mad men and scandal: marketing via fan tastes
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Marketing Via Fandom use of taste hierarchies in
participatory culture Prepared By Bessie Chu
Fandom, Participatory Culture, and Web 2.0
Agenda
-‐What I’m doing and Why -‐Theoretical Framework to Approach -‐Recent Scholarship -‐Initial Observations -‐Initial Conclusions -‐Would love feedback!
Intentional Activations
Normalization of “Commercial Fan Practices”
Awareness of using fan practices vis a vis Web 2.0 capabilities
Deliberate use of taste hierarchies in marketing shows and fan interactions
Mad Men versus Scandal
Why Does it Matter
Further fan studies awareness of marketing mimicry of fan practices and its impact in Web
2.0 and larger societal rhetoric
But First a Theoretical Framework…
Hierarchy of Legitimate Tastes
Bourgeois distance “legitimate consumption
of legitimate works”
Taste cultures relating to demarcations of identity classifying people and things
“Discriminating taste above fandom”
Bourdieu (1980)
Third Phase of Fandom
Conceptualizing three distinct “waves” of fandom since 1980s • “Guerilla style tactics “ in first
phase • 1990s proliferation of new
media and fan communities • Third phase of examining the
role of fan objects and fans as active producers because of digital media
Gray (2007)
Web Practices as a Culture
Looking at the Web Commons as a “mind-‐set, not a specific
form of technology.” “Just as there is a change in the
interconnected nature of contemporary media, so too is there are revolution in the way media technologies are used. We can see it in the collective communal nature of the web, in the self-‐conscious nature of the use of the web, and in the assertiveness of fans” (p. 23).
Booth (2010)
Power Struggles in Web 2.0
Themes of how does fandom cope with new power in the Web 2.0 age.
“The blurring of the borders between consumers and producers, as well as growing awareness of the added value of fan labor (Ross, 2008; Baym &
BurneD, 2009), have led to a percepGon of unprecedented power held by audiences over
producGon companies.”
Hadas & Shifman (2013)
Race and Ethnicity in Fandom Gatson (2011)
Over time, we have come to focus particularly on the racialized flow of cultures, historical marginalizations of specific populations based on race/ethnicity, class, and gender/sexuality in media, education, and scholarship, and the implications of how particular forms of culture flow more easily than others.
Cultural forms originated and produced by minority groups are co-‐opted, whitewashed (and, conversely, hyperracialized), and historically monetized for the benefit of white producers and consumers. Simultaneously, cultural forms produced in racial/ethnic spaces and communities for local racial/ethnic audiences exist in and of themselves, for their respective communities.
Television and Fandom Framework
“No Network is an Island”
• Idea of a show enabling fans to participate in “immersive environment” (p.211)
• “One of the more intriguing relationships I found across the earlier and later years of my audience research revolved around viewers’ sense of whether or not they were watching “acceptable” or mainstream television, and whether or not they perceived their TV-‐related activities to be “typical” (p 12)
• “In other words, many of the activities fans of this show engaged in resembled those of cult fans -‐ but these activities were not likely to have occurred if not for the strategies evident within the text and/or on the website” (p.15)
Ross (2008)
Mainstreaming of Fan Practices Gillian (2011)
• Dawson’s Desktop created as an extension of the storyworld because producers engaged in “viewing practices that mirrored those of dedicated fans of the series, which, in term, impacted the kind of content she provided” (p.43)
• Grey’s Anatomy in 2000 public broad adoption of fan practices (p .233) • Grey’s Anatomy flogs (p. 224)
Mainstreaming of Fan Practices
Producers and stars embedded in fan conversations as “one
of us” “Shonda, you have taken care
of us for so long that now it is time for us to take care of you. Trust me, we all got your back and will be
planted in front of the TV watching” (9/19/06) p. 226
Gillian (2011)
Mainstreaming of Fan Practices
Historical note on Twitter initially a contested medium (p. 244, p
p.234)
“Some pointed out how ill-‐suited a TwiDer feed was for
a television series as it made it impossible to concentrate on the acGon and took up far too much screen space” (p. 234)
Gillian (2011)
Media dependency on Participatory Culture?
"Fans are the most active segment of the media audience, one that refuses to simply accept what they are given, but rather insists on the right to
become full participants" (p. 131)
“The media industry is increasingly dependent on active and committed consumers to spread the world about valued properties in the
overcrowded media marketplace, in some cases they are seeking ways to channel the creative output of media fans to lower their production costs” at the same time "terrified of what happens if this consumer power gets
ouf ot control" a la Napster (p . 134)
Media Dependency on Fans Jenkins (2006)
Producer Relations Web 2.0
Producers were/are not sure what to do with fan activity and it became a haphazard and contested
space.
“If AMC evaluated the success of promoting Mad Men only by easily measurable traffic through its officials channels,
then discouraging anything that might distract people from these destinations makes sense. From that mindset, fan-‐
created material off official Mad Men channels is in competition with the show, and any traffic from those outlets receive dilutes the reach of the show’s official
presence” (p. 33)
Jenkins (2013)
Engagement Tactics via Fandom
Mad Men Official
Deliberate distance from conversation
Elevating the show to artful medium
Mad Men Fan Reactions
Mad Men Advertising Ties
Scandal Official
Mass participation from cast and crew
Experiencing the drama with the audience
Scandal Fan Participation
Scandal Tie-Ins
External Perceptions of Show and Fans
Mad Men
Scandal
Conclusions
Policing and order surrounding fan tastes
Shifts in producer relations both on part of technology & culture surrounding that
technology
Movement toward mainstreaming of practices and participatory culture as modus operandi?
Does any of this matter?
Thank You
Questions?
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