Entertainment and Society

Influences, Impacts, and Innovations

Shay Sayre, Cynthia King

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781135839949
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Médias et arts de la scène
• Categoría: Télévision

The second edition of this innovative textbook introduces students to the ways that society shapes our many forms of entertainment and in turn, how entertainment shapes society. Entertainment and Society examines a broad range of types of entertainment that we enjoy in our daily lives – covering new areas like sports, video games, gambling, theme parks, travel, and shopping, as well as traditional entertainment media such as film, television, and print. A primary emphasis is placed on the impact of technological and cultural convergence on innovation and the influence of contemporary entertainment.

The authors begin with a general overview of the study of entertainment, introducing readers to various ways of understanding leisure and play, and then go on to trace a brief history of the development of entertainment from its live forms through mediated technology. Subsequent chapters review a broad range of theories and research and provide focused discussions of the relationship between entertainment and key societal factors including economics and commerce, culture, law, politics, ethics, advocacy and technology. The authors conclude by highlighting innovations and emerging trends in live and mediated entertainment and exploring their implications for the future.

The new edition features updated examples and pedagogical features throughout including text boxes, case studies, student activities, questions for discussion, and suggestions for further reading.

PART 1
INFLUENCES: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES

1
ENTERTAINMENT EVERYTHING

Along the highway of life, everything is a roadside attraction.

—Tom Robbins

In this new millennium when most of our encounters are paid-for experiences, Americans view entertainment as a fact of life. The average American spends more money on entertainment than on gasoline, household furnishings, and clothing, and spends nearly the same amount on entertainment as on dining out. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers, spending on global entertainment and media will exceed $1.8 trillion by 2010 (see Figure 1.1). We have transitioned into an “experience economy” where we each become part of the commercial marketplace.¹ The entertainment industry packages experiences by providing access to simulated worlds and virtual realities. Because a large proportion of human activity is centered around it, entertainment is an important element of society. Entertainment drives social behavior, and as such it deserves to be studied for its contributions, its significance, and its effects.

Figure 1.1 Global Growth

Source: www.metrics2.com/blog/2006/09/19/global_entertainment_media_industry_will_grow_to_1.html

Entertainment and Society

As the title suggests, this text focuses on how our society influences trends and developments in entertainment and how entertainment, in turn, can influence its audiences and larger society. When we talk about “society,” we are referring to many factors including culture, business, law, politics, technology, and even religion. It is often easy to see how entertainment such as music, movies, and video games reflects our different cultures. The stories that are told, the way characters dress and talk, often mirror real people and events. For example, you can tell the difference between a French film and an American one, not only because of the language that is spoken, but also because of differences in storylines, settings, cinematography, and even subtle mannerisms that reflect the culture that produced them.

Throughout the following chapters, we look at how culture is communicated through entertainment ranging from hip-hop music to Las Vegas tourist attractions. We also explore the ways that entertainment can shape culture, from more superficial trends such as the “Hannah Montana” effect, to more serious accusations that exported entertainment from the United States is “Americanizing” cultures around the world. You will learn that religion, which is closely tied to culture, has also played a significant role in the evolution of entertainment. We will trace the origins of many forms of entertainment including music, sports, and storytelling to religious teachings and rituals. Likewise, we will consider potential impacts of contemporary entertainment on the faith and morality of audience members.

We also examine how changing laws and economic factors have influenced entertainment trends. We trace how deregulation and economic uncertainty led companies like Sony and Disney to grow into mega-corporations with holdings spanning all facets of entertainment—from film studios to record labels to sports franchises. We will also explore the influences of technological advances including the ways the Internet has changed traditional industries such as music and radio and paved the way for MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and other web-based entertainment providers. In addition, we will introduce the concept of convergent technology that combines entertainment, news, and advertising.

In turn, we will reveal how these new forms of entertainment have changed the way business is conducted and triggered new laws and regulations. We will see how government leaders have used entertainment such as sporting events and national anthems to rally national pride, and how opposition activist groups have similarly used music, film, and other entertainment genres to garner public support for their causes. In some cases, the societal influences and impacts of entertainment are very blatant. In other cases, they are more subtle. In the remaining chapters we will explore these relationships in great depth. In this chapter, however, we wish to begin by centering our attention on the concept of entertainment.

