Finally Final Post !

I remember all media advisors that I meet always tell me, ”Getting start early! Experience is everything! ” I am very happy that I can actually follow their guidance. I learned a lot about skills of media criticism from MDIA 205,which was a course that I took last quarter and I practice them in this online course. Even though I still think I am not good at writing critic for TV shows but at least I have started it. I found out media system in every country is completely different. They reference to their culture and they all have own history, different rules and show types. I am lucky here as a foreigner to learn media and culture at the same time. I choose to come to United State and take media major here because I always believe it is a convergence nation with the culture from variety of races so it will give me more. Unlike China, most of television stations are commercial and they are private ownership. The competition between the stations is serious so they need to convergence popular culture to make profit. I read most of Henry Jenkins’ s book Convergence Culture last quarter and I got lots of useful things from it. The media industry is a great example of convergence culture because all of media companies and television stations here are under threaten of each other and new culture. They are using lots of pop culture references to attract audiences and convergence lots of different media methods to promote products. The several big film companied try to make every successful movie into brand so they can help make long term profit such as they have theme parks, video game and millions of related products. Same as the television shows, they like using pop culture references to make their audiences get same feeling as their normal life. Realizing these points help me to understand how the media companies are running and why they product their shows or movies in those way.

I also found the target audiences have huge influences of a television show. They decide how the shows will be produced. For example, I think because most of audiences of reality shows are young people so they using celebrities’ influence to do the production placements and combine other pop media like Internet, text and social network to making profit. The Coca Cola product placement in American Idol is very obviously and audiences consume it. As another example, the situation sitcoms range several complicate but interesting storylines to attract audience from different social communities such as Community ‘s audiences are teenagers who can understand the jokes in that show. Hence I think critic a television show need to start from doing research of its target audiences so it will easy for us to understand the show.

Personally, I like drama more than other types of show. Their stories are interesting and fascinating. Most television shows that I am watching right now are dramas like CSI, Bones, True Blood and Vampire Dairies. I have followed CSI series for a long time. I like these police procedural dramas a lot. Their every single case is attractive and I like watching them use the high technique to looking for clues. They look so professional and smart. In addition, I think the story in drama is highly emotional so the connection between characters is more dramatic. The stories make me involve into them and I am kind of addict the dramas. The production company also spent a lot on producing drama so they always have nice setting and stage properties. They are filmed like movies. As I known, the cost of the dramas like Lost Prison Break used to reach millions dollars each episode. The cost makes sure their quality and cast, which are major points to attract audiences.

Overall, I get much information about writing critics and I practice a lot in this class. I know to be a media critic is no easy but I will always try my best to learn. I hope I can involve into American culture more and more in the future. Studying media is really an interesting thing in my life. I have watched lots of movies and shows after I have done those media courses. Now, I can watch them with critic views and it makes the movies and shows more meaningful for me. Thank a lot for every teacher in this course. Thanks your patience to check my blog posts because I know I have poor grammar ☹. Thanks all of my classmates who have posted comments on my blog. Wishing you guys have a nice summer!! Thank you!!!!☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺ ☺

Intertextuality

To be honest, the concept of intertextuality is really a challenge for me as a foreigner. I didn’t grow up here so I really lack of the culture background. I found it was the hardest part to catch up the native speakers. Understanding the culture background is my biggest weakness during studying this major. I will try my best to understand these main concepts of intertextuality. The “Paratextual Knowledge” is the easiest domain for me to understand. The kinds of TV shows that contain paratextual knowledge require audiences has the basic culture within the community or the whole series. When I tried to analysis 30 Rock and Community last time I found this kind of shows have their unique audiences. The work place sitcoms like 30 Rock has the audiences who familiar with the job or interest it. Community attracts more young people and students. The audiences of these two TV shows have the basic culture background to understand the concept and the culture references. They like the shows because they can understand them and maybe get some same feeling form the characters. Also, I don't watch Friends because it has to many seasons and I have already missed first several seasons. It’s hard for me to start over or catch the storylines without watching the previous seasons. In addition, I just watched the Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 last weekend. The most audiences of it must have watched the last six Harry Potter movies. The audiences follow the storyline of this movie series so they kept following it. I think it’s also an example of paratextual knowledge. The audiences have already got the basic culture background like the history of all main characters and their final mission so they can understand the movie.

