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Entertainment communication Video lectures
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Welcome to EntCom. To start our journey, we will need to define entertainment because aclear terminology is a fundamental aspect of scientific communication. Therefore, we must
ask ourselves the question, what is entertainment? Although it may seem evident what
entertainment is, its boundaries are not that easily defined. It is much easier to recognize
entertainment than to provide a concise definition. Marvel blockbusters are definitely
entertainment. And so is the latest installment of Call of Duty, or a breakout performance on
the voice. Entertainment means providing amusement, diversion or enjoyment. It comes from
Latin, from the words –inter- among, and -tenere- to hold or to keep. So literally,
entertainment means that what holds you there, what keeps you in the moment. So anything
that holds and keeps your attention could be considered entertaining and therefore
entertainment. And for some, it may be a video of perseverance landing on Mars. Whereas
others get excited by a live stream of a rare cactus blooming in Cambridge University
gardens. Or this explanation of the improvements to the retro encabulator, Information can be
entertaining, at least to some people, and some items on the news are perhaps more
entertaining than others. A high-speed chase captured live on camera is entertaining, but is a
news item on the humanitarian crisis in Darfur also entertaining? And what if George
Clooney gets involved? Does it become an entertainment then? And it's not just journalism,
that applies entertainment mechanics to grab and hold the attention of its viewers. The line
between politics and entertainment has been blurry since Ronald Reagan was elected
president in 1980, or when Donald turned the world's most important public office into a
reality TV show about himself. And don't think the mix between politics and entertainment is
limited to the USA. Volodynyr Zalinski starred in the Ukrainian sitcom, 'servant of the
people', in which he played the President of Ukraine and then he became the actual President
of Ukraine in April 2019. Considering this mix between news, politics and entertainment, it
becomes almost impossible to determine when entertainment begins or where it ends. Several
communication scientists have tried to define entertainment and according to Peter Vorderer,
it's a complex, dynamic and multifaceted experience that one goes through while being
exposed to this type of media, As in: entertainment is entertainment because it is
entertaining. And although this definition may sound somewhat tautological, this experiential
definition of entertainment is generally accepted. Entertainment should not be understood
as much as a product or a feature of such a product, but rather as our response to it. it is
entertaining. therefore, it must be entertainment. Perhaps to avoid this circular definition of
entertainment, the term enjoyment was placed at the heart of the entertainment
experience. But what do we enjoy? What keeps you interested? What keeps you
,engaged? This GIF shows 'Fred Ott's The Sneeze' from 1894 one of the first filmed
entertainment products. A man sneezing for three seconds. And we know it is entertainment
because people went to the Nickelodeon and paid a nickel, which is five cents, to watch this
amazing footage. In 1964 Andy Warhol released this film 'Sleep', in which he filmed his
friend sleeping for five hours and 20 minutes, and you can watch it entirety in the Museum of
Modern Art in New York. You could also enjoy a crackling fire in the fireplace on YouTube
for 24 hours. Or you can watch paint dry in real time. And this is exactly that, watching paint
dry, but then on YouTube. So maybe we can draw the line here somewhere because
that seems extremely boring and therefore the opposite of entertaining. So if something is
boring, it is not entertainment. But who decides what's boring? Do you? Someone once said
that painters make paintings, but it takes a representative of the art world to make a work of
art. But for entertainment, there is no representative telling us that something is boring and
therefore not entertainment. For both entertainment and art, the attributes of the
experience dominate consumers quality judgments. Unlike entertainment, artworks are
considered 'credence goods'. These are goods whose quality consumers do not judge by their
consumption experience alone, but rather by accepting, as a matter of faith or credence, in a
particular expertise of certain certified authorities. For entertainment it's different, because
you decide when something is entertaining and therefore entertainment, or boring
and therefore not entertainment. And if media doesn't entertain you, what did you do then?
