Audience Discourse Research Articles

The carnivalesque celebration of a slack laborer icon on a talent show: Civic engagement, commercialization, and political control

In Produce Camp 2021, an online Chinese talent show, an underdog named Lelush rose to fame as a slack laborer icon. This study investigated this case through a critical discourse analysis incorporating media events theory, the concept of carnival, aesthetic public sphere theory, and the concept of structures of feeling. It was revealed that the audience related to Lelush's slackness on carnivalesque social media, indirectly addressing work oppression and social stratification in an aesthetic public sphere. However, the audience's ambiguities, where they also objectified Lelush, somewhat diminished the aesthetic discussions’ critical potential. This contradiction suggested a new structure of feeling associated with rapid social changes in China. Besides, this study demonstrated that although the audience discourse appeared challenging, it was harnessed by the producer for commercial benefit. Meanwhile, as the audience's critical discourse did not directly threaten the political legitimacy, the Party-State allowed it for political and economic purposes.

Female domestic work and social changes in a Brazilian fiction film: insights about the reflective dividend

ABSTRACT This article aims to examine the reflexivity of the audience for the film The Second Mother, focusing on the social and gender relations constituted, in Brazil, around paid female domestic work. The methodology of this study articulates both filmic and audience discourses. It is based in a reception analysis and considers some films as part of what might be called “the reflective dividend,” a sector of leisure experience which enhances personal and social consciousness about society as an object, and politics as a means to achieve social change. The results of this audience study show the oppressions, either veiled or explicit, that are still practiced today by employers against domestic workers, and by men against women. This article can motivate scholars from different areas to deepen knowledge about the potential of leisure to provide learning, especially in the context of entertainment media. The article contributes more broadly to feminist media studies by examining how class and gender are problematized in a film about social relations and paid domestic work, highlighting the daily implications of this issue for power relations in unequal societies like Brazil.

Boundary Expansion of Animation: Esthetic and Functional Research on Interactive Animation for Mobile Systems

The development of digital technology and hardware terminals has opened up a new frontier for expanding animation applications, allowing animation to return to its native form as the interactive interface of various information products. Mobile system interactive animation is a product of the fusion of art and technology. Functionality is its essential attribute, and in the carrier, function, esthetics, and audience discourse present new characteristics. Moreover, interactive animation has a positive effect on improving the user’s experience of the product in terms of sensory performance, interactive behavior, and emotional care.

A Comparative Analysis of Audience Metadiscourse Used in Chinese and American New Year Speeches

Audience metadiscourse refers to the speech choices made by the speakers to indicate their metapragmatic awareness of the audience. It encompasses expressions including directly referring to the audience as “you” and “we”, generic expressions, imperative expressions, and rhetorical interrogative expressions. This study primarily focuses on describing and analyzing the representational forms, pragmatic functions, and different metapragmatic awareness reflected in audience metadiscourse in self-built corpus of Chinese-American new year speeches during about ten years. This study helps to enrich the dimensions of metapragmatic analysis by focusing on the pragmatic functions and usage of audience discourse from the perspective of the audience, highlighting the interpersonal and interactive nature of language use.

“Wrap You Up in My Blue Hair”: Vocaloid, Hyperpop, and Identity in “Ashnikko Feat. Hatsune Miku – Daisy 2.0”

In 2020, hyperpop artist Ashnikko released a remix of her single “Daisy” with virtual idol Hatsune Miku. While the rights to any commercial use of Miku’s voice and likeness are owned by Crypton Future Media, anyone with Vocaloid software can produce songs for her. While scholars have found that fan-produced performances are foundational to Miku’s development as a performer, less attention has been paid to how intercultural commercial ventures have shaped her identity. This paper employs a textual analysis of the “Daisy 2.0” music video and an observation of comments posted on the video’s YouTube upload to demonstrate how the video’s narrative and its surrounding audience discourse both limit and expand Miku’s cultural signifiers. While fluid approaches to identity afforded by the hyperpop and virtual idol subcultures hold potential to liberate these performers from hegemonic notions of gender and sexuality, cultural and commercial constraints still loom large in these spaces.