Hypertextual Production is very common in media industry. I am a big fan of Harry Potter movie series because I am kind of growing up with the story and those main characters in the movies. I remember I read the Harry Porter fictions firstly and I felt into the story at that time. Then Warner Bros filmed it into movie series since 2001. Harry Potter raised a magic wave thought out the entire world. It has theme park, games and millions of relative products now. The fans of Harry Potters are not only consuming the story and the movie but also the secondary media. The hypertextual production helps it becomes success and makes Harry Potters as kind of brand. In addition, the media company in Asia like buying the copy right of some famous comic books from Japan and making it into soap drama. For instance, a media company from Taiwan produced the most popular comic in 2004 called Meteor Garden in drama. It caused a well-know TV series boom in China. Then they released the movies after the TV series end. The main characters in the TV series became pop stars and they all published own music albums. Basic on its success, some companies form Korea, Japan, Thailand started buying the copyright of that original comic books and producing the different versions in different language through out the Asia. Every version attracted millions of fans to follow. They all produced own albums, movies, posters, T-shirts and etc in those countries. Hypertextual production is good for marketing and product promotion. However, the media companies have to be very careful about the copyright like the article mentioned. The Meteor Garden had several authorship problems in the end because there were too many versions and some there were some problem between the original author and the production company.


Metatextual discourse is another domain of intertextuality that I want to discuss. It’s common connection between two different texts. Some media companies use commentaries, previews and rating data to promote their productions. As my own understanding, metatextual discourse means one text provides comments to another.  This domain has been used as marketing method during production. It helps the companies raise the value of the media products and convinces audience to consume them.  In China, some big budget movies always invited famous author to write previews of them before release. Some movie fans will follow the critics’ recommendation to decide what to see.  They used the credibility of the critic to raise the movie’s value. The famous author’s critics attracted some potential audiences. As my own experience, I had argued with some of friends about the IMDb’s rating before. They always watched the rating before watched the movies. According to my friends’ points of view, IMDb could tell them the movie was worth to watch or no. I didn't agree it at all because the rating on IMDb was only a reference. Even though IMDb was a well known website with high credibility but I thought the rating data would affect our first impression of the movie.  The fans could definitely vote the movies in subjective perspective so the rating there weren’t always fair. In spite of the most top rating movies in IMDb were all valuable movies but I still thought it might miss some great movies. Every audience absorbed different information from a same movie. I always consider movie was valuable to watch by judging whether I could get useful information from it or not. I would not unthinking critic a movie based on other commentaries before I actually watch it.  I didn’t mean every metatextual discourse was untruthful but we have to be careful about letting the metatextua discourse blind our eyes. 

The Empire of Paris Hilton

What do you think of Paris Hilton? She probably is the most controversial socialite in the world.

I still think she is a smart and success businesswoman no matter how media judges her. Paris Hilton said in the interview about her new Oxygen Show The World According to Paris with Los Angeles Times, “There are a lot of heirs out there that don't work because they don't have to. That's not me. I've had success on my own. I bought this house myself; I've bought every car I own. It's all me and my hard work.” She has several scandals so far in her life but she is brave to face them and uses every exposing chance to raise her popularity. That’s remarkable success on promoting her all products. Paris has own company and she has 17 product lines include bags, clothes, perfume, shoes and etcetera right now. She is smart to uses her social attention to market her products.

She started her modeling career since 19 years old then became a socialite in 2001. The sex tape scandal in 2003 was the most important event of her life even thought the scandal serious violated her privacy right. Her social image felt down since that time even she donated all of the forty millions dollars compensation to charity organization after the scandal. On the other hand, the scandal raised her popularity. After that, she became an actor in the success TV show The Simple Life. In 2004, she offered $5,000 reward to find her dog. Paris Hilton was sentenced 23 days to prison because she drove over speed with a suspended licenses in 2007. She didn’t miss the chance to reshape her social image after she released. She did interview with CNN and People the pointed the jail experiences changed her and she said, "They're wrong and they don't know me. I'm a good person. I'm a compassionate person. I have a big heart. I'm sincere, and they'll see." Then she announced a plan to Rwanda to help the people there. Despite all public media has already treat her as a trashy heir after theses events, it didn’t hurt her career at all. She continued releasing her products, publishing autobiography, filming movies. She used her personal news to change her from a celebrity heiress into popular world-known star. Then she turned her name to a brand and she owed her company.

