New media - new pleasures?
Aphra Kerr, Julian Kucklich and Pat Brereton
International Journal of Cultural Studies 2006 9: 63
DOI: 10.1177/1367877906061165
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Abstract
The promotional and academic discourse surrounding new media suggests that they offer more fun and more pleasure than existing or traditional media. However, academic work within media and cultural studies has failed to interrogate these claims empirically. This article critically assesses the conceptualization of pleasure as it is deployed in media audience research and attempts to update these conceptualizations by drawing upon game design theory and key concepts from new media theory. The article goes on to evaluate these concepts through an empirical examination of the varied experience of digital games, DVDs and digital television in a variety of households in Dublin, Ireland. Central to the findings is that while pleasure and displeasure are largely undertheorized, these terms, when deployed empirically, afford a useful entry point into evaluating media experiences. The article identifies key differences between the experience of online and offline new media and calls for more research into the pleasures of play and control in relation to both new and more established media use.
Conclusion
The findings of our study indicate that the pleasures of new media are indeed manifold and heterogeneous. While it would be an oversimplification to claim that the pleasures of traditional media are characterized by a lower level of complexity, it seems nevertheless appropriate to conclude that the pleasures of new media cannot be understood simply by adopting existing approaches and concepts to the realm of new media. Rather, these concepts need to be carefully adapted to reflect the specificities of new media texts, the experiences they engender and their varied contexts of use.
In this article, we have adopted an approach to the study of pleasure that recognizes both the role of the producer and the user/consumer and we have tried to identify some key aspects of new media pleasures through studying their use. While we remain confident about the usefulness of our core concepts, we are less confident about how the relationship works between them, the potential range of combinations and the uniqueness of these pleasures to new media. However, even in our relatively small study, we found that the concept of control was more useful than that of interactivity and the concept appears to be underresearched and warrants a more in-depth study. Further, immersion, performance and play all offer fruitful interconnecting avenues for exploring new media pleasures. More ambiguous was the role of narrative and intertextuality and it seems that these terms may need more reworking in the context of new media.
New media themselves are diverse and constantly developing. This study found, for example, that there are significant differences between and across offline and online digital games. For more mature consumers of digital games, the potential to play and perform against other people is a key pleasure, but one that is influenced by the extent to which one knows one’s competitors. Even for older, more experienced game players, MMOGs were seen as a more difficult space to control and become immersed in than networked multiplayer games. Furthermore, interviewees noted the significant variations between different digital television services offered via cable or satellite and between basic and more complex DVDs.
The findings from our empirical work have been insightful and the messiness of everyday life challenged our attempts to define and delineate different pleasures.
Aphra Kerr, Julian Kucklich and Pat Brereton
International Journal of Cultural Studies 2006 9: 63
DOI: 10.1177/1367877906061165
Abstract
The promotional and academic discourse surrounding new media suggests that they offer more fun and more pleasure than existing or traditional media. However, academic work within media and cultural studies has failed to interrogate these claims empirically. This article critically assesses the conceptualization of pleasure as it is deployed in media audience research and attempts to update these conceptualizations by drawing upon game design theory and key concepts from new media theory. The article goes on to evaluate these concepts through an empirical examination of the varied experience of digital games, DVDs and digital television in a variety of households in Dublin, Ireland. Central to the findings is that while pleasure and displeasure are largely undertheorized, these terms, when deployed empirically, afford a useful entry point into evaluating media experiences. The article identifies key differences between the experience of online and offline new media and calls for more research into the pleasures of play and control in relation to both new and more established media use.
Conclusion
The findings of our study indicate that the pleasures of new media are indeed manifold and heterogeneous. While it would be an oversimplification to claim that the pleasures of traditional media are characterized by a lower level of complexity, it seems nevertheless appropriate to conclude that the pleasures of new media cannot be understood simply by adopting existing approaches and concepts to the realm of new media. Rather, these concepts need to be carefully adapted to reflect the specificities of new media texts, the experiences they engender and their varied contexts of use.
In this article, we have adopted an approach to the study of pleasure that recognizes both the role of the producer and the user/consumer and we have tried to identify some key aspects of new media pleasures through studying their use. While we remain confident about the usefulness of our core concepts, we are less confident about how the relationship works between them, the potential range of combinations and the uniqueness of these pleasures to new media. However, even in our relatively small study, we found that the concept of control was more useful than that of interactivity and the concept appears to be underresearched and warrants a more in-depth study. Further, immersion, performance and play all offer fruitful interconnecting avenues for exploring new media pleasures. More ambiguous was the role of narrative and intertextuality and it seems that these terms may need more reworking in the context of new media.
New media themselves are diverse and constantly developing. This study found, for example, that there are significant differences between and across offline and online digital games. For more mature consumers of digital games, the potential to play and perform against other people is a key pleasure, but one that is influenced by the extent to which one knows one’s competitors. Even for older, more experienced game players, MMOGs were seen as a more difficult space to control and become immersed in than networked multiplayer games. Furthermore, interviewees noted the significant variations between different digital television services offered via cable or satellite and between basic and more complex DVDs.
The findings from our empirical work have been insightful and the messiness of everyday life challenged our attempts to define and delineate different pleasures.
A key finding for us relates to the complexity of contemporary multimedia households or the non-discreteness of media use. Interviewees ‘dipped in and out’ of media consumption as they negotiated the various demands of everyday life and demonstrated an ability to consume several media simultaneously with varying degrees of attention.
Interviewees negotiated the physical and social geography of their households to develop patterns of use and were surprisingly strident in their critique of current new media offerings, recognizing that the potential offered by these media was not necessarily matched by current commercial offerings.
At the same time, the use of new media is making consumers more demanding of traditional media and is changing how people view the pleasures they offer.
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