Covering a Complicated Legacy with a Sledgehammer: Metajournalistic and Audience Discourse After Kobe Bryant’s Death

ABSTRACT This research analyzes journalists’ and audiences’ responses to a critical incident: the coverage of Kobe Bryant’s death, including whether it included accusations against Bryant, and of the Washington Post’s brief suspension of reporter Felicia Sonmez, who, at his death, retweeted an old storey about rape charges filed against Bryant. Findings are that journalists focused on the complexity of Bryant’s legacy and emphasized the journalistic values of professionalism and truth. Moreover, while journalists engaged in some boundary setting, this research suggests the value of seeing audiences as press critics not unlike professional journalists. Audiences acknowledged and endorsed journalistic principles but noted the importance of social norms; their expectations for good journalism suggest ways to rebuild trust in journalism.

Contentious practices of postfeminist audiencing: online discourse about cinematic feminisms in Birds of Prey

ABSTRACT In this paper, we examine online audience discourse surrounding the superhero film Birds of Prey, a new addition to the wave of female-centric films within the genre. Numerous studies have focused on the gendered industry politics surrounding the production of such films, as well as their representations of women and women’s narratives. This study turns to the film’s audience on Twitter, understanding their negotiation of cinematic feminisms through the conceptual lens of postfeminism. Through a mixed methods analysis of public tweets, we unpack how the film facilitates contentious practices of postfeminist audiencing. We argue that audience discussions surrounding the film are organized around overlapping frames of feminist affirmation and cinematic politicisation. These dual discursive processes of postfeminist media consumption comprise audience constructions of Birds of Prey’s feminism as raging, calibrated, overbearing, or immaterial. Taken together, these constructions of cinematic feminism depart from dichotomous views of postfeminist advances in media representation encountering misogynistic backlash. Instead, we observe a multipolar discursive landscape in which audiences may perform diverse forms of postfeminist and anti-feminist solidarity and conflict. However, we also underscore that these diverse appraisals remain circumscribed within overarching neoliberal logics which tie commercial value to collective performances of gendered subjectivities.

Authenticity in Reality Television—The Case of ‘Sing! China’

The issue of onscreen authenticity has become a controversial topic among the public, especially in the Information Era. The reality television phenomenon is global; therefore, it is worth studying the topic of authenticity in reality television in a particular context. We analysed authenticity in reality television through the programme ‘Sing! China’, focusing on which authenticity issues were present and how these issues were depicted. The chosen methodology combined relevant literature and a case study, and the discussion about authenticity in the programme was studied through online audience discourse such as their communications and interactions. The research showed that authenticity in reality television was a type of mediated authenticity by directors. It mainly manifested in two ways: performing authenticity and fabricated authenticity, from the perspective of the performance of participants and the production of programmes respectively. The findings indicated that authenticity in reality television does not fully reflect the truth. This study can not only help us explore manifestations of the truth on the screen, but can also aid in the future development of reality television programmes.

Why scream about sound in space? The functions of audience discourse about unrealistic science in narrative fiction.

Sound in space. Featherless dinosaurs. Physics-defying stunts. Unrealistic science in narrative fiction is often a subject of commentary and critique. However, there is limited research investigating the significance, risks and benefits of this discourse for audiences. This article analyses interviews and focus group discussions to develop a typology of functions that are served by audience discourse about the perceived realism of science in fiction. This typology illustrates how discourse about the realism of science in fiction can serve diverse functions for diverse audiences. Practitioners who use fictional examples in science communication may benefit from an awareness of the multifaceted nature of the discourse in which they are participating.

Normative and Audience Discourses on Public Service Journalism at a “Critical Juncture”: the Case of TVE in Spain

ABSTRACTThe concept of journalism, its metatheory and, in particular, public service journalism is regulated by feedback between political models (legal and normative framework), academic precepts and social practices. Scant attention has been paid to date to the impact that these models have on citizens’ discourses, which is especially relevant at “critical junctures”, i.e. periods in which the old institutions are collapsing and require renovation. Hence, this paper addresses the issue in the Spanish context in order to explore the similarities and differences between the academic/legal/normative framework and audience discourses. The former has been studied using documents, reports and legislation, and the latter explored by means of discussion groups with viewers of the newscasts of Televisión Española (TVE).

Regulatory Expectations of Offended Audiences: The Citizen Interest in Audience Discourse

In this article we analyze fieldwork with 90 people in the UK and Germany, exploring the expectations audiences articulate about regulatory processes behind television content they find offensive. First, mapping people’s responses on to the conceptual pairing of citizens and consumers, we find audiences aligning themselves with citizen interests, even when, often on the surface, they respond to media regulation and institutions with suspicion. Second, we find that complaints that make it to media regulators are just the tip of iceberg. Third, in investigating people’s expectations of actors and institutions in their responses to television content that startles, upsets, or just offends them, we note that it is crucial to treat a conversation on free speech and censorship with caution.

