Affect, emotion, and media audiences: the case of resilient reception

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 1186-1201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Cavalcante
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Audience Studies ◽  
Media Audiences ◽  
Communications Technologies

In this article, I place qualitative audience research in conversation with theories of affect. Informed by participant data from two qualitative audience studies I have conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) audiences in the United States, I illustrate how cultural representations can make significant demands on one’s emotional and affective life, requiring practices of rest, rebuilding, and reclamation. I call this process resilient reception, or the strategies audiences employ to manage the affectively turbulent power of media and communications technologies. I examine two examples of resilient reception that the participants in my studies practiced: orientation devices (how audiences oriented toward and away from media) and practices of immersion (how audiences immersed themselves in empowering interpersonal communities and media fare). Ultimately, I argue that theories of affect can complement ideological understandings of media audiences by offering a more embodied and dynamic optic.

Small Screen, Big Feels

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Ames
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Audience Studies ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
In Series ◽  
Fear And Anxiety ◽  
Small Screen ◽  
Network Era

While television has always played a role in recording and curating history, shaping cultural memory, and influencing public sentiment, the changing nature of the medium in the post-network era finds viewers experiencing and participating in this process in new ways. They skim through commercials, live tweet press conferences and award shows, and tune into reality shows to escape reality. This new era, defined by the heightened anxiety and fear ushered in by 9/11, has been documented by our media consumption, production, and reaction. In Small Screen, Big Feels, Melissa Ames asserts that TV has been instrumental in cultivating a shared memory of emotionally charged events unfolding in the United States since September 11, 2001. She analyzes specific shows and genres to illustrate the ways in which cultural fears are embedded into our entertainment in series such as The Walking Dead and Lost or critiqued through programs like The Daily Show. In the final section of the book, Ames provides three audience studies that showcase how viewers consume and circulate emotions in the post-network era: analyses of live tweets from Shonda Rhimes's drama, How to Get Away with Murder (2010--2020), ABC's reality franchises, The Bachelor (2002--present) and The Bachelorette (2003--present), and political coverage of the 2016 Presidential Debates. Though film has been closely studied through the lens of affect theory, little research has been done to apply the same methods to television. Engaging an impressively wide range of texts, genres, media, and formats, Ames offers a trenchant analysis of how televisual programming in the United States responded to and reinforced a cultural climate grounded in fear and anxiety.

Archives, Repatriation, and the Challenges Ahead

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-160
Author(s):  
Anthony Seeger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Research Ethics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Funding Agency ◽  
Digital Recording ◽  
Cultural Institutions ◽  
Local Circulation ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Audiovisual Archives ◽  
Definition Of

For decades, ethnomusicologists, folklorists, anthropologists, and a variety of cultural institutions such as audiovisual archives and museums have been returning parts of their collections to the communities from which they were originally obtained. Starting with a definition of repatriation, this chapter describes some of the attributes of successful repatriation projects. They usually require a highly motivated individual or group within the community, an intermediary to help locate and obtain the recordings, and a funding agency for the effective return of the music to circulation within the community. Different kinds of repatriation are described using examples from the author’s research in Brazil and projects in Australia, India, and the United States. Projects to return music to local circulation have been greatly facilitated by changes in communications technologies and digital recording, and by profound changes in research ethics and the relations between researchers and documentarians and the communities in which they work. Despite these improvements, challenges remain.

To the Beat of “The Walrus”: Uruguayan Communists and Youth Culture in the Global Sixties

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vania Markarian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Youth Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Youth Movements ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

In the 1960s, a generation of Latin American youth entered political life inspired by a heroic view of activism tiiat coincided, often contentiously, with the spread of new cultural trends from youth movements in Europe and the United States. This study focuses on how the notions of “being young” in circulation at the time affected the construction of political identities in Uruguay, particularly among the different branches of the Uruguayan left. I am especially interested in analyzing the relationship between the cultural representations of youth and the requirements for activism as conceived by these Uruguayan leftist groups.

Game On: Encounters with the Magic of Baseball in Japanese Postmodern Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Keaveney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Philip Roth ◽  
Postmodern Literature ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Postmodern Fiction ◽  
Bernard Malamud ◽  
Cultural Shifts

Chapter 5 builds upon the foundation established in Chapter 4 by examining a particular approach to literature, Postmodernism, and describing how the postmodern literature that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in Japan, indebted to postmodern baseball fiction in the United States, exemplifies the continuing appeal of baseball as a literary subject and of baseball’s capacity to adapt to cultural shifts. The chapter provides analyses of four baseball-themed works including fiction by the well-know postmodern novelists Murakami Haruki and Takahashi Genichirō, and more recent works by Nagao Seio and Enjō Tō, to demonstrate the possibilities that baseball fiction offers for avant-garde literary experimentation, possibilities exploited in American literature by writers from Philip Roth to Bernard Malamud. This chapter also charts how, ironically, Nagao Seio in his novel Shiki and Sōseki’s Big Game, achieves a remarkable pastiche in which one of the protagonists is none other than Masaoka Shiki with whom this survey of cultural representations of baseball in Japan begins.

