Example Of A Media Fan

Jenkins talks about how the consumption of media products is a collective process, in other words, the collective intelligence is seen as an alternative source of media power. He describes how within popular culture, the collective meaning making is shaping and changing the ways religion, education, laws, politics, advertising and how the military operate (4). Jenkins discusses a process called “convergence of modes”, he explains that media and communication are becoming interconnected like the telephone and television.

A fan base or fandom is a group of regular supporters and enthusiasts that spend a rather large amount of time and energy focussing on a team, musician or musical group, entertainer or any other celebrity; these different people/groups can be classed as sort of a leader or main person that holds the group together.

“Since socialization occurs throughout the life span and since the mass media in industrial society permeates virtually every aspect of a person’s life, the media’s effect on our concepts of self, although impossible to determine precisely, are probably underestimated” (Saucier 1986, 147). Mass media forms of entertainment have the unique ability to impact large audiences across time and space. The Hollywood thriller Fatal Attraction (1987), with its many references to Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly (1903), proves to be a central film to study when considering how intertextual value may arise from referencing another text through a piece of media as well as what ideology can result from a popular media product. In considering the

In ‘How Netflix is Deepening our Cultural Echo Chambers’, Farhad Manjoo uses the remake of “One Day at a Time” to emphasize the imperative shift of an era focused on streaming that entails a narrow set of refined references. By first exhibiting a remade show on a platform such as Netflix, the re-examination of reality is displayed to be evolving the mainstream identity of millions. From broadcasting, cable then to streaming the secular depiction of being a “vast wasteland” emerges into the view of a “bubbling sea of creativity” that allows for collective groups of individuals to be recognized. Manjoo insinuates that through the shared references viewers attained through television, nothing thereafter will have the direct mass impact of a singular movement of culture that the medium television had at its peak. Although seemingly

Neil Postman’s novel Amusing Ourselves to Death seeks to look at media and how it shapes and defines culture. Postman has been cited as one of the major media theorists and a great philosopher of his time. To understand the book fully it is important to remember where it came from. The idea was born out of a speech Postman gave about the book 1984 and A Brave New World. It takes the ideas behind these novels and looks at them in a contemporary light, where the “Big Brother” is our own television sets. Television is obviously a form of media and it delivers a message. However, that message and media has its own agenda, to above all entertain. Postman believes that television has become the primary media-metaphor and by that definition

“Media change does not necessarily result in equilibrium. It sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it is the other way around. We must be careful in praising or condemning because the future may hold surprises for us” (Postman 29). Media critic Neil Postman published those words in 1985 in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Yet, as we find ourselves in 2015, his insight seems written for today. In our age where society is still elusively trying to grasp and figure out what place new media and technology hold within our lives, and where debating the merits and flaws of an increasingly technological society seems to be a hot-button issue, Postman had already commented on such

The audience is society as a whole especially those that think that connection with media can overcome lack of conversation

‘media’ through which thoughts, ideas, and feelings are represented in a culture” and argues that

Darrin Brown, Sharon Lauricella, Aziz Douai and Arshia Zaidi composed a study focusing on the uses and grats of the aforementioned genre as a means of better understanding the relationship between television and its audiences (Brown, Lauricella, Douai, Zaidi, 2000). Blumber and Katz’s theory on uses and gratifications suggest that audience’s choose to watch certain programs as it satisfies a particular need; in other words, people use a program to gratify or please themselves (Who Watches Crime Dramas and Why?, 2012). They identified four main uses and grats: entertainment and diversion, where there is an idea of escapism; surveillance and information, where people have an urge to become more knowledgeable in a particular area; personal identity, where there is a comparison between the characters and audience members; and finally, personal companionship, where audience’s become involved with characters as if they were real (Who Watches Crime Dramas and Why?, 2012). The uses and Gratification theory assumes that audiences use mass media as an outlet for satisfying certain needs and desires (Brown, et. al, 2000). According to another group of scholars, the gratification individuals get when using such media are both social and psychological in nature (Brown, et. al, 2000). In

Everyday there are competitions in sports going on. Thousands of people gathered around to watch that one sport they truly love. Those people are called “sports fan”. What does sports fan stand for? According to Oxford English Dictionary the word “fan” means “A fanatic; in modern English (orig. U.S.): a keen and regular spectator of a (professional) sport, orig. of baseball; a regular supporter of a (professional) sports team; hence, a keen follower of a specified hobby or amusement, and gen. an enthusiast for a particular person or thing.” In that case a true “sports fan” is someone who just doesn’t stop talking about that one sport, only wears that one sport team jerseys and if he has a son or daughter he’s going to want them to play or support that one sport he truly loves.

One would argue that one of the benefits of mass media is that we can access whatever information we want with the press of a button. While we think that we have agency, we have “‘freedom to choose what is always the same’” (Ross). We are fed what is popular, limiting us from seeing what we need. Pop hegemony is able to dominate “through a structure of consent” (Culler). This consent is possible due to the exchange of deception for momentary gratification (Adorno). The creation of music, literature, art was meant to fuel our well being. Then somewhere along the way, it was turned into something enabling the corruption of the self. The industry is so successful with telling us what we should want because while doing so, they incorporate what

I did this to further understand the role of media in the world, as I hope this essay proves to do as well. The duty of portraying correct information, specifically as the client or assignment desires. The consistent utilization of multiple sources and ideas in order to consequently be “true”. As a student and proprietor of personal experience and expertise, I will strive to remain independent and balanced in my opinion. This is superlatively important in a structured debate such as this one. In media and more locally in my class, the promotion and recognition of creativity and freedom of expression is/was an inhibitor and restrictor of content. The relation of the obligation of the media to fulfill the thirst for knowledge inherent in us all is something very complex and necessary to explain. Moreover, it is at the time of this argument, very evocative to think about this in the examples utilized in this essay. This is essentially the argument of the media, supplemented by renowned filmmakers and politicians such as Susan Sontag and others, on the power of

10-17). This perspective tries to override the power that fans appear to have over dominant ideology. This mask of passivity labels the fan as an overweight, nerdy or a feminized and eroticised audience. By doing such, the fan appears helpless and weak towards the texts that they consume (Jenkins, 1992, p. 19). Alternatively, other academics allow fans to be active, but they criticise this activeness as they perceive it to be inappropriate, uneducated and of lower class culture (Jenkins, 1992, pp.

The media industries of television, radio, social media, etc have never been more successful, as we are addicted to what they are selling. As Neil Postman posits in his Amusing Ourselves to Death, technological developments in communication and media, namely television and radio (which were later followed by social media), have brought us into an “Age of Show Business” where “entertainment itself [is] the natural format for the representation of all experience" (Postman 87). We see it everyday: news reports of worsening ADD rates as kids can’t stay focused. We love to be entertained, and by allowing these media into our lives, allowing them to take over our lives, we have handed over control not only of ourselves, but of our society. Media

Media influence is the force by which ideas are injected into people’s lives shaping the very culture of society. This influence is masqueraded through hidden media message, resulting in a change in its audience which can be positive or negative, abrupt or gradual, short term or long term. Although mass media’s influential effect can reach a wide ranged audience as an agent of socialization the responsibility to contain what it releases has not been of importance. “The media’s socially significant obligations are formally ignored.” (A.S. Zapesotskii, 2011, p 9). Media messages can be exerted through many different outlets such as TV shows, music, movies, commercials, news, magazines, games which are all gravitated to entertain audiences ultimately offering personal gratification that can sometimes blur the lines between reality and