 postelection violence. The show promotes cooperation and national unity among Kenyans through the metaphor of Kenya as a football (soccer) team. The focus of this article is twofold: viewers’ identification with and reaction to certain morally ambiguous characters and audience members’ interaction with the program through the online social networking site Facebook. We argue that the producers’ attempt to create less didactic storylines and more complex characters resulted in unanticipated audience opposition to the death of a character the producers understood to be negative but audience members viewed as sympathetic. Second, the adoption of social media resulted in less controlled discussions in which Facebook users occasionally questioned, challenged, and sought to reshape the producers’ goals and strategies.
TL;DR: This paper explored the industrial character of the Korean broadcasting industry from the perspective of its creative workforce and found that an antagonistic relation exists between workers' passion for more creative and liberal work and the survival of the industry within Korean broadcasting.
Abstract: This article will explore the industrial character of the Korean broadcasting industry from the perspective of its creative workforce. This study focuses on the independent television production sector, which epitomizes current changes in the Korean cultural industry in terms of greater global integration, increasing commercialization, and digitalization. Qualitative research results illustrate that the “digitalized flexible production regime” of independent production companies exacerbates working conditions and job insecurity. Under this regime, workers see themselves as “creators” and “freelancers” for only a limited period. Findings suggest that an antagonistic relation exists between “the workers’ passion for more creative and liberal work” and “the survival of the industry” within Korean broadcasting.