CCT 300: Critical Analysis of Media

CCT 300: Critical Analysis of Media Class 3: Laws of Media and Genre Analysis

Administrivia • Avrim Katzman moving on to build gaming curriculum • Mike Jones to take over lectures • Kevin Eldred to co-teach labs and help with evaluation

Localized culture Horizontal power structure Relatively equal ratio of leaders/followers “Jack of all trades” Global culture, with little individuation Centralized power structures Few leaders, many followers Specialization and division of labour Public v. Mass (C.W. Mills)

McLuhan - Laws of Media • Universal dynamic of media change • Represented as tetrad - four intersecting simultaneous influences • Grouped into two forces - ground (historical/cultural convention) and figure (emergent forces/media) • Possible to understand future of media form by analyzing what it changes and what forces will ground change

Four Forces of Tetrad • Enhancement (positive change, amplification) • Retrieval (recovery of past forces) • Reversal (new or resurgent challenges jeopardizing new media) • Obsolescence (erosion of older values/forces) • Again, all operate in concert simultaneously – one does not necessarily trump others

Genre as Community (Agre) • Similar people working on similar topics in a similar way • Distributed cognition and communities of practice • In postmodern world, genres can become quite specific and localized – arguably more similar to public vs. mass genres

Elements of Genre • Agre - various elements that define genre • McCloud - examples from comics/graphic novels as specific genre (notes from both Understanding and Reinventing Comics…)

Breadth • Genre definitions can be narrowly or broadly construed • Differences between “all print material” and “Canadian political posters of the 19th century” • Generally, focused genres have more analytical value

Breadth in Comics • “All sequential art” as broad definition, but not all that useful beyond a general definition of comics as medium • Many subgenres of comics that themselves can be dissected (e.g., subtypes of manga) – different subgenres are different literary, artistic and cultural spaces

Genre, Audience and Activity • Genre implies community of practice and community of consumption • Specific media meets specific audience needs (e.g., reading pulp fiction vs. literature - done for different purposes and in different contexts, even by same consumers…)

Comic Audience/Activity • Historical roots of comics - storytelling (e.g., hieroglyphics, temple art, stained glass) • Contemporary history - entertainment, largely child oriented (e.g., newspaper strips, superhero) with underground alternative strain • Emerging directions – a broader range of themes and structures (including more serious efforts) in a broader range of forms (e.g., web comics, graphic novels, etc.)

Producer/Consumer Relationship • Producer and audience relationship important • One-to-many (mass) vs. decentralized and interactive (public) relationships – dependent on media genre • Immediacy and impact of feedback loops – what roles do consumers play in relationship?

Consuming comics • Creators create worlds and characters • Details filled in by reader (Gestalt principles, specifically closure) lead to engagement • Immediate feedback usually absent, although web comics change that somewhat

Genre as Grouped Objects • One instance does not a genre make - must be multiple incidents for a category to have semantic value (e.g., Family Guy is an instance of a sub-genre (e.g., animated TV sitcom, popular culture satire, etc.), not a genre itself…) • Leverages precedents and expectations - norms and routines formed

Comic Genres • McC - various subgenres in comics, with distinct idiomatic and structural forms • Social expectations can frustrate new efforts (e.g., comics as “kid lit” or radical/perverse constrained mainstream exploration politically and culturally)

Genre Bending • Rules and bounds of genre are not absolute • When rules are broken, interesting things happen – often new sub-genres emerge • When rules are broken, it might be too interesting for the audience to accept • Genre bending and economic concerns – innovation vs. risk

Comic Genre Bending • Alternative comic genres lead to new applications of craft beyond “men in tights” • Serious comics like Maus may become mainstream as form of literature, consequentially allowing space for other serious autobiographical works (e.g., Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis) • But – initial iteration of Maus was alternative press work, critically acclaimed in niche market but not at all accepted mainstream

Multiplicity of Genres • We are intuitively familiar with many genres • We act with multiple genres simultaneously without great confusion – although it can frustrate analytical thinking at times • Instances fall into multiple genre categories simultaneously – e.g., Daily Show/Colbert Report wins Emmys in established genre, but can be seen as political/news satire, even (increasingly?) as serious public affairs programming • We can integrate genres to create new forms of expression

Comics and multiplicity • Comics share relations to similar media (e.g., graphic novels of historical events; movies made from graphic novel roots, relation between manga and anime, etc.) • Integration of non-visual information - done figuratively in text-based comics, more potential for integration in web comics?

Genres are historical • Change in form evolves over time • Influences from inside craft (e.g., changes in craft, form, idiom) and outside (e.g., economics, regulation, other media)

Comic History • Comics emerging from “kid lit” to return to more serious pictographic communication • New media (as outlined by Manovich last week) = digital creation and distribution create new forms of expression, new opportunities for distribution • Still influenced by ground though – e.g., McCloud’s Making Comics is digitally created, but still conforms to style used in analog Understanding Comics

Economics of Genre • Money makes the world go round - and certainly does impact how media are structured, how genres evolve • Costs involved in maintaining and sustaining producer/consumer community – without some return on investment or covering of costs, community may suffer

Fixed and Marginal Costs • Fixed = infrastructural costs, without which genre cannot exist • Marginal = costs incurred as audience grows • Can apply to both production and consumption • McC - costs in distribution chain changes with new technology – potential for more direct interactions with consumers, skipping middlemen

Specialization and Branding • Singular creators are rare, esp. in complex media • Collectively created media -> media branding • McC - “comic houses” and brand identity - and changes that emerge with more independent creators

Time, Duplication and Value • Value of media product often changes over time - some more than others • Digital distribution creates own challenges in value of information • McC - historical value of comics, the value and problems of sharing, the notion of micropayments to support industry

Next week… • Unpacking McCloud’s Understanding Comics in depth (it will really, really help if you’ve read the book by then…)

CCT 300: Critical Analysis of Media