Entertainment Studies 2005 Abstracts
Entertainment Studies Interest Group
Agenda Setting and the Hip Hop Factor in Decision 2004 • Carol Adams-Means, Texas at San Antonio, Maria Flores-Guitierrez and Maxwell McCombs, University of Texas at Austin • The 2004 election process has encountered a new variable in voter education and participation. It has come via the Hip Hop (HH) subculture. The Hip Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) campaign is the vehicle through which HH music producers and performers intended to engage young, eligible voters, ages 18 to 35, in the 2004 election process. The non-partisan HSAN is comprised of HH music industry leaders, performers, political leaders, activists, academicians, and HH music followers.
The Kids are Watching, but what are they Learning? The Political Content of The Daily Show • Carole Bell, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Given The Daily Show’s increasing popularity as a news source and recent prominence in the 2004 election process, it is important to examine the nature of the information the show provides. The current analysis revealed that using The Daily Show as a primary source of political information is highly problematic. Viewers who use it as a substitute rather than supplement for traditional news will likely lack the information needed to learn from or evaluate its content critically.
Fan Websites: Motives, Identification and Site Content • Maureen Cech and John Beatty, La Salle University • As part of a larger study of the creators of celebrity fan Websites, this online qualitative study examines the self-selected responses of 49 site creators. A set of open-ended questions asking about their celebrities, fan communities, and creative expression was sent to these site creators. Actor- and musician-site creators reported similar motives for creating their fan sites, citing celebrity-based motives most often, followed by creativity-based and fan-based motives.
A Review of Literature on the Status, Effects, and Causal Factors Involved in the Differences in Media Coverage for Men’s and Women’s Athletics • Elizabeth Ann Gibler, University of Missouri-Columbia • In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue’s current status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing increase in interest and participation in women’s sports, media coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and body image as well as the professional opportunities available to female athletes.
Tales of Tattered Romance: Cheaters TV, Real Reality, and Melodramatic Parody • Joseph C. Harry, Slippery Rock University • The Cheaters syndicated television show is analyzed as a hybrid genre that draws on and unwittingly problematizes traditional and contemporary notions of romance, technological surveillance, and voyeurism by featuring suffering lovers and videotaped exploits of their cheating mates. The rhetoric of the text is explored by examining its conjuncture within political, economic and socio-cultural forces, and by interpreting the program’s contradictory narrative, ethical, and ideological stance.
Impact of Celebrity Endorsers on Student Voters • Elizabeth Hutton, Maja Krakowiak, Kathleen O’Toole and Kelly Shultz, Pennsylvania State University • Rock musicians played an unprecedented role in the 2004 presidential election. In an effort to motivate the youngest segment of the electorate, some of the biggest names in rock music headlined benefit concerts on behalf of Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry. Performers such as Bruce Springsteen, who had never taken an overtly partisan stand in his 30-year career, stumped through swing states in a series of concerts called the Vote for Change Tour.
Linking Television General Viewing to the Acceptance of Rape Myths • Lee Ann Kahlor and Dan Morrison, University of Texas at Austin • Abstract not available.
The Role of Animation in the Third-Person Effect: A Comparison of Live-action and Animated Violence in Kill Bill Volume 1 • Christine A. Klek and Letrez A. Myer, Pennsylvania State University • Abstract not available.
Social Cognitive Understanding on Video Game Usage • Doohwang Lee and Robert LaRose, Michigan State University • This study investigated how people become deficient in self-regulation in video game play so that they may engage in excessive video game consumption behavior. Based on Bandura’s social cognitive theory of self-regulation (1986; 1991), this study proposed a model of unregulated video game consumption behavior and investigated why video games players engage in playing specific genres of video games. This study found significant impacts of outcome expectations, deficient self-regulation on video game play among 388 college undergraduate students.
Simply Irresistible: Reality TV Consumption Patterns • Lisa K. Lundy, Louisiana State University • This purpose of this study was to explore college students’ consumption patterns in regard to reality television, their rationale for watching, their perceptions of the situations portrayed in reality television, and the role of social affiliation in their consumption of reality television. The results of focus groups indicate that while participants perceive a social stigma associated with watching reality television, they continue to watch because of the perceived escapism and social affiliation provided.
Fascination of Reality Television with the College Student Audience: The Uses and Gratifications Perspective on the Program Genre • James A. Mead, Wisconsin-Whitewater • Due to recent publications on the popularity of reality television over the past few years, a study was conducted in order to determine the most common motives for why a specific target audience watches the programming genre. A total of 162 southeastern Wisconsin college students were surveyed on their regular television viewing habits. The only demographics each participant revealed were gender, age, race, and class standing.
You’re Living in the Past, It’s a New Generation: Music as a Memory Device in Nostalgia Television Shows • Heather Muse, Temple University • The proliferation of nostalgia television shows in recent years has given rise to popular music of past eras appearing on television frequently. This narrative analysis examines the use of popular music in the television series That ‘70s Show, Freaks and Geeks, and American Dreams to determine how popular music helped to evoke nostalgia for the era represented. Frith’s notions of cultural and emotional codes for film music and Grossberg’s concept of “rock formations” of culture were utilized in the analysis.
Monsters, Gangsters, Jesters and psychopaths: The Examination of Trait Characteristics of Movie Villains and Emotional Responses • Meghan A. Sanders, Pennsylvania State University • In this paper, the literature on gender differences in sports coverage is examined for an understanding of the issue’s current status as well as its causes and effects. Despite the continuing increase in interest and participation in women’s sports, media coverage for female athletes has actually declined over the past decade. This unequal media coverage affects female participation and body image as well as the professional opportunities available to female athletes.
Under the (Glue) Gun: Containing and Constructing Reality in Home Makeover TV • Madeleine Shufeldt and Kendra Gale, University of Colorado-Boulder • This paper presents a case study of two families over a 7-month period as they move from fan to applicant to cast of the home improvement reality TV program Trading Spaces: Family. The paper details the discrepancies between the actuality of participation and the preferred “reality” of dramatic and collaborative interior design. Strategies to maintain (or even increase) the producers’ power over the unscripted events via program format, contracts and selective editing are highlighted.
Flow and Enjoyment of Video Games • Barry P. Smith, University of Alabama • This paper examines how flow may contribute to the experience of enjoyment derived from playing video games. Entertainment theories and flow theory are briefly reviewed and then applied to the medium of video games. Video game enjoyment is theorized as the result flow which occurs when the challenge presented by a video game is relatively high and matched with an individual’s perception of his or her level of skill at playing the game.
No Laughing Matter: Negative Attribute Agenda Setting on Late Night Television • Amy Zerba and Tania Cantrell, University of Texas at Austin • This attribute agenda setting study explores the negative attributes of Bush and Kerry jokes on Leno, Letterman, Conan and The Daily Show and the negative attributes stated by watchers and non-watchers of the shows during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Findings from this content analysis, Web survey and experiment study show attribute agenda setting effects for Bush; increased campaign interest with show(s) exposure; and the significant influence of party affiliation with respondents’ negative descriptions and the jokes’ negative attributes.
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