Entertainment Studies 2016 Abstracts
Gendered Discrepancies in Educational Messages on Television Channels Targeted at Boys vs. Girls • Adriane Grumbein, University of Kentucky; Kyra Hunting, University of Kentucky; Maria Cahill, University of Kentucky • While research has been done on the educational potential of television for children, how television for children depicts education and educational settings has not been considered. This paper establishes that education and educational settings an important theme in children’s television but how prevalent this topic is varies significantly from one channel brand to another. We found that whether looking at general school themes, STEM, or humanities themes, channels targeted at girls were significantly more likely to discuss education then channels targeted at boys. This discrepancy is notable because it mirrors gender discrepancies observed by researchers into educational performance and attitudes.
Sex, drugs and sports ‘n’ divorce: How TMZ satisfies its audience • Angelica Kalika, U of Colorado; Patrick Ferrucci, U of Colorado • TMZ remains one of the most popular destinations for people searching for news on the web. However, this news is of the celebrity kind. This study, utilizing textual analysis, examines all stories published on the site during a one-month period (N=1,002). We illustrate the types of content the site publishes (paparazzi-based content; document-based reporting; sports-themed material; and reader polls) and the results are interpreted through the lens of market theory for news production.
Enjoying celebritization of politics: Construction and validation of a scale to measure political influence of celebrities • Azmat Rasul, Florida State University; Betsy Becker, Florida State University • Political parties and candidates are deeply interested in securing support from media savvy personalities such as entertainment-industry celebrities, spin-doctors, and famous journalists to attract undecided young voters. Considering the importance of celebrity-laden entertainment media, we introduce a new measure, Political Influence of Celebrities Scale (PICS) in this article, and examine the psychometric properties of this scale specifically designed to explore the extent to which celebrities politically inspire their fans. We explored the factor structure, internal consistency, and the relationship between assorted dimensions of PICS. We confirmed our results employing a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which examined the three-factor construct and found sufficient evidence confirming the validity and reliability of the scale. Another question motivating this study concerns the relationship between attitude towards celebrities, enjoyment associated with the presence of celebrities in election campaigns, and the influence of celebrity endorsement on political participation of young voters. The study yielded significant results and validated our scale that dependably measured political influence of celebrities.
The Message of Meals: What YouTube Commercials Tell Us About Our Lives • Carol Pardun, University of South Carolina; Marcie Hinton, Murray State University; Anan Wan, University of South Carolina • This study analyzed 38 commercials hosted on YouTube, representing 43 of the world’s most valuable brands. Commercials that included some form of meal time were included in the sample. The study argued that the creative use of food in commercials is a meaningful message strategy portraying families interacting, connecting and negotiating their days. The textual analysis revealed five overall themes: crossroads of tradition and transformation; gendered food; family makeup; food as caring; and healthy, happy and home-grown. The study also discusses the importance of analyzing content of online advertising as well as the importance of YouTube as an advertising channel.
The Effects of Sexually Provocative Programming: A Preliminary Study about the Effects of Sexually Provocative Programming and Sexual Risk and Responsibility • Elise Stevens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Diane Francis; Jeannette Porter • U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People campaign aims to reduce unintended pregnancies by 10% by 2020. The present study is a preliminary survey of young adults in the south, a region of the U.S. that is high in unwanted pregnancies, and the effects of sexually provocative programming. Using a structural equation model, results showed a significant positive relationship between watching sexually provocative programming and perceived vulnerability to pregnancy. Perceived vulnerability to pregnancy led to increased intentions to use condoms, visit a doctor for sexual health, and talk to one’s partner about sexual health. Interesting, watching sexually provocative programming had a direct inverse relationship with condom use. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
Television’s Masculinities: “New Man” Portrayals in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” • Erika Engstrom, UNLV • This paper examines how the NBC comedy series “Parks and Recreation” utilizes alternative forms of masculinity as embodied in its male characters to counter traditional notions of the male identity familiar in mass media, those that idealize what it means to “be a man.” Working from the context of hegemonic masculinity, the current study analyzes the commonality and differences in the portrayal of the male characters in “Parks and Recreation” Unlike other comedic treatments in which effeminate male characters remain unrewarded for breaking with the form of masculinity that espouses emotional inhibition, the men of “Parks” show their true selves. The friendships and open communication presented by the “New Men” portrayed hence add to other mediated versions of counterhegemonic portrayals, which have the potential to become positive hegemony regarding the performance of manhood.