Actually, Paris Hilton supported over 20 charity organizations and she has attended numbers of charity events. However, that’s not enough to help her to build social image. Public were always attracted by her personal life. Unlike some celebrities, she was brave to faced that news and accept her mistakes. In her recent interview with CNN, she opened up to talk her sex tape scandal. She said that she knew the sex tape event would affect herself and her family forever but she was unable to erase that. I think her attitude help her social image in some ways and she accepts it at least. I think Paris Hilton became famous because her personal events provide to public a topic to discuss.

All social network such as face book and twitter, they could exist depended on people shared life and experiences on them. She definitely provided people the most attractive topic to discuss. People debated for her social image means more and more people would know her. It was a potential advertising for her company. Even though face book and twitter were all not existing, she still was the spotlight because she was the heir of Hilton Hotels. The social network just speed up her success.  Paris Hilton was a celebrity without the social media or the thousands of cable channels. She just used social media to help her promote herself and help her company without the cover from her family company. The social media change her social image in some way. Before she became a star, public only knew she was a trashy heir and she couldn’t live without her family. The social media help her to prove she could own her company and her name could be famous without Hilton Hotels. Paris Hilton’s social image was always controversy topic. Because there were lots people keep talking about her and she always was the focus of public media, her promote her image and her products all the time. She can be the spotlight of media so people focus her life and every think that related her.  Overall, Paris Hilton is a success businesswoman and star now no matter how her social image is good or not. She is a great example of success to use the power of social media. 

WEEK 3 Comments

Comment 1

Comment 2

Week 3 Part II

30 Rock and Community both are new for me because I am not so familiar with situation sitcoms. After I went through the previews of these two shows, I prefer the 30 Rock than Community. I liked the 30 Rock’s story because the plot about back scene of production team was what I interested in since I choice video production as my major. Also, the season-long story lines were more attractive to me. Community has every new story in each episode so it wasn’t interesting enough for me to follow it. Also, I am a loyal audience of Big Bang Theory so other same kind of TV Series couldn’t attract me at all.

For the second part of week 3 assignments, I picked up 3 critics of 30 Rock and 3 critics of Community. They are listed as follow:

Community:

1.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113036874

2.http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/05/19/126977591/cbs-is-trying-to-kill-community

3.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/arts/television/07night.html?scp=5&sq=%20NBC%20Community&st=Search

30 Rock:

1.http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/04/the_office_vs_30_rock_comedy_g.html

2.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/arts/television/14watc.html?scp=19&sq=30%20rock&st=Search

3. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/04/30-rock-recap-.html

In the reviews of Community, I found that situation sitcoms could get problem of stereotypes easy if they didn’t be careful. The jokes in those sitcoms such as Community’s jokes were argued that it has offensive jokes about community school and community students. The author of first review used a quote from a business student Ksenia Prokunina, “I think humor is a good thing as long as you don't take it too seriously, it might actually be a good thing for a community college, that they make a show about it.” I thought it depended on who were the audiences. As the normal audiences, we could only look at the jokes as normal jokes. However, standing on the view of a media critic, we couldn’t deal with those jokes in the simple way. Television was not only entertainment today; it was an educational method, which had huge influences for young people. Situation sitcoms had to be careful to use the jokes and took the educational opportunities for the young audiences. The second and third reviews were talking about Community had beaten down by Big Bang Theory form CBS. I thought the reason why Community lost because it lacked educational values. I thought people would prefer meaningful comedy rather than the boring jokes. The smarter dialogues would catch audiences’ eyes and ears easier. I like Big Bang Theory because their dialogues were smart and their jokes were interesting and meaningful. The characters were also unique and impressed. I liked learning something while watching TV shows so I followed every episodes of Big Bang Theory. In the reviews of 30 Rock, I found that the characteristic of situation sitcoms is they usually have basic loyal audiences. It was a kind of fan culture. I think the reason why 30 Rock had already broadcasted over 100 episodes was their fans’ support and its story could attract broader audiences. The life of producers and the life in New York were the two famous topics for audiences.  Also 30 Rock was not only a boring workplace comedy but also a show about a lot of interesting life in New York City and in the production team.

