Jenkins’s chapters “Buying into American Idol: How We Are Being Sold on Reality Television” and “Searching for the Origami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling” are both primarily concerned with marketing, though in vastly different ways. The first chapter from this weeks reading, “Buying Into American Idol” focuses both on marketing ploys within the show (namely product placement) and the actual selling of the show to an audience. At the time of Jenkins’s writing, “reality television” was somewhat of a novel idea, though, of course, shows such as Survivor and American Idol were already beginning to proliferate in our society, as can be seen in the fact that Jenkins’s first two chapters focuses on these shows. These shows are the first shifts in television to fit into the newly emergent convergence culture. Jenkins writes that this shift is “one from real-time interaction toward asynchronous participation” (59). Much like fans of Survivor, American Idol watchers are interacting with the program in ways that, not long ago, weren’t even considered. Because fans began taking to the Internet, discussion shows online, texting about them, and generally creating a unique culture surrounding the shows, the old economic structures and marketing tools began to be less effective. With the advent of technology such as TiVo, advertisers had to create new ways of getting more “eyeballs” to see their ads. Out of this need for new kinds of advertising grew “affective economics,” which Jenkins describes as “a new configuration of marketing theory . . . which seeks to understand the emotional underpinnings of consumer decision-making as a driving force behind viewing and purchasing decisions” (62). If Jenkins first chapter “Spoiling Survivor: The Anatomy of a Knowledge Community” taught readers anything, it’s that consumers are most definitely invested in the programs they’re watching and, thus, can become invested in the products that those programs taut. In fact, Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, argues that “only a small number of customers make purchase decisions based purely on rational criteria” (70).
As a former fan of American Idol (though certainly less invested in the program than I could have been), I am well aware of the marketing strategies used by companies like Coca-Cola, Ford, and AT&T throughout the programming. As Jenkins explains, Coke products are prominently featured throughout the show. The one I best recall is the ever-present Coke cups that the judges drink from during the auditions, performances, and finale. I agree with Jenkins statement that “this emerging discourse of affective economics has both positive and negative implications” (63). Personally, I always wondered what they were drinking in those Coke cups—surely not always Coke products. Despite the fact that I watched American Idol (though never the entire season), I was never invested enough to go online and join the “American Idol community” and thus, never really got to experience (in this instance) what Coca-Cola president Steven J. Heyer called a shift “away from broadcast TV as the anchor medium” and toward “experience-based, access-driven marketing” (72).
Jenkins third chapter focused on The Maxtrix, which I always thought of as a film, but it turns out to be so much more than that—it’s a transmedia story, which Jenkins describes as “unfold[ing] across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” (97-98). Rather than focusing completely on The Matrix, which I will be the first to admit I didn’t get (but now I see why!) I’ll focus on the Harry Potter franchise. In his book Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, Ian Bogost writes that “we . . . take solace in the relatively ‘high’ cultural value of Harry Potter, often ignoring the fact that the books in that series seem intricately crafted for screenplay optioning, cinematic release, and subsequent dispersal via toys, games, and endless other accessories” (174). I wonder now, however, if Bogost didn’t miss the point—perhaps J. K. Rowling was attempting to create a transmedia story for the younger viewer/reader/consumer. (Quidditch, for example, can best be experienced through a videogame.) Jenkins continues on to discuss the importance of world-making. He says that “storytelling has become the art of world building, as artists create compelling environments that can not be fully explored or exhausted within a single work or a single medium” (116), and though I’ve never read Harry Potter or watched the movies, I imagine this is probably true in terms of that particularly body of work. The world that Harry Potter inhabits obviously has much more potential, as Emily has pointed in our discussions of RPG games. She’s noted that Harry Potter RPG games are by far the most popular, and I imagine that fanfiction devoted to him is just as popular.
Though the marketing strategies of these types of entertainment (reality TV and transmedia stories, for example) may cause some level of discomfort to consumers, the fact is that it hasn’t bothered us enough to reverse our shit into convergent culture.
Questions:
Do you think Harry Potter is a transmedia story, or was Bogost right in saying that it was just a really good way for J. K. Rowling to make some cash?
People are always talking about how much they hate reality TV, but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Why are people so ashamed to admit that they like it? (Even the Survivor Spoilers “hated” Survivor.)
What negative effects have you seen in our move toward affective economics?
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