Redefining the News Journalist for the Millennial Generation: College Women’s Relationships with Celebrity News Personalities • Halie Wenhold, University of Michigan • “This study investigated the association between college women’s perceptions of their favorite female TV news personalities and the way they envision their own future journalistic careers and professional values. College women pursuing media-related degrees (N = 138, average age 19.58 years) selected a favorite TV news personality (TVNP) and completed survey measures of personal work values, perceived work values of their TVNP, engagement with their TVNP, and wishful identification with their TVNP. The TVNPs selected by respondents included both journalists and non-journalist celebrities (e.g., Kim Kardashian), indicating generational change in the way aspiring journalists define journalism. Controlling for age, race, and parents’ education, respondents’ perceived extrinsic work values of their TVNPs were correlated with their own work values both intrinsically and extrinsically. Discussion focuses on the importance of assessing journalism and media students’ perceptions of TVNPs as they envision and formulate their own career plans and expectations.
I Vape, Therefore I Am: Construction of Electronic Cigarette Users’ Identity through Entertainment Social Media • Joon K Kim • E-cigarettes have become a popular alternative to traditional tobacco products. Although people are motivated to use Instagram for entertainment, e-cigarette users could construct and display their identity on Instagram. This study investigated e-cigarettes posts to understand e-cigarettes users’ perceptions of e-cigarettes. The use of textual analysis revealed three themes: vaping e-cigarettes as a fun activity, sharing a moment of daily life with e-cigarettes, and building an identity as an e-cigarette user through hashtags and captions.
What Happens on Snapchat Stays on Snapchat? A Content Analysis of Themes in Screenshots • Kaitlyn Skinner • Snapchat offers an instant messaging feature where content disappears after being viewed. This paper analyzes what content is being sent and “screenshotted,” which is important, since many users choose Snapchat because their content disappears. The research examines what content users screenshot and post online through a content analysis of a sample of Snapchat screenshots. While Snapchat has a negative sexting connotation, results showed there are many reasons users send and screenshot snaps.
Ideological and Cultural Boxes: Blacks in Super Bowl Commercials • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina; Ernest L. Wiggins • While there has been significant change in the racial context on the football field during the Super Bowl, such as increased presence of Black head coaches and quarterbacks, this textual analysis of Super Bowl commercials from 1989 to 2014 found limited portrayals of Blacks that fall into two ideological and cultural boxes — as athletes and entertainers in one box, and as workers and individuals within a fairly narrow spectrum in the other box.
Just One More Episode: Developing and Testing a Binge Viewing Index • Larry Webster, University of South Carolina • This study proposes an index to measure the binge viewing phenomenon. Previously, binge viewing has been defined as watching two to six episodes of a show at one sitting. The Binge Viewing Index is based on scales measuring binge drinking behavior and includes the differences in duration of binges, frequency of binges and number of binges over time. The study then uses the index to explore the correlation between binge viewing and parasocial interaction.
Perfecting Fatherhood: Gender Discourse on Reality TV in China • Li Chen, Syracuse University • “This project used textual analysis to analyze a popular reality TV show in China, “Dad where are we going?”. Five episodes of the first season of this show were transcribed and translated by the researcher and coded through the qualitative analyzing software DeDoose. Through the poststructuralist lens, this feminist cultural analysis project examined the binary oppositions of gender discourses embedded in the text of this reality TV show. Meanwhile, the project identified the flexibility of the binary oppositions of men/women in this media text to explore the possibility of deconstruction. Major themes like “perfecting fatherhood, silencing motherhood”, “ boys as small men, girls as small beauties”, and “negotiations” emerged through the analysis.
The War on Drugs: An Audience Study of The Netflix Original Series Narcos • Maria Cano • Netflix has adopted an emerging subgenre, narcodrama, in the production of their new original series, Narcos. This study investigates what motivates Colombian and American audiences to watch Narcos and examines the uses and gratifications for each audience when it comes to violence in television shows. Results show that Colombian and American audiences differ on four variables related to their viewing habits: 1) information seeking, 2) social learning and development, 3) social contact, and 4) diversion.
Eudaimonic Motivation to Entertainment Media Influences Entertainment Education in Prescription Drug Abuse Intervention • Ming Lei • Prescription drug abuse is a problem among U.S. college students. Results from the current experiment suggest that a communication strategy called entertainment education with medical dramas can help students receive treatment. Further, the results reveal that the effectiveness of entertainment education may be influenced by an audience characteristic called eudaimonic motivation to entertainment media. The process through which eudaimonic motivation influences the effectiveness of entertainment education may be via the attention to entertainment education contents.
Animated aggression across the ages: A content analysis of violence and aggression in animated content • Nicholas Scott Smith, Wayne State University • This study is an initial look at the use of aggression and violence in cartoon content. This article is a first step into the understanding of just how pervasive the aggressive communication and violent actions are in animated content. This is done by conducting a content analysis of cartoons from all five of the American cartoon era’s in attempt to describe the content in this genre and provide some insight into how this content has progressed through the different eras.
Border Crossing: Sean Penn’s Interview with El Chapo • Oray Egin, University of Maryland; Alexander Quiñones, University of Maryland; Linda Steiner, U of Maryland • Sean Penn’s interview with the infamous drug lord El Chapo in Rolling Stone was highly controversial for many reasons. We analyzed critiques in 58 articles published in English and Spanish language news outlets. Some U.S. journalists accepted his self-definition as a journalist; nearly everyone agreed his celebrity status was what accounted for his access. Critics were unanimous that he violated journalistic standards. Mexicans were outraged Penn would ignore how dangerous covering drugs is for journalists.
