scholarly journals Applying Brenda Dervin's sense-making methodology to fan studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Interpretive Study ◽  
Fan Behavior ◽  
Humanistic Approach ◽  
Fan Identity

Communication scholar Brenda Dervin created sense-making methodology (SMM), an approach for conducting interviews that draws on metatheoretical concepts such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and the humanistic approach to psychology. Since its formulation, SMM has been utilized across different disciplines through the development of interview protocols for both one-on-one interviews and focus groups. Among these studies are those that focus on people's engagement with media products or with each other in relation to media products. These SMM audience and reception studies demonstrate that the methodology can be useful for studying fans by bringing a more systematic, and thus quantifiable, approach to a phenomenological, interpretive study of fan behavior, be it mental, emotional, physical, or social. SMM would allow for studies that analyze how fans make sense of a situation involving their fandom and fan identity. After explaining what SMM is and how it has been used to study fans, a case study demonstrates how SMM may suggest a way to define being a fan and applying the concept of fandom beyond the traditional domains of sports, media, and popular culture.

Are They Ready for Their Close-Up? Civil Servants and Their Portrayal in Contemporary American Cinema

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle C. Pautz ◽  
Laura Roselle
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Narrative Forms

Perceptions of government and civil servants are shaped by a variety of factors including popular culture. In the public administration literature the significant role that film and other narrative forms have on citizens’ perceptions is duly noted, and there is ample research on politicians and military heroes in film, but a focus on civil servants remains largely elusive. Among the sparse literature centered on civil servants are studies that employ a case study approach or focus on a few films. In contrast, our research employs a large sample of 150 films. These films comprise the top ten box-office grossing films from 1992 through 2006; therefore we examine the films most likely to have been seen by a majority of movie-watching Americans. More than 60 percent of the films in our sample portray government as bad, inefficient, and incompetent. However, the data on more than 300 civil servants yield intriguing findings. Surprising, in light of the negative depiction of government, is the positive depiction of individual civil servants. Half of civil servants were positively portrayed, and only 40 percent were negatively depicted. Americans may view government negatively, but they see in film positive depictions of how individual civil servants can and do make a positive difference.

scholarly journals Comprehensive or Comprehensible Experience? A Case Study of Religion and Traumatic Bereavement

2020 ◽  
pp. 136078042097866
Author(s):  
William McGowan ◽  
Elizabeth A Cook
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Traumatic Bereavement ◽  
Relative Potential ◽  
Corresponding Analysis

The first half of this article provides a brief overview of two respective projects concerning traumatic bereavement, in which religious faith appeared to feature amid a constellation of significant coping and sense-making mechanisms for survivors. After presenting some illustrative examples of the kind of data produced in the course of our research, the second half of the article develops a retrospectively critical appraisal of our data collection and corresponding analysis practices. In questioning the extent to which our accounts of our participants’ accounts can be considered adequate representations of social order, we critically explore the relative potential of ‘reflexivity’ for bridging the experiential gap between researchers and participants. Taken together, these reflections prompt a return to the salutary question: what counts as sociologically ‘see-able’?

scholarly journals Nostalgic transmediation: A not-so-final fantasy? Ichigo’s Sheet Music online platform as an object network of creative practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-193
Author(s):  
Ruth Barratt-Peacock ◽  
Sophia Staite
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Sheet Music ◽  
Online Platform ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Music Transcription ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Nature

Using the music of the Final Fantasy game series as our case study, we follow the music through processes of transmediation in two very different contexts: the Netflix series Dad of Light and music transcription forum Ichigo’s Sheet Music. We argue that these examples reveal transmediation acting as a process of ‘emptying’, allowing the music to carry its nostalgic cargo of affect into new relationships and contexts. This study’s theoretical combination of transmediation with Bainbridge’s object networks of social practice frame challenges normative definitions of nostalgia. The phenomenon of ‘emptying’ we identify reveals a function of popular culture nostalgia that differs from the dominant understanding as a triggering of generalized emotional longing for (or the desire to return to) the past. Instead, this article uncovers a nostalgia that is defined by personal and communal creative engagement and highlights the active and social nature of transmediated popular culture nostalgia.