After I read these articles, I thought most reviews of Community meshed with my interpretation of these show. I didn’t like it at all when I finished the first season because they made too much jokes on their characters and the actors some times just like made fool of themselves. Also, the show makes the community students seems too naive. However, lots of my classmates said Community was awesome and they liked the jokes in it so I am thinking I may have some misunderstand of the show. I was completely felt asleep at the fist time I watched Big Bang Theory because I totally couldn't get the jokes. One of my friend told me just ignore the physic knowledge and enjoy the jokes in those geniuses’ life then I felt into the show. I am thinking I might just take the jokes from Community too seriously so I may see more seasons and re-critic it in the future. On the other hand, I still like 30 Rock more even though it also made fun of some social problems such as homosexuality. I can feel the jokes are trying to bring us something positive information about the group people and the jokes are meaningful for the audiences. I still believe the TV shows need have educational meaning to success for long time.

Commentsssss ~

Comment 1

Comment 2

30 Rock v.s. Community

I watched fist three episodes of 30 Rock from Season 5 and Community Season 2 for this assignment. I will analysis their production style, intertextuality and what I learn from situation sitcoms as follow.

1. Production Style 

This two situation sitcoms are all produced in single-camera setup so each shot has single lighting setup. They also both shoot in studio. There are too many dialogues so they use lots of over the shoulder shots and clean shots. 30 Rock has several season-long story lines happen in the same time. There are amount of two person dialogues in this show. In this case, the OTS shots are easy to show the communication between characters and their facial expression. In the other hand, Community based on the story that happen in a community school so the group of students are the interesting points of this show. Every episode has a single story so they use clean shots, 2S and 3S to express the stories between the students. This sitcoms focus on the group of students and their background environments so they also use some wide shots to show the background.

2. Intertextuality

I still confused about the word “Intertextuality” actually so I cannot explain how these two sitcoms make intertextual references in difference way but they did use a lot of different types of pop-culture references. Based on the different background stories, 30 Rock make intertextual references that related to the life of the whole members in production team. Such as Jenna kept talking about the movie Twilight because she thought it would help her pretend young. On the other hand, Community makes pop-culture references about the popular and common activities in students’ life. For instance, in the beginning of Community season 2, they mentioned the movie Toy Story 3 and Bat Man which were all popular in young group. After that, they started discussing “Old White Man Says”, which are Piece quotes that Troy posted on Twitter. I think different sitcoms attract different area audiences so they make intertextuality references based on their story, audiences and the storylines.

3. Something else I want to say….

As a foreigner, I am not quite familiar with situation sitcoms. It’s an uncommon type of TV show in China. I think situation sitcoms require audiences have the specific knowledge or cultural background to understand their humor such as my favorite sitcom Big Bang Theory. It makes lot of intertextual references about physics and the characters’ hobbies like watching Star Wars, collecting comic books and playing video games. It’s difficult to attack the audiences who unfamiliar with their basic contents. In this case, I think situation sitcoms have limit to attract audiences.  I miss the jokes from those sitcoms sometime because I am not American. I still have not enough cultural background to understand them. I think it’s also my biggest weakness to learn media criticism. In addition, the sitcoms has different director in each season so I think the continuer story lines and production styles are the other reasons to help keep audiences following them. They have challenge to keep audiences’ interesting and add more fancy story in every new season. Overall, I think situation sitcoms can represent the pop culture in many specific fields directly so I can learn a lot from them. 

COMMENTS

Josh Hewitt's post : Comment I
Rachel Conner's post: Comment II
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RESPONSES

Thanks for Dr. Nelson’s recommendation. I found lots of useful articles to read even though I am still not so familiar with these successful critics. These the link of the articles I read.

Manohla Dargis - The Living Is Easy; The Women Are Missing

Seth Schiesel- Allowing Players to Assume the Ultimate Role: Game Creators

Brian Stelter & Bill Carter- In Shift, Ads Try to Entice Over-55 Set

 

Fist of all, I read Manohla Dargis’s The Living Is Easy; The Women Are Missing. I like this article because it reminds me one of the famous topics in my last quarter classes is the women character’s position in media industry. I just saw Super 8 last week, one of the woman character in that movie Allce Dalnard goods at acting and strong fight with her sad life in the beginning of movie but she just kidnapped by the alien suddenly and becomes a weak girl who needs to be saved. Does woman characters always need to be victim and help the man heroes to exaggerate their power? The protagonist’s sister exists only for a reason that is seducing the camera store assistance in order to let him drive her brother back to town to rescue the girl. Again, women characters show in movie only because sexual reason. I don’t think it’s good for society because the huge influences from television.  