Kiss with a fist

Lucha libre, a form of exhibition wrestling, has recently gained popularity in Bolivia, thanks to mixed-gender matches featuring traditionally-dressed women known as thecholitas luchadoras. Within their matches, the act of kissing is often used as a form of humiliating an opponent. This article explores the convergence of eroticism and humiliation in these kisses as an entry point for a broader understanding of the deployment of power in the Bolivian context. Taking both the symbolic language of bodies in the ring and audience discourses about that action, I explore how associations between humiliation and demasculinization may reinforce the potency of masculinity as a position of power. Further, seeing thecholaas representative of the Bolivian nation helps us to understand the ways that humiliation works as a recognizable trope for Bolivian audiences, lending import to these seemingly superficial performances.

New Media Audiences’ Perceptions of Male and Female Scientists in Two Sci-Fi Movies

Portrayals of female scientists in science fiction tend to be rare and often distorted. Our research investigates the social media discourse related to public perceptions of the portrayals of scientists in science fiction. We explore the following questions: How does audience discourse about a female scientist protagonist in a science fiction film compare with that about a male scientist in a comparable movie? And, what fraction of discourse in each case is dedicated to (a) comments on physical appearance and (b) incredulity that the character is a scientist? Using automated nonparametric sentiment analysis software that employs an intelligent algorithm informed by human coding, we analyze Twitter discourse around the release of two summer 2011 science fiction blockbusters with scientists in lead roles: Thor and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Although scholars have pointed to sexualized portrayals of women scientists in popular media, we found relatively few mentions of the attractiveness of an admittedly attractive female scientist. Additionally, audience discourse was not centered on the implausibility of the female scientist. This is particularly meaningful when combined with previous research showing that strong women in lead roles do not decrease profitability of science fiction films.

Reality Moms, Real Monsters: Transmediated Continuity, Reality Celebrity, and the Female Grotesque

This article examines the fame-hungry reality celebrity mother as a template for a new form of the female grotesque emerging within the postmillennial mediascape. Using a model of transmediation, the article argues that understanding this figure requires analyzing not only television but also online media and print and digital tabloids and the audience discourses involved with them. It further argues that transmediation incorporates gender and sexuality as well as media. In this, the body also functions as a medium, simultaneously grounded in materiality and dispersed in ambivalent representations and interpretations across the mediascape. Due to its combinatory nature and gendered valences, we call this concept the transmediated grotesque. We build this discussion around three reality celebrity case studies: Kate Gosselin, star of TLC's Jon and Kate Plus 8 (2007–11) and Kate Plus 8 (2011) and contestant on ABC's Dancing with the Stars (2005–); Kris Jenner, matriarch “momager” of the Kardashian family and star of E!’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians (2007–); and Farrah Abraham, star of MTV's 16 and Pregnant (2009–) and Teen Mom (2009–12) and participant on VH1’s Couples Therapy (2012–). In each case, fame corresponds with scandal and with the vilification of these women across media as “publicity whores” who will resort to anything to perpetuate their celebrity.

Sharing the Silver Screen: The Social Experience of Cinemagoing in the Indian Diaspora

Despite the growing attention paid to the social practice of cinemagoing and to Indian diasporic film cultures, little research has combined these two topics. This article looks into issues of community as well as discursive practices occurring at the intersection of these two phenomena. First, it examines the physical community formation generated by the theater space as a setting for watching homeland films, in accordance with more general theories about diasporic communities and media consumption (Georgiou, 2006). Second, it looks into the audience discourses that precede and follow the actual cinemagoing act (Gillespie, 2002; Staiger, 2000). Based on a case study in the Belgian city of Antwerp, large-scale as well as in-depth insights are developed through a multi-method approach, combining analyses of in-depth interviews with the results of an exploratory cinema survey. These revealed that Indian diasporic cinemagoing is limited in its community-forming function (by issues of comfort, audience diversity, as well as behavioral conformism to a Western context) and is characterized by transnational discursive practices informing film preferences. A general change in the social experience of cinemagoing occurred in the diasporic context when compared to India and intercommunity differences found expression in cinemagoing culture.

