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Theory & the Media Professional

Theory & the Media Professional. Stephen Hill. To explore how three classic theories of audience might help answer the question:. Objectives.

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Theory & the Media Professional

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  1. Theory & the Media Professional Stephen Hill

  2. To explore how three classic theories ofaudience might help answer the question: Objectives Does the proliferation of web 2.0 user generated content and affordable creative technologies pose a threat to the integrity of the media professional? AIM: To explore the ways that academic media theory can help the media professional understand the interactive potential of the audience in a digital age. LINK TO THEORY (MARXISM): Does the deregulation of the ‘means of production' (Karl Marx, 1848) pose a threat to the integrity of the media professional?

  3. Does the proliferation of web 2.0 and affordable creative technologies pose a threat to the integrity of the media professional? How academic media theory can help the professional understand the interactive potential of the audience in a digitalage. Overview • Three Theories of Audience • Roland Barthes – Death of the Author(1967) • Dick Hebdige – Subculture (1979) • Chris Anderson – The Long Tail(2006) Five Institutional Models 1. Music Video Production (Foundation Degree Popular Music) 2. Multi-media Journalism (BA Hons Journalism and Communication) 3. Advertising and Marketing (BA Hons Marketing and Communication) 4. Television Production (BA Hons Media Production) 5. Computer Animation (BA Hons Computer Animation) Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation

  4. The Media Theory Timeline 1900 1950 2000 . . . Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation Roland Barthes Death of the Author (1967) Dick Hebdige Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) Chris Anderson The Long Tail (2006)

  5. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation The Big Idea: The meaning of a text is inscribed by the audiencewho essentially re-write it. The reader becomes an ‘author’ rendering the real author ‘dead’. Roland Barthes, Death of the Author (1967) Influenced by: Ferdinand de Saussure – Cours de Linguistic (1912) Influence on: Stuart Hall – Encoding/ Decoding (1973) Contemporary Relevance: Web 2.0 user generated content is blurring distinction between producers and consumers.

  6. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation The Big Idea: Subcultural audiencesconstruct their identity by using material objects as symbols of group belonging e.g Punks and safety pins. These objects become ideologically loaded and stable signs in their own right. Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979) Influenced by: Jean Baudrillard – The Consumer Society (1970). Influence on: Stuart Ewan – All Consuming Images(1987). Contemporary Relevance: With the proliferation of digital technology and multi-platform branding, niche markets and defined communities of consumers are the key to profitability across media platforms e.g EMAP’s Kerrang!

  7. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation The Big Idea: The fragmentation of media audiencesinto niche markets has transformed patterns of media consumption. Combined with the marketing and distribution possibilities created by the Internet, possibilities have now opened up for the profitability of fringe creative industries. Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, 2006 Influenced by: Vance Packard - The Hidden Persuaders(1957) Influence on: Too early to say. Contemporary Relevance: The future of Media industries is selling more of less. For example, BBC received 4.7% of funding though it only has 1.8% of BBC1’s audience – its niche market programming can be sold on more easily. Excess capacity in schedule = mother of invention?

  8. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation Foundation Degree - Popular Music Music Video Traditional view: Music videos are the ultimate example of the post-modern text. Barthes:The interpretation of the musical soundtrack by the video director exemplifies the authorial tension in Death of an Author. Hebdige:Sub-cultural codes that denote particular niche market have become central to the visual style of music videos aimed at defined communities of consumers. Anderson:Multi-platform branding has seen the emergence of some very specialised markets for music video: Smash Hits TV, Q TV, Kerrang! TV etc Digital age: audience embracing cheap digital video editing software and YouTube Impact on professional: destabilised the relationship between producers and consumers. Prospects for future: reinstated some of the key conventions of the genre.

  9. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation BA Hons Journalism and Communication Multi-Media Journalism Traditional view: press as the Fourth Estate (Peter Wright/David Kelly) Barthes:questions the truth of objective reporting. Meaning of news inscribed by the audience. Hebdige:Lifestyle journalism cohered around sub-cultural niche markets: Angling Times to Living in France Anderson: Traditional journalism increasingly fragmented – specialist television news channels etc. Digital age: Traditional journalism competing with blogs, message boards, Amazon reviews, forums etc. Impact on professional: boundaries blurred between current affairs and entertainment. Prospects for future:multi-platform branding of old-guard.High quality journalistic = niche market

  10. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation BA Hons Media Production Television Production Traditional view: Concept of broadcasting. Tension between paternalistic sensibility of BBC and populist awareness of independent channels has been replaced by narrowcasting. The schedule has been replaced by TV on demand. Barthes:Interactivity means audiences are now the authors of their own viewing schedule. Hebdige:Narrowcasting to sub-cultural groups has replaced broadcasting. Anderson: Lower production costs and increased channel numbers means minority television production is now profitable. Digital age:Narrow casting. Multi-channelling. Greater audience interactivity (pressing the red button) + convergence Impact on professional: More television being made more cheaply, less freedom about its content. Reality television placing greater emphasis on audience participation. Prospects for future: YouTube, reality television reinforce old conventions. More sophisticated audience more receptive to hybridity.

  11. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation BA Hons Computer Animation Computer Animation Traditional view: animation discrete genre of film-making - 19th Century (flip books and zoetropes). Barthes:Animation supposes authorial creativity on the part of the audience in the form of the willing suspension of disbelief. Hebdige:Animation is a discrete sub-culture of the film industry with its own sub-genres. Anderson: Proliferation of New Media technologies has opened new niche markets for software and animation based film. Digital age: Proliferation of anime. Domestic packages like GIF Movie Gear allowing audiences to produce their own animation for broadcast on YouTube Impact on professional: Convergence of animation with special effects in mainstream film is opening up new cinematic possibilities. Prospects for future: Amateur productions e.g Anime pop music videos widening audiences for animation films.

  12. Forms and Conventions Audience Institution Representation Conclusion Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, 1967. The shift is irrelevant. The audience has always been in procession of the means of production in the way in which they inscribe meaning into the reception of a text; creative media technologies are an extension of this. To explore how three classic media theories of audience might help answer the question: Does the proliferation of web 2.0 and affordable creative technologies pose a threat to the integrity of the media professional? Dick Hebdige, Subculture and the Meaning of Style, 1979. The output of the media professional is always open to appropriation by subcultural groups who will re-work its meaning. Moreover subversive readings are always dependent on the hegemony of the media professional and thereby reinforce it. Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, 2006 Much of the creativity is fairly illusory. Though products may be niche marketed most domestic technologies reinforce the conventions of the dominant means of production. ‘Long tail’ opens up new opportunities.

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