How appropriate to end the semester with readings that focus on meaning given to a text by the audience when on the first week we began with Dyer's ideas about stars embodying cultural contradictions and "leaks" within media that enable different readings of texts. We now conclude the course with a similar reading - Hartley's assertion that in contemporary media, the source of meaning is the end user-the audience member or reader. Our studies have come full circle and, interestingly enough, come back to us as the audience.
The idea that it is not God or the auteur that produces meaning but us as the audience is a very interesting one. It places power not in the hands of the creaters but the consumers. Hartley goes on to assert that it is redaction, "the creative editorial function of bringing existing materials together to make new texts and meanings" (319), that is the art form of the age. Again, an appropriate statement after our discussion of slash videos last week.
These arguments leave me with the question, why? Why now? Why is it our generation that has motivated this transfer of value from the text itself to the viewer; why is it our generation that has gone from viewing media to changing, combining, and altering it? From the readings this week and in previous weeks, I've come up with a few answers. First, the devil's advocate would say we have not. Even looking at Shakespeare as Hartley did demonstrates that the viewer has always held a role in giving text meaning. It is simply our generation that is now critically looking at it. Another answer would be that technology has enabled the viewing, responding to, and altering of media in a way previous audiences could not. This is most apparent with slash videos. Or it could be because of the psyche of our generation - we are a group who grew up on "now." We have a serious case of entitlement and privilege the ability to customize. Whether it's with wardrobe or an iPod, we (more than any previous generation) love to be individuals. With this in mind, it would make sense that we also favor our role in media consumption and take it so far as to alter media ourselves. It also makes sense that we would want to see ourselves reflected even more transparently (to use Couldry's words) in the genre of reality television.
Whether it's because of critical studies, technology, or the modern psyche, it's clear that media is constantly changing. From reality TV to youTube, media is in a new place. What do you think has motivated these changes and.. why now?
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