Reframing the Climate Change Debate to Better Leverage Policy Change: An Analysis of Public Opinion and Political Psychology

U.S. climate change-related policy response is failing, despite scientific consensus on core realities, in part because of comprehensive, simultaneous, yet incommensurable doctrines and political biases. Climate disruption is a critically important agenda for homeland security and emergency management, yet as framed today, the policy communication regime frequently requires many skeptics or deniers to abandon their opinions, cultural commitments and epistemic frameworks. Public opinion consensus would be optimal, but the traditional education/information approach is flawed, and continued delays in significant mitigation and adaptation policy implementation will mean far larger future costs to protect civilian environmental security and national interests. Thus, effective response demands new messaging strategies, pursuing interim progress, leveraging overlapping consensus, enhancing risk analysis literacy, and constructing alternative, intermediary categories of multiple parallel discourse. These framings would center on security, economic interests, public health, religious stewardship, and other themes. Customized audience discourses may enable better public and opinion leader buy-in, partly transcending polarization, since such leaders have a unique ability to help translate and promote these various discourses. In addition, eventual construction of a multi-dimensional map could optimize effective messaging and supportive coalitions. Otherwise, stalemate on climate-related policy and environmental security will continue, with increasingly likely catastrophic implications.

NFL Films and the Art of Selling Football

National Football League (NFL) subsidiary film production company NFL Films has documented every NFL game since 1964. The company's formally distinctive made-for-television documentary films have built a consistent and durable mythology that represents NFL football as heroic, dramatic, and beautiful. Beyond creating, maintaining, and circulating a celebratory image for the league, NFL Films employs various textual and marketing strategies to cast its productions as artworks that are more refined than typical sports television, engage consecrated aesthetic traditions, reflect their producers’ inspired creative visions, and are unmotivated by commercial interests—qualities that critical and audience discourses surrounding the company often reinforce. This article examines how NFL Films’ aesthetic posturing builds distinction for the subsidiary film production company within the stereotypically lowbrow context of sports television. Moreover, it considers how NFL Films’ attempts to situate itself as a site that produces art work to amplify the NFL's economic and cultural value.

Situated Design: A Space for Interaction and “Reading”

ABSTRACTWhile the act of reading engages a reader through intense interiorization and reflection, reading is placed within more exteriorized social contexts through ubiquitous computing, networking and densely designed public spaces. The proliferation of these contexts elaborate and compete with the primacy of a traditional reader's experience with a codex.Using semantic/episodic/procedural ideas of cognition as a framework, this paper develops “situational design” as a conceptual basis for looking at a reader's/participant's experiences as a user. Three design case studies are examined that develop practical concepts for understanding users. They are used to outline processes and methods applied from semantic and episodic experiences, the use of “point of view” and audience discourse, and, lastly, integration of concepts of image schemata (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) applied to motion/interaction in the comprehension of information.

Complexifying media power: a study of the interplay between media and audience discourses on politics

The article reports from a research project about how the media function as a democratic resource for citizens in Denmark. It brings together discourse- and audienceanalysis perspectives into one research design, questioning the often simplified notions of media power found in media/politics research. Our three-tiered study explores the media/citizen nexus, in a social context where politics spans the continuum from traditional parliamentary politics, through grassroots organizations (‘subpolitics’) and everyday politics (‘life-politics’). First, we explore the citizens’ daily life with the media in the perspective of democratic citizenship, as people report this to us in group conversations. Second, we analyse the media’s discursive constructions of ‘politics’, focusing on the political issues around traffic and transport policy, but including all political coverage of a variety of media during one selected week. Third, we explore the citizens’ construction of ‘politics’ through focus group discussions. We see these studies as interrelated, but abstain from making causal generalizations about agenda setting and definitional power, preferring to map them as three interrelated discursive territories of contemporary politics, and to discuss possible linkages between media discourses and citizens’ discourses. We thus end up by ‘complexifying’ the media/citizen connection beyond simplistic notions of media power.

Amassing the Multitude: Revisiting Early Audience Studies

This article examines early problematizations of “the audience” in communication studies (in Michel Foucault's sense of problematization). Using Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's concept of the “multitude,” the author argues that the audience is a product of discursive constructions, but that these constructions themselves draw upon the ontological practices of what may be called “audience powers” or “mediated multitudes.” Problematizations of the audience in communication studies are examples of what Negri calls “constituted power,” as they seek to capture conceptually the immanent practices of audience constituent powers. Concentrating on 3 early audience discourses (propaganda, marketing, and moral panics), the author assesses how audience power provoked these problematizations and argues that an ontology of media subjects and audience powers offers new perspectives on audiences and audience studies.