TV Analysis Being an account of various approaches to a contemporary medium.

Cultural studies Cultural/industrial status of the 'true' text Populism, elitism Public and private spheres Audience research of groups Ethnography Textual analysis Mass communication studies Semiotics Narratology Reader response New technologies Political economy Culture industry Media imperialism Television marketing Production and distribution Audience as mass (effects)

Textual analysis: semiotics Basic assumption: the text is a message with sender and receiver Interested in: The text itself / text as text What the audience gets from the text Relation between sender and receiver Programme analysed as message with focus on: Intentions of sender Objective structure of message/text Relation between sender and receiver

Textual analysis: semiotics Relation between sender and receiver based on code (aka system of meanings) System of codes Iconic code Iconological subcode Aesthetic subcode Erotic subcode Montage subcode Sound code Emotional subcode Stylistic value Conventional value At the level of selection At the level of combining

TV as media production: Political economy TV viewed as monological one-way flow: hegemony Scheduling significant Vertical and horizontal flows TV2s flows (TV2, Zulu, Charlie) TV2s flows TV functions as storyteller: Interpreting and passing on narratives explaining outside world to viewers. Programmes are ideological vehicles TV allows us to make sense of our culture, but only one sense as determined by producers

TV audiences: Theoretical stances Mass communication Audience is a statistical abstraction and manipulatable agglomeration Political economy Old version: same view as mass communication New version: accepts that ideological representation does not trickle down from a unified ruling class Cultural studies Small formations centred around differences (race, gender, class, etc)

TV audiences: Methods Effects model Media have simple, direct effects on audiences Uses and gratifications People use media how they want BCCC (Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies) Audiences make meaning in social context Empirical research Survey and interview large number of real people

TV audiences: Participation and community Fan distinction Explicit aesthetic choices are in fact often constituted in opposition to the choices of the groups closest in social space, with whom the competition is most direct and most immediate (Bourdieu, Distinction) Textual and social discrimination is part and parcel of the same cultural activity (Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture)

TV audiences: Participation and community Fan productivity Semiotic productivity The creation of social identity through the use of cultural objects. It is an interior, identity-forming activity. Enunciative productivity The public creation of social identity, achieved through a textual (and thereby social) discrimination and distinction. It asserts ones superiority to others, through the elevation of ones own taste. It is an exterior, identity-forming activity. Textual productivity The creation of fan-produced texts, as homage and participation in the fan cultural formation. It can also create distinction, as part of understanding the original text better than others.

TV audiences: Participation and community Fan textual production

TV audiences: Participation and community Levels of fandom Fans adopt a distinctive mode of reception. Fandom constitutes a particular interpretive community. ExampleExample Fandom constitutes a particular (sub)cultural formation combining artistic production, distribution, consumption, interpretation and evaluation. Fandom constitutes an alternative social community. (Jenkins, Textual Poachers)

TV audiences: Participation and community Fan communities Star Trek Origami Star Trek Quiz Dawsons Creek Official site Capeside Capeside High Coffeerooms 7th Heaven Official site Message board Killed off Horrible day Love Satan