Collectively, these chapters extend discussion of the transformation of the relationship between production, consumption, and distribution in networked public culture we encountered in the readings from last week. Perhaps the best metaphor for all of this is Pierre Levy’s metaphor of the “circuit” as outlined by Jenkins (95). According to Jenkins, Levy believes the “’distinction between authors and readers, producers and spectators, creators and interpreters will blend’” to form a “circuit” of “expression.” In TV shows like Survivor and American Idol the circuit is formed by knowledge communities that track and influence the production and consumption of shows like Survivor, and by voting that actually determines the narrative shape of American Idol. The chapter about The Matrix has more to do with the emergence of transmedia storytelling and the franchising of narrative across various media platforms. Here the circuit is between multiple, coordinated authors, on the one hand, and the participation of knowledge communities in what we might call fan culture. The underlying question in these chapters, it seems to me, has to do with what shape drama and narrative will take in a networked world in which production, consumption, and distribution become almost indistinguishable, and in which participation from the bottom up collides with the power of brands and franchises to exert power from the top down.
Some questions to think about for tomorrow night (as usual, feel free to comment on this blog ahead of time):
1. On p. 28 Jenkins references Michael Trossett on the concept of “narrative pleasure.” Is spoiling a form of narrative pleasure for spoilers, or is it aimed at ruining narrative pleasure? How much ambivalence is built into the whole business of spoiling (on both the part of the spoilers and the networks who try to manipulate them)? Is spoiling an adversarial activity or a form of participation in the show? Perhaps we can connect this discussion of narrative pleasure to the discussion of narrative in the chapter on The Matrix.
2. To what extent do the Survivor spoilers, in terms of their embodiment of “collective intelligence” and “knowledge communities” (27) constitute subcultures or undergrounds in terms of our discussion from last time? What do their activities, and the way they’re used by the network, suggest about the fate of networked culture as a location for underground or subversive activity? On p. 64 Jenkins claims that American Idol presents us with a “fantasy of empowerment” based on the idea you get to decide who wins. To what extent is our sense of empowerment in networked culture a fantasy?
3. Both Survivor and American Idol are examples of so-called “reality television.” What is reality television and how do you account for its emergence and popularity? What social, cultural, and political changes help explain its emergence? How is the interactive element of these “reality” shows connected, if at all, to interactive cultural experiences online?
4. Jenkins presents The Matrix as a transmedia form of “storytelling” and as a “franchise.” What is “transmedia story telling” and what does it mean to call it a “franchise” and its various elements “products?” (See pp. 94-6). Does transmedia storytelling further the commodification of art? Are we moving into an age of franchised narrative in which narrative pleasure is inextricably connected to marketing?
5. On p. 96 Jenkins draws an implicit distinction between our fascination with how The Matrix (and, by extension, the other shows he’s discussed) operates technically and culturally, and whether it’s “any good” in aesthetic terms. This opens up a whole can of worms worth discussing, i.e. do interactive, networked, transmedia forms of narrative have aesthetic merit, or is this the right question to be asking. Does the shift toward interactivity, knowledge communities, and collaboration represent the development of new and more compelling narrative forms, or the dumbing down of those forms for the sake of interactivity? Will we soon be able to speak of the “narrative industry” as Horkheimer and Adorno could speak of the culture industry? For more on the topic of narrative see in particular pp. 118-19. Where is narrative headed, according to Jenkins?
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3 comments:
I'm intrigued by this repeated attention to narrative and story. A tension seems to exist between the so-called producers and consumers. In the case of Survivor and other reality shows (I'm thinking especially of the Big Brother example), audiences want to participate in the making of the story, and this causes problems. Likewise on American Idol, audiences seem quite concerned with the efficacy of their (controlled) direction of the story via voting.
Coca-cola turns the situation on its head when the company encourages consumers to tell their stories on the website, casting their personal narratives in the light of interaction with a specific product. This seems to tap into the "emotional" (69-70) aspect as well as the human desire to make meaning with stories: it channels the tendency for its own purposes, but is it also providing people with a valid opportunity?
In the case of The Matrix, the puzzle-like quality of a multi-media, necessarily interactive, extraordinarily allusive text allows for meaning-making in yet another way, as particular intertextual strands reveal themselves to individuals who participate to different degrees (and have different backgrounds from which to draw connections). [Jenkins' assertions about the stability of Homer (121) thus struck me as a little irrelevant. Any thoughts?]
All three instances involve story-making -- and all three seem to appeal to a human desire (if not essential, certainly very common) to tell their own stories and participate in the broader cultural stories. But all three also involve very real and purposeful commodification of--what?--not only the story itself but the story-making (and thus meaning-making) experience?
I scrawled "gross" in several of my margins (especially in the advertising section), and I think there's something shady about selling human beings the chance to make meaning--as well as using their story-making bent as a means of advertising--but is this really new? I'm not so sure. What do you think?
After reading the chapter on the Matrix, I kept thinking about all of the stuff I would be required to buy in order to "get it" - tickets to or rentals of 4 movies, a bunch of comics, internet access, and two video games (plus the systems they run on), etc. It's nice to think of it in terms of transmedia storytelling, but the word franchise really gets at the heart of it - as a sort of extended license to sell more and more variations on the same thing, coercing consumers to believe that they'll never "have it all" or "get it" unless they do, in fact, buy it all.
Though I share some of the discomfort with the new world-making viral marketing techniques, I can't help but ask myself: is buying a lot of Matrix or LOST media-merchandise really so different from buying a series of Byron's poems ca. 1816 (and maybe a bust of the poet or a miniature portrait, as well as traveling to paces he wrote about, &c.)? Where do we go--in the early-modern era at least--to find art that's entirely free of commodification?
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