I?ve never been interested or gotten much out of media studies that focuses on domestic space so I was not delighted when I read Bernadette Flynn?s central question start with ?How have histories of the living room??
Despite m
y overwhelming bad luck in choosing this week to provide a response to the readings and intense desire to give up and watch Perry Mason, I read on.? Flynn mostly gives a history of media entering the domestic space.? She mentions radio and maybe briefly gives the telephone as an example, but she mostly focuses on television and video game consoles.? Flynn often juxtaposes these media to the fireplace.? She never gives a clear explanation of what the fireplace represents, but I took it as a place where the family would gather to talk about their days.? Perhaps she means to link the idea of family communication around a fireplace to some people?s perception of the interruption of that bonding time by the new media.
I like Flynn?s observation of how video game consoles brought the ?visceral nature? of arcades into the suburban living room.? The struggle for video game advertising to sell its product as a thing to have in the living room interests me.? Flynn follows the trail of the video game industry?s efforts to sell this idea all the way to the modern day marketing of Microsoft?s X-Box as a ?futuristic machine for the living room,? and Sony?s Playstation as a ?digital entertainment hub.?? As with the other readings for this week, her most important point is the additional functionality of these newer consoles?they now not only play games, they are also DVD players, they access the Internet, etc.? Flynn chooses mostly to pit television vs. the video game console, but I don?t agree with this approach.? How, I wonder, would she explain one?s ability to watch a season of their favorite TV show through Netflix accessed through his or her X-Box?
I believe Mike Newman?s choice to think of video game consoles as an extension of television is a more practical line of study. I especially like how he links video game consoles in a line of television?s evolution and the ?empowerment of audiences.?? Newman writes that cable gave people more options so they did not have to rely on a few major networks, then how the VCR gave people the convenience of watching things whenever they want, and then how video game consoles gave people the agency to actually control what happens on the television.? I have never thought of video games as part of this evolution of television that erupted in the 1970s.? Newman gives a logical, convincing explanation that puts video games in the same category as cable television and VCRs as things that give television users more agency.? This step makes sense as a way to legitimize video games for an author who just co-wrote the book Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status.
Newman gets into some detail about the passivity of watching television (feminine) and the activity that video game consoles bring (masculine) to the television set.? I thought this was the most interesting observation that Sheila C. Murphy made in her essay; however, she did not explore this observation.? Her findings about how video game consoles were advertised similarly to early television advertising as uniting families instead of dividing them was predictable and not very enlightening.
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