Think about it. The moment when you are bored, what do you do? You try to find something
entertaining. And there's a world of entertainment at your fingertips. Similar to the problem
of defining when something starts to be entertaining is the problem of defining when it stops
to be entertaining. For instance, this quick three-point turn in the face of an oncoming
tsunami is exciting and funny. But what if I told you that 12 thousand people lost their lives
in this tsunami? This may also be a good time to introduce a trigger warning. I will show
images during these lectures that may upset or offend some people. And that is definitely not
my purpose. So please notice this exclamation point in the upper right corner. Throughout the
course I will show this exclamation mark If such content may appear. So, feel free to look
away from the screen if you see that warning. The content will not be relevant for the
exam. Also, I will not provide any spoiler warnings. Not that there will be many spoilers for
new shows or films, just, well if you haven't seen Game of Thrones by now, you're probably
not going to see it anyway. With that out of the way, let's continue - with examples of clips
that are definitely not boring, but perhaps also not entertainment. How about this guy not
jumping into a pool? He may be dead, he may be seriously injured. I don't know. It is
,definitely not boring, but is it entertaining? And if I edit in a laugh track in here and some
sound effects, is it entertainment when you receive a cue that is something to laugh at? When
does entertainment becomes something else? Where do you draw the line? When does it
become immoral? This is the Zapruder film, the only footage we have of the assassination of
John Kennedy in 1963. And more than 70 movies about this assassination have been
made and many of them have used this footage for entertainment value. And even if you
consider it to be immoral or unethical, are you open to suggestion that others may find this
entertaining? And that same reasoning applies to obscenity. When does entertainment
become so obscene, so repugnant, so disgusting that it should no longer be considered
entertainment? Looking at these boundaries of entertainment brings us back to our original
question, What is entertainment? And so far the definitions have been insufficient. They
basically described entertainment as something that is enjoyable to someone. Which can still
be basically anything. But perhaps a definition from scholars in a different field
than communication can help narrow down this concept. This definition comes from two
scholars in the field of economics, and it describes entertainment as any market offering
whose main purpose is to offer pleasure to consumers versus offering primarily a functional
utility. So what this definition does is narrow the focus on market offerings, as in products
created for financial gain. And more importantly perhaps, it's main purpose should be to offer
pleasure and not something else. So for instance, advertising can be entertaining as it surely
offers pleasure to potential consumers. But the main purpose of advertising is not to provide
pleasure, but to encourage you to buy the product. And since we are communication
scientists we focus on media entertainment, so not just entertainment in general. So we're not
looking at the circus, not theme parks, not live entertainment, not theatre, just mediated
entertainment. And when I say Just mediated entertainment, it's still an enormous industry.
Welcome back to EntCom. Today I'll be talking about scientific models and frameworks that
help us make sense of the relationship between media entertainment, its users and the
industry behind it. Theoretical models, in general, are often used as conceptual
representations of the system of ideas and processes that help us identify and understand
underlying patterns. Models provide a simplified representation of a complex issue. So when
creating a model, there's always a trade-off between making it too complex by adding all
possible exceptions to the general rule and making it comprehensible and applicable. For this
course I created a model that incorporates and defines the most important construct and
processes, and explains their relations through theoretical insights and empirical
, observations. I call this the media entertainment model. But before we get to the media
entertainment model, I will show you some models that you may be familiar with, which
form the inspiration for the media entertainment model. We will start with what is probably
the first communication model: Harold Lasswell's linear model of communication that he
developed in 1948. This classic communication science model includes the basics of mass
communication in which your speaker says something through a certain medium to someone
with a certain effect. Keep in mind that this is not a causal model, for instance a message does
not cause a medium, it is a process model explaining how messages through the media can
affect specific audiences. And it's linear because it's process goes only in one direction. What
I like about this model is that it includes the right questions if we apply it to entertainment:
who provides what type of entertainment through which medium to whom with what
effect? However, in a Lasswell's model there is not much room for the audience to
choose specific messages, from specific sources using certain media. This model was
developed long before uses and gratifications approach came along. It is hopelessly outdated.
Because we choose media all the time. We choose entertainment media, and messages from
specific sources. So if we want to refine this model, we should add an arrow here and
here. People choose. Specifically, people choose entertainment products that fit their needs
and their desires. Whats's more, at the end, the effect may change the audience needs and
desires, which will then further influence the choices they make in selecting future
messages. So we add another arrow. But I think there's also one important aspect
missing. How is the effect achieved? That is the design aspect of entertainment and media
entertainment. So how the message is constructed and experienced by the audience, that is
imperative for its effectiveness. So we add an arrow here and a new concept there. And the
models now far too complex. A much more advanced model of media use and its effects is
this model by two of our own professors Patti Valkenburg and Jochen Peter. It is called the
differential susceptibility to media effects models, or DSMM for short. What I like about this
model is that it places the audience first. And the audience disposition, their developmental
level, social contexts. They influence their choice for certain media. And they also moderate
its effects on the user. What's more, they added a step between the media use and effect, that
they call response. And these cognitive, emotional, and physiological response states that
occurred during and right after media use are the result of what we consider the entertainment
experience. The emotions, thoughts and excitement that you experience when using
entertainment. These responses dictate continuous and repeated entertainment use, because if
something is emotionally impactful, interesting and exciting, you usually want to experience
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