The second article that I read is wrote by Seth Schiesel. It looks like a review of the video game Little Big Planet 2. I used to addict to the Little Big Planet 1 but I gave it up since there were not big update coming out. I think the Little Big Planet 2 makes a big change about the interaction between the game and player. I think the reason why Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii can defeat Playstation 3 easily because they focus on interaction more than Sony does. The consumers prefer to buy a game that can raise friends or family’s interactive entertainments rather just sit in front of screen and play the role alone. Little Big Planet 1 has already broken out the original game style from Sony but the Little Big Planet 2 add the creating mode that make player can play and develop the game at the same time. That’s an interesting and smart innovative. I really want to Gamestop immediately after I read that article. 

The third article- In Shift, Ads Try to Entice Over-55 Set is about the new closer connection between older audiences and advertising company& media market. I agree this article because I never think media can less focus on older audiences. In stead, they are the loyal audiences and power consumers. They usually have a fixed time to watch television. I think they just spend money on media smarter and more discreetly cautious than young people. The advertising and marketing companies just need to have more credible and sincere promoting ways to make them spend money. 

Response to Articles on Slate

I used to think Television criticism has to be objective and based the main elements of TV criticism such as the story lines, camera angle, the rating, some extra meaning behind the show and etc.. I also thought the critic pointed only to the whole show, the whole production team or actors. Alan Sepinwall's new criticism way changed my mind. The week-to-week commentary focused on details of show more than other. It required more fully understand of the show such ad the rabid fans have. I though the criticism became subjective now. The TV critics are not only being a viewer but  also only being a fan to write comprehensive and attractive comments. The TV shows update every week and the quality of every season changes quickly due to variety complex reasons. Hense, the TV changes to week-to-week can catch the processing of shows more tightly.
I clicked the link about Maureen Ryan. In the first article The TV Guide, Ryan was introduced as a successful critic so I viewed lots of his commentaries through the link. The newest commentary that he posted was about the come back season of True Blood. I can realize Ryan has followed every seasons of this show and he didn't like the third season obviously. He compared the new changes of new season to third season and recaps some attractive story line for the readers. He was writing the commentary as an audiences but not critics. He is a great example of using the new way to write commentaries like Alan Sepinwall. I like reading his article.

Responses for Classmates' posts

Here are the links of my responses on Cory and Matt's blogs.

Comment I
Comment II

Have a goooood day guys :)  !!!

★★★★★★ My Media Profile ★★★★★★

1. Shows you’re watching these days, since school’s been out:
                  - The Voice (I like the different rule of the competition. )
                  - White Collar
                  - Pretty Little Liars (I don't like it actually.)
2. Peripheral Shows--shows you watch because someone else in the house (significant other, parent, roommate) watches them:
                  - American Idol (The fans are so crazy but they did influence me to follow the competition.)
                  - Dancing With The Star (Since my friend's mother went to see the live of this show, she never stopped asking me to see it with her every episode!! )
                  - Big Bang Theory (I am totally confused about all physics in it but I love Sheldon! )
3. Guilty No-Gos--Shows you think you should watch (because critics like them or your friends like them) but don’t:
                   - Two and a Half Man
                   - Mad Man
                   - The Daily Show 
4. Guilty Pleasures: 
                   - Big Bang Theory
                   - Gossip Girls
5. All-Time Favorites-- shows you’ll watch in re-runs even though you’ve seen them many times before:
                   - Heros
                   - Lost
                   - Sex and the City (Since I watched the movie, I went back to watch all seasons of this show)
6. Shows I Used to Like, But Not So Much Anymore:
                  -  Gossip Girls
                  -  Grey's Anatomy
                  -  True Blood
                  -  Ugly Betty
                  -  The Secret of Call Girl
                  -  Bones
                  -  Family Guy
7. Shows I  Resisted for a Long Time, But Now I’m a Fan!
                  - CSI (all series) 
                  - Lie to Me
                  - Big Bang Theory
                  - Vampire Dairies
8. I Would Rather Eat Charcoal Than Watch These Shows:
                 - The Secret Life of The American Teenager
                 - 16 & Pregnant 
                 - The Real Housewives 
9.Shows that I like but have been cancelled:
                 - Heros!
 And I am also watching Nikita now. I am kind of addict of detective shows such CSI and Lie to Me. Also I am used to be fan of reality shows but I hate them now. I am personally think they are boring and only media hypes.  That's all. Hope all you guys have fan in summer !
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