Chillin’ Effects of Fake News: Changes in Practices Related to Accountability and Transparency in American Newsrooms Under the Influence of Misinformation and Accusations Against the News Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769902098478
Author(s):  
Hong Tien Vu ◽  
Magdalena Saldaña
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Media Audiences ◽  
Role Conceptions ◽  
Nationally Representative

This study examines how newsroom work in the United States has changed in response to some of the latest developments in the news media environment. Using nationally representative survey data, we explore what professional routines American journalists have adopted to avoid spreading or being accused of publishing misinformation. Findings suggest that journalists have added new or intensified practices to increase accountability and transparency. In addition, role conceptions, perception of fake news, and responsibility for social media audiences impact the adoption of such practices. Journalists are more likely to embrace transparency than accountability, suggesting the emergence of new journalistic norms in today’s newsrooms.

Introduction: Myths of Japanese Baseball and the Game’s Cultural Representations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher T. Keaveney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Metropolitan Area ◽  
The United States ◽  
Baseball Player ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Skill Levels ◽  
Professional Career ◽  
York Metropolitan Area ◽  
New York Metropolitan Area

In the summer of 2015, 41 years old and several years removed from a professional career as a baseball player in which he had achieved success on the most celebrated teams in both the United States and Japan, Matsui Hideki found himself again on the baseball diamond in a tightly contested championship game. Matsui was leading his own team in the Nippon Club’s fortieth annual President Cup Baseball Tournament, a tournament comprised of teams made up of bankers, engineers, and accountants of various ages and skill levels from Japanese businesses in the New York metropolitan area such as Kajima, Syscom, SMBC, and Mizuho. Matsui was feeling that same old itch to deliver in the clutch....

The "Logic of the Air": Aviation and the Globalism of the "American Century"

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenifer L Van Vleck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Aviation Policy ◽  
American Century ◽  
Global Responsibility ◽  
American National Identity

“The ‘Logic of the Air’: Aviation and the Globalism of the ‘American Century’ ” examines the cultural history of aviation in relation to the rise of the United States as a world power. In the context of World War II, the so-called air age entailed new conceptions of American national identity and global responsibility. Aviation inspired internationalist visions of “one world” – a globe divided only by latitudes and longitudes, as depicted by the iconic logo of Pan American Airways. However, aviation also sustained the nationalist vision of an “American Century’ defined by U.S. geopolitical, economic, and ideological power. The airplane promised to extend America’s frontiers “to infinity,” as Pan Am President Juan T. Trippe was fond of saying. Ultimately, aviation helped define a nationalist globalism that construed America's interests as the world's interests. The cultural “logic of the air” embodied the universalizing aspirations of American foreign policy, yet also signified what was exceptional about the United States; aviation both instantiated American empire and denied that it was such. The article traces this dynamic by examining both cultural representations of aviation and U.S. international aviation policy.

Media Consumption and the Contexts of Physical Culture: Methodological Reflections on a “Third Generation” Study of Media Audiences

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brad Millington ◽  
Brian Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Media Consumption ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Audience Studies ◽  
Media Audiences ◽  
Multimethod Research ◽  
Sport Media ◽  
Media Research

In this paper we argue that sport media research would be enhanced by: (a) engagement with the audience research tradition, including “third generation” audience studies that emphasize relationships between viewer interpretations of media and everyday social practices; and (b) the adoption of multimethod research approaches that are sensitive to contradictions and complexities that exist in media consumption. To support this argument, we reflect on the benefits of a multimethod research design used in a recent audience study conducted by the authors on youth interpretations of media and performances of masculinity in physical education (Millington & Wilson, in press). These benefits include: enriching researcher understandings of social/cultural contexts; illuminating social hierarchies; and revealing lived contradictions. We conclude with reflections on epistemological issues and suggestions for future audience projects.

The (Ir)Relevance of Audience Studies in Journalism Education

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769582110448
Author(s):  
Jacob L. Nelson ◽  
Stephanie Edgerly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Journalism Education ◽  
Audience Studies ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Course Syllabi ◽  
The Future

Journalism stakeholders increasingly believe that they need to better understand the news audience to accomplish their goals. Our study explores the extent to which this “audience turn” has unfolded in the education of future journalists. Drawing on data collected from course syllabi from leading journalism schools throughout the United States, we find that few journalism courses include aspects focused on news audiences. Those that include readings and/or assignments relating to news audiences maintain a narrow focus on audience metrics. We conclude by discussing what these trends mean for the future of journalism and the audience gap in journalism education.

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