Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Couldry (2000) identified media power as a social process that is reproduced into social consciousness via talk, belief, and action by both media producers and consumers, ultimately naturalizing its influence. However, this naturalization process may vary for individuals based on habitus, a socialized subjectivity between individuals, their construction of the world, and the structural boundaries that delimit that construction (Bourdieu, 1990; DiMaggio, 1979; Scahill, 1993). Ang (1996) argued meaning does not reside in the media itself and is dependent on how viewers interpret them. In this study, the concept of place and its potential to confer meaning to a media text is of interest. Can authenticity, believability, or significance be interpreted, reinforced, or opposed by where a story is physically situated when told? To explore this question, 100 university media production students were shown two 15-minute video excerpts from longer programs about a social issue. The programs presented the same issue, in geographically different settings (rural vs. urban), and media spaces (genre and locus). In a preliminary analysis of questionnaires completed by students, and in classroom discussion, students reacted to differences in both their descriptions and critiques of the programs. In many cases, students admitted opposing places and spaces either unfamiliar experientially, in conflict with personal ‘taste’ (Bourdieu, 1984; Gans, 1974), or which conveyed an inauthenticity by appearing ‘staged.” These findings have implications for critical media curricula, as well as the practice of news and other visual productions where viewer perceptions of authenticity, believability, and significance are desired outcomes.