“Jamming” the South Asian Color Line: Comedy, Carnival, and Contestations of Commodity Colorism • Radhika Parameswaran, Indiana University • Challenging the racist commodity stories of skin-lightening cosmetics that peddle dark skin’s abject status in India’s burgeoning consumer landscape, media activists and progressive cultural entrepreneurs deploy the techniques of “culture jamming,” defined as the playful critique and subversion of mainstream hegemonic culture, in their short amateur comedic YouTube video productions and in satirical cyber-images and narratives. My analysis of the scope and potential of these artistic media contestations of colorism, which mimic and parody skin-lightening commercials, will draw from Bakhtinian concepts of “carnival” (folk reversals of the social order), theoretical formulations of counter-publics, and writings on transnational practices of cultural citizenship that exceed the logics of sanctioned official nation-state models of citizenship. How do these amateur digital media productions make “strange” the normality of pervasive colorism and racism in India? How do they cross-pollinate the rhetorical strategies of anti-racist activism birthed in western contexts with resistance towards commodity colorism in South Asia? The paper will argue that these modest mediated articulations of dissent against the skin-lightening industry’s commerce in pigmentocracy encourage active “recognition” of skin color discrimination in a culture that has willfully ignored entrenched and abiding forms of oppression based in domestic skin color distinctions and global racial divisions.
Privileged gay man: The intersection of race, gender and sexuality in network television sit coms • Robert Byrd, University of Memphis • This essay argues that white gay characters in primetime network television programs are given a pass from white male privilege. This pass comes not only by way of their sexual minority status but also through the symbolic annihilation of people at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. The discourse then places white gay men as stand-ins to represent all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people despite race and/or gender identity.
Man Down: Fandom and White Male Anxiety in Popular Narratives of Professional Football • Thomas Oates, University of Iowa • Building on recent scholarship about white male identity politics in and around contemporary sport, this paper argues that mainstream narratives of National Football League (NFL) fandom articulate anxieties about white masculinity in the United States. The paper offers a close reading of two symptomatic texts: the television series The League and the 2009 film Big Fan, arguing that they present cultures of fandom characterized by deep ambivalence about fandom’s potential to deliver hegemonic identities.
Black Panther and Black Agency: Constructing Cultural Nationalism in Comic Books Featuring Black Panther, 1973-1979 • William Schulte, Winthrop University; Nathaniel Frederick, Winthrop University • This study looked at ways cultural nationalism manifested in comic books featuring the character Black Panther between 1972 and 1978. As politics and agency became goals for the African American collective, agency and strength were presented as an actualized reality in the character, Black Panther. This study explored the ways creators of the Black Panther comic books interpreted and navigated the dynamics of the Black Power Movement. The primary method for this study was textual analysis to examine narratives and visuals within the context of the genre. Overall, this study found the medium was able to take several abstract feelings and notions and give them voice. However, in doing so they ended up reinforcing stereotypes associated with African Americans and the Black Power Movement. The book’s creators facilitated an interpretation of the black aesthetic and cultural nationalism to acknowledge their positive influence but relied on stereotypes to achieve those goals.
Race, Media, Nation: American Sniper and the Construction of the Racio-Religioscape • Zachary Vaughn, Indiana University • In this paper I build on Appadurai’s timeless insights of the five scapes originally proposed as lenses with which global cultural flows are marked. To do this I offer a definition of the racioscape as well as the religioscape, and I argue that these two scapes have been collapsed into a single theoretic. The racio-religioscape is a tension between national identity and global cultural flows. The racio-religioscape racializes people of color as different, and through this difference they are imagined as un-American in a perspectival sense. Once racially marked, these individuals are perceived to belong to a mytho-essential prehistory. The racio-religioscape can be seen as an anchor that moors a people to primitive and barbaric lands. For my purposes, I investigate how audience reception on the IMDb message boards to American Sniper produces a racio-religioscape of Arab-Americans in the white hegemonic racial order. The racio-religioscape visualizes “the enemy within” at the same time it elides their presence ideologically, if not phenotypically. Further, it allows us another lens through which we can critically examine identity and difference.
Play between love and labor: Gold farming in China • Zixue Tai, University of Kentucky; Fengbin Hu, Fudan University • This research interrogates the widespread practice gold farming in China through two years of field research conducted in 13 gold farming studios across five cities involving 64 participants. The analysis offers insight on the rationales, motivations, and perceptions of gold farming through the insiders’ perspectives of gold farming studio owners, managers and players. The discussion contributes to the understanding of China’s youth-led game culture in general, and the variegated intricacies of the trade of gold farming in particular.
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