Page 35 - A Handbook Genre Studies in Mass Media

CHAPTER 2

And then there are the comics that really try to use digital technology. The
prize in the category “outstanding use of flash” was shared. One prize went
to “Alpha Shade” (the one with the great page-turning feature). Another
went to “The Discovery of Spoons” by Alexander Danner and John Barber.
That tale, about a man who wraps small poems around spoons and throws
them in water, is told in pages that dissolve one into the next when you
click on them. It’s a great use of the Web. But it verges on animation. 28

Some media communicators have found ways to overcome the limits
of their medium in the production of genric programming. For instance,
unlike media such as books and television, which are episodic, films are
stand-alone presentations: audiences can only watch the same film over
and over. Because people became more interested in seeing new chapters
of the story, film companies in the 1930s began to produce sequels to
successful movies, including The Thin Man, Andy Hardy, and Tarzan.
(For further discussion of sequels, see Chapter 3.)
New advances in media technology have given the audience un-
precedented access to action on-screen and in the process have had a
tremendous influence on the popularity of certain genres. To illustrate,
before the invention of mobile, lightweight camcorders in the 1980s, it
would have been impossible to produce reality shows. Shooting in video
rather than film is less expensive and does not require large, artificial
lighting. One of the most recent technical innovations is the “lipstick
camera,” which is tiny enough to be worn or unobtrusively installed in a
room and remotely operated. Fifteen of those were placed in fixed loca-
tions throughout the house in The Surreal Life, and are used at both the
beginning and later phases of the dates on Blind Date.
These new cameras have revolutionized the popularity of genres such
as cooking shows and poker.

All wonderful, and yet all pale in comparison to the great leaps made in
poker broadcasting. Long a somnolent exercise in marginal programming,
poker was made magical by placing tiny lipstick cameras on the table in
front of the players. When they peeked at their cards, we peeked right
along with them. The resulting voyeuristic frisson made ESPN’s telecasts
of the World Series of Poker among the most riveting sports broadcasting
of the year. 29

The innovations in media technology can affect the premise, plot, and
theme of a given genre. To illustrate, beginning with The Matrix (1999)

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