What It Is and What It Isn’t

The word entertainment has a Latin root meaning “to hold the attention of,” or “agreeably diverting.” Over the years it has come to refer to a constructed product designed to stimulate a mass audience in an agreeable way in exchange for money. Entertainment can be a live or mediated experience that has been intentionally created, capitalized, promoted, maintained, and evolved. In other words, entertainment is created on purpose by someone for someone else. Entertainment is easily located, accessed, and consumed. And of course, entertainment is also attractive, stimulating, sensory, emotional, social, and moral to a mass audience.

And it is a business with specific components, as explained here. Entertainment may exist as a product, service, or experience. Entertainment products can be tickets to live performances and events; or they can be mediated programs and films that we receive in print or electronically. Television and movies are industries completely dedicated to creating entertainment as a product.

The travel and hospitality industries offer services to tourists and visitors; venues also offer services to audiences of sports, attractions, and activities. Services are designed to

Stagediving as entertainment

make entertainment pleasant for its consumers and audiences. What makes entertainment different than products and services is its experiential component. Unlike products and services, experiences are perishable—they last only as long as we are participating or watching—and intangible—they are of the moment and have ever-changing content.

The crucial time-bound aspect of entertainment is its perishability. As with fruit, experiences are time-sensitive, and they diminish in importance as time passes. Unlike souvenirs we purchase as mementoes, experiences cannot be taken home—they survive in our memory rather than in our shopping bags. We can purchase a book, but the experience of reading is nonetheless mental. And while the book jacket and graphics may seduce us into buying the book, the experiential pleasure of that book lies in its verbal consumption. Not investments like gold or consumables like popcorn, experiences are intangible, with ever-changing content. The value of an experience is based on an audience member’s willingness to pay for it. When was the last time you paid for an experience? Was it worth the price?

Constructing Experiences

Entertainment is always constructed, meaning that it is put together with conscious intent. Entertainment is produced with design and awareness of what it is and what it does. We identify six characteristics of its construction.

• Entertainment is provided by highly trained experts and experienced professionals who act with a team of contributors.

• Most entertainment products are the result of multiple inputs from a range of people.

• Entertainment is usually controlled by a single dominant person or central figure such as a producer, director, writer, and so forth who organizes and makes decisions.

• Entertainment is a web of symbols that are shaped, molded, and polished to add to the audience’s experience.

• Most entertainment products rely on technology to maximize their effectiveness.

• Finally, marketing promotions tell audiences how to experience entertainment before they actually access the product.

Of course entertainment products are designed to give pleasure. But a primary purpose for entertainment is to attract audiences to them. To draw, grow, and maintain audiences, entertainment must stimulate agreeable effects for them. As a capitalist product, entertainment is developed to make money—there is always a bottom line to consider. Secondarily, entertainment may elicit strong emotions, may teach us what we don’t know, and can help us escape from real life experiences into simulated or vicarious ones.

If it sounds to you as if entertainment is everything, you’re almost correct. It is part of our everyday life, but there are a few things that it is not. Entertainment is not

• art, although it may aspire to and attain the level of art at times

• ordinary life; it has a different feel, time, and emotion associated with it

• truth because it uses whatever will be more stimulating and whatever will make for a better experience

• intellectual thought, rather it is more like simple and familiar thought with a touch of surprise

• moral because entertainment won’t be judged as good or bad for people, just entertaining.

Entertainment Participants

Two groups of experiential participants are celebrants and critics. For celebrants, entertainment is experienced and developed in growth stages. We begin as ignorants with no exposure, and, like illiterates, we are unable to interpret the experience. As novices we learn about entertainment and eventually become aficionados who appreciate it at a higher level. Some of us become fans with strong attachments for the product. A few of us go behind the scene to become researchers; others become epicureans who prefer the best product available.

People who make judgments or evaluate the product and can explain their judgment criteria are called critics. Simple critics report their experience without explaining why; true critics understand different audiences and can explain, argue, and defend their judgment well enough to convince others to agree with them. People who generate original ideas that explain entertainment products and principles are theorists. They examine entertainment products from five perspectives: gender, economics, culture, media (the influence of their technological forms), and production. You’ll be introduced to theories later in the chapter.

Entertainment’s four constituents are producers who understand the process of putting products together, creationists who are actively involved in creating a particular product, promoters who sell the products, and consumers who pay for entertainment’s many products, serv...