Recontextualizing Barstool Sports and Misogyny in Online US Sports Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 216747952110424
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Garcia ◽  
Jennifer M. Proffitt
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Case Study ◽  
Cultural Industries ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Conservative Ideology ◽  
Female Journalists ◽  
Alternative Version ◽  
Cultural Ideology ◽  
Digital Sports

This critical qualitative case study interrogates the roles Barstool Sports and its founder, Dave Portnoy, serve in reaffirming the narrative power of conservative cultural ideology in mainstream US sports media. Portnoy’s targeted harassment of female journalists is analyzed as examples of how the outlet alienates critics of heteronormative, hypermasculine discourse within relevant cultural arenas in digital sports media. To examine how the company deflects criticisms of misogyny, we explore Barstool Chicks—an alternative version of the company’s website targeting female audiences. Resultantly, Barstool and Portnoy undermine the potential for feminist-driven narratives in sports media and contribute to the normalization of repressive conditions within cultural industries that perpetuates the continued dominance of conservative ideology.

‘The One about Sitting on His Top Hat and Climbing up His Shirt Front’: Fitzgerald and Musical Theatre

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-139
Author(s):  
Jade Broughton Adams
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Film Musicals ◽  
Dramatic Action ◽  
The One ◽  
Literary Techniques ◽  
Immersive Media

This chapter shows how Fitzgerald drew upon musical comedies of the stage and screen to inform his characterisation, plotting, and integration of song with dramatic action. Using his ‘playlet’, ‘Porcelain and Pink’, as a case study, this chapter shows how Fitzgerald’s use of song underscores themes of concealed identity and satirises the consumption and advertising practices of his era. This chapter argues that the intersection of morality and entertainment, depicted in the iconic flapper figure, characterises much of Fitzgerald’s presentation of popular culture. Though he did not continue his undergraduate occupation of writing libretti for Princeton’s Triangle Club, Fitzgerald continued to allude to songs from musicals throughout his career. This chapter explores how Fitzgerald’s use of the disguise motif, amongst other literary techniques, has analogues in musical comedies, and argues for certain of his stories, like ‘The Captured Shadow’, to be read in the context of the stage and film musicals Fitzgerald enjoyed, such as those featuring Irving Berlin’s work. It is argued that it is Fitzgerald’s fascination with the theatre that fuels his lifelong interest in participative, even immersive, media. This chapter analyses the influence of film musicals on Fitzgerald’s aesthetics, particularly in terms of their lavish visual spectacle.

Clipped wings: School leaders’ identities in ICT-enriched education landscapes – a narrative inquiry

2020 ◽  
pp. 174114322091825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente Chua Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Inquiry ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Reform Initiatives ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Communication And Technology

This qualitative research inquiry explores how school leaders shape their identities while navigating incessant and seemingly endless school transformations. The central questions addressed are the following: how do school leaders make sense of their identities in rapid periods of reform? And how do they view themselves in new educational landscapes? An exploratory case study of four target schools that took part in policy reform initiatives directed at the ubiquitous use of Information Communication and Technology was undertaken for this inquiry. Using narrative inquiry as an analytical frame for the focus group discussions interviews and field notes, this inquiry investigates and builds emerging explanations to school leaders’ sense-making in periods of reform.

When ‘feminism’ becomes a genre: Alias Grace and ‘feminist’ television

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jana Cattien
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Feminist Critique ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
The Many ◽  
A Site ◽  
Popular Feminism ◽  
Privileged Site ◽  
Critical Movement ◽  
Alternative Reading

Alias Grace is just one of the many recent TV shows that was labelled ‘feminist’ so quickly and with such ease that one is left to wonder how much of a genre ‘feminism’ has already become. This article interrogates what is at stake for ‘feminist’ critique in labelling cultural phenomena as ‘feminist’. I argue that certain ways of reading Alias Grace as a ‘feminist’ show preclude an alternative reading in which Alias Grace emerges as a critique of ‘feminism’ itself. What is at stake in the debate on ‘feminism’ in popular culture is thus not only whether or not we can recognise the potential for ‘feminist’ critique that resides within popular culture, but also whether or not we can allow socio-cultural phenomena, like TV shows, to take ‘feminism’ as an object of critique: to generate the kind of critical movement that renders futile any attempt to stabilise, or reify, the signifier ‘feminism’ as an ahistorical object with fixed meanings – as a genre even. In so doing, I take it that there is no privileged site from which to engender such movement; and I do not take popular culture as a self-contained domain that could qualify for being such a site. The point, then, is not to treat Alias Grace as a representative case study in popular ‘feminism’; but rather, to demonstrate, by way of Alias Grace, the complex and contradictory readings that socio-cultural phenomena are amenable to, and which in turn give rise to critical possibilities that unfold from within these phenomena. Reading Alias Grace critically, as I understand it in this article, means allowing it to be, at one and the same time, a reflection on itself and a reflection on the world in which it so quickly comes to be labelled ‘feminist’.

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