COMM100B, Winter 2017

COMM100B, Win" rel="nofollow">inter 2017Audience/Reception Analysis Prompt Paper due Saturday March 11, 11:59PM on TED PROMPT LAST UPDATED 2/20/2017 (Stay Tuned for More Updates!) In this paper, you are a) to identify yourself as a member of a particular in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community ; and b) to reflect on a set of in" rel="nofollow">interpretive practices in" rel="nofollow">in which members of that community engage. You are thus to draw primarily on Chapter 2 (Viewers Make Meanin" rel="nofollow">ing, especially the subsections on Audience Reception, Cultural Appropriation, and Re-Appropriation) and on Chapter 6 (Media and Everyday Life) of our textbook. An in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community can be defin" rel="nofollow">ined very broadly. It can be a formally constituted group of readers (viewers, listeners, players) to which those readers and listeners know they belong. Classic examples are book clubs, fan clubs, gamin" rel="nofollow">ing communities, and onlin" rel="nofollow">ine communities (such as groups on Reddit organized around particular topics). Such formally defin" rel="nofollow">ined in" rel="nofollow">interpretive communities usually have a set of regular activities and practices where members of the community in" rel="nofollow">interact with one another and engage in" rel="nofollow">in the join" rel="nofollow">int work of in" rel="nofollow">interpretation (Notabene: See defin" rel="nofollow">inition of Culture as Everyday Practice from COMM100A!). An in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community can also be much more loosely defin" rel="nofollow">ined. It can simply be a large collection of people who regularly consume a particular cultural product (e.g. regular readers of The New York Times, regular listeners of This American Life podcast, and the like) and who draw their identities in" rel="nofollow">in part through the act of consumin" rel="nofollow">ing that particular cultural product. Such groups generally share a common social and class position (“the cultural bourgeoisie” or the urban, upper middle class, predomin" rel="nofollow">inantly white, often male, often older readers of the NYT, for in" rel="nofollow">instance). These people do not necessarily thin" rel="nofollow">ink of themselves as members of an in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community the same way book club members or fans do, but it is likely that these people discuss these cultural products (magazin" rel="nofollow">ine articles, shows, podcasts, games) with friends or co-workers who occupy the same social position and likely consume the same cultural products regularly. Another example of a loosely defin" rel="nofollow">ined in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community constituted through practice would be groups of friends gettin" rel="nofollow">ing together to watch particular sports programs or episodes of TV series, and the like. So for this paper, please pick an in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community (either a formally organized one, or a loosely defin" rel="nofollow">ined one) that you can say you belong to, and then reflect on the in" rel="nofollow">interpretive practices that you and the members of that community engage in" rel="nofollow">in. Remember that in" rel="nofollow">interpretation of texts by audiences is an active process (Notabene: “Death of the Author”!). To the extent that in" rel="nofollow">interpretation is a form of activity, media reception can easily spill over in" rel="nofollow">into media production. An example of the blurred lin" rel="nofollow">ine between media production and reception are the hand-made signs people brin" rel="nofollow">ing to political rallies, YouTube videos or blogposts people make in" rel="nofollow">in response to a cultural event or an ongoin" rel="nofollow">ing political issue which can “go viral,” and so on. All of this is to say that if you choose to focus on an in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community that is highly active, you can reflect specifically on the blurrin" rel="nofollow">iness of the lin" rel="nofollow">ines between cultural production and reception. Here are some questions to consider as you write: - Through what activities and practices is “your” in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community constituted? - How does “your” in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community portray itself, if ever? What are some in" rel="nofollow">instances when the community has been reflexive about who it is made up of, and what it does? - How do you – and others in" rel="nofollow">in “your” in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community – negotiate the meanin" rel="nofollow">ings of the cultural products consumed? What meanin" rel="nofollow">ings tend to be accepted on face value, and what meanin" rel="nofollow">ings tend to be rejected or reconfigured, to suit new purposes? - What set of skills, and what amount of cultural capital, does participation in" rel="nofollow">in “your” in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community seem to require? - How does your in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community come to trust whatever cultural product they are consumin" rel="nofollow">ing? How – through what cultural processes and practices – is credibility, authenticity, and veracity of cultural products and producers negotiated by your community? - How does the time and the space in" rel="nofollow">in which the product is consumed, the speed and the frequency with which it is consumed, the presence or the absence of others, the presence or the lack of discussion about it – in" rel="nofollow">in short, the mode in" rel="nofollow">in which the product is consumed – affect how that product is in" rel="nofollow">interpreted by audiences? - How is power – as commercial success, as media ownership, as political pressure, or as social privilege – perceived, absorbed, resisted, or negotiated by “your” in" rel="nofollow">interpretive community? Be sure to use at least some of the core course concepts in" rel="nofollow">in your paper. These can in" rel="nofollow">include: Interpellation; critical viewin" rel="nofollow">ing practice; domin" rel="nofollow">inant, hegemonic, preferred, negotiated, oppositional meanin" rel="nofollow">ings of a text; textual poachin" rel="nofollow">ing (Michel de Certeau); bricolage (Dick Hebdige); context affectin" rel="nofollow">ing media reception; concept of an imagin" rel="nofollow">ined community (Benedict Anderson); notion of a media event; notion of viewers as historically and culturally situated; and others.