To be honest, I feel that the Time Use Diary that I did isn’t a good reflection of my TV viewing habits as I jotted down most of it on my iPhone first before filling up the form, and it was only during the times when I remembered to. Surprisingly, I watch more cable television as compared to shows online/on my Macbook. One of the major reasons for this is because I don’t have a Netflix account, and neither do I know how to get the shows by other means besides online streaming (which sometimes take too long to buffer that I give up). When I do watch shows on a Macbook, it is mostly when my housemate or other friends manages to get the episodes in full HD.

Looking at my Time Use Diary however, I realised that most of the time I watch television because I’m having coffee, lunch or dinner, and about half of the shows i’ve written down were recorded on our Foxtel box set. I live with 3 other people and we all watch VICE, and because we all have different schedules, we watch the recorded episodes at our time, and sometimes together when we have meals in front of the television (partly because we do not have a dining table at home). David Gauntlet & Annette Hill (cited in Morley, 2000) argue that the television is a “catalyst for forms of organisation of time and space”, where the television is a factor in how households determine their everyday timetables. Another example would be the watching of American Horror Story Hotel, where I would watch with my housemate and friend because we agreed to follow the season together. If either one of us is somehow not free, we would postpone to watch at a time where everyone is free.

The ability to record shows in our Foxtel box set is great as we would never miss our favourite shows (watched the season finale of The Bachelor after it aired). This technology has allowed us the audience to time shift, and watch the shows based on our schedules instead of the television schedule, although nothing beats watching a show as it is airing, especially shows such as The Bachelor, where there is a Twitter hashtag that would be active with viewers’ tweets during the time the show is on. This is the element of second screens that the show incorporated to bring about ‘liveness’ as it is a live Twitter feed, ensuring that the audience is up-to-date with what just happened in the show as they tweet in their thoughts and feelings, and engage with other viewers. I too have engaged with The Bachelor AU’s hashtag, and have had favourites and retweets from other viewers of the show :

Referring back to the comments section of my Time Use Diary,I wrote that I felt embarrassed, almost as if i got caught doing something illegal, when I was watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians with a housemate, and my other housemate came down the stairs. This was because I knew that he considered the show ‘trashy’, of no value, and a waste of time. I felt like I was judged for having bad taste there and then, which reminded me of Lecture 6 about the audience perception of taste. When someone perceives a show as ‘bad taste’, they would view the people who like/watch it as having lower cultural value, as tastes is “a means by which social distinctions are maintained and identities forged” (Donnar, 2015). However I must admit that I too view the show as bad taste as I too feel that it is trashy and of no value, but I still enjoy watching it with my other roommate as it is fun to diss and give sassy/bitchy comments over what the Kardashians are doing or saying. I learned that is called Hate Watching, where one derives enjoyment from criticising a television programme.

Overall I think I am still somewhat considered a traditional television viewer since I do actually watch shows straight from the television and not through online means, and this is thanks to the Foxtel box set which has a myriad of interesting channels and programmes available. Rumour has it that Netflix will be made available in Singapore in 2016, and that is when I’ll be back home. If Netflix does debut in my country, I would predict that my viewing habits would definitely have a huge shift from traditional media to new media.

References

Donnar, G. (2015). Lecture 6 Audiences and Matters of Taste.

Morley, D. (2000). Home territories. London: Routledge.

Twitter.com, (2015). #TheBachelorAu from:dewberrydrops – Twitter Search. [online] Available at: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TheBachelorAu%20from%3Adewberrydrops&src=typd [Accessed 28 Oct. 2015].

American Horror Story is described as a anthology series that pivots around a completely different set of characters, storyline and location each season, including a house with a murderous past, an insane asylum, a witch coven, a freak show and the latest on-going Season 5 is Hotel (IMDb, n.d.).  The show is a complex narrative as it does not have plot closure within every episode that a conventional episodic form would have. Narrative Complexity is the “generation & maintenance of multiple, ongoing, interconnected narratives” (Reyes, n.d.), which is perfectly exemplified not only across the 5 seasons, but also within each season, where there are multiple story lines ongoing, although there are key characters driving the story’s narrative. It is important to understand each subplot in order for character progression and to understand the main plot. Below is a figure illustrating the serially organised plots within the main plot (JN and MS, 2013) :

Much like True Detective that was analysed in lecture, American Horror Story plays on the chronology of the narrative with flashbacks. I will be using the first episode titled ‘No-Tell Hotel ‘of American Horror Story Season 5 Hotel to analyse the devices of a complex narrative and the serial narrative style. Much happens in this almost hour-long season premiere, and as with other anthologies, the same set of actors(with the unfortunate exclusion of Jessica Lange) play different characters.

Link to episode : http://tenplay.com.au/channel-eleven/american-horror-story/season-5/episode-1 (Season 5, Episode 1, 2015)

This season is centered around the devious and supernatural happenings in Hotel Cortez, with key characters such as Detective Lowe, Sally; a junkie who lives in the hotel, Iris the hotel manager, Donovan; Iris’s son and lover of The Countess Elizabeth; who is a wealthy social doyenne and hotel owner.Another feature of a complex narrative is using flashbacks to reveal key aspects of a character’s history “rather than creating deep mysterious for viewers to attempt to piece together” (Mittell, 2012), as this may be confusing for viewers because of the multiple sub plots. The first flashback happens quite late into the episode at 43:19min, which is the backstory of how Detective Lowe’s son went missing in 2010. There is only a title card to establish the flashbacks, with the year and location, and none when it goes back to present-day. The same thing happens at the 50:22min flashback to 1994 for the backstory of Sally and Donovan, and casually slips back to present-day Detective Lowe at 55:01min packing up for his stay at Hotel Cortez.

The show also falls under the serial narrative style as there are a multiplicity of characters involved in simultaneous story lines, where there is an intricate narrative web connecting the main characters (Donnar, 2015). From episode one itself, we learn of the family problems Detective Lowe has since his son went missing, we see a string of connected murders that he is trying to solve, we understand the supernatural happenings in Hotel Cortez, we see the backstory of Sally, Iris and Donovan and the reason why they have been stuck in the hotel, and we get an insight of Donovan and The Countess Elizabeth’s bloody escapades. From this episode alone, my housemate and I were speculating that they could perhaps be vampires from the signs we picked up. We initially guessed that they were spirits unable to move on from the haunted hotel, but this was not the case for these 2 main characters. There are however spirits as well such as the cleaning lady in this episode. Thus, a serial narrative style that American Horror Story follows requires more attentive audience members to work harder to understand the complex narrative and forces the audience to be open to different perspectives to have multiple interpretations of the events (Donnar, 2015)

As with Twin Peaks mentioned in Lecture 6, and True Detective mentioned in Lecture 8, this episode (and all other episodes) in American Horror Story lacks a sense of resolution at the end as the series “is a cumulative narrative that builds over timer, rather than resetting back to a steady-state equilibrium at the end of every episode” (Mittell, 2012 p18). While it may be alright for a viewer not to watch previous seasons / not watch the seasons accordingly since the show is an anthology series, it is vital to watch and pay attention to each episode of the season one is watching in order to fully see character development and also to understand the complex and serial narrative.

References

American Horror Story Wiki, (2015). Hotel (story). [online] Available at: http://americanhorrorstory.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Hotel_(story) [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Donnar, G. (2015). Lecture 6 Audiences and Matters of Taste.

Donnar, G. (2015). Lecture 8 The poetics of complex narrative.

IMDb, (n.d.). American Horror Story (TV Series 2011– ). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1844624/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

JN, and MS, (2013). “serially organized plot” and “serially independent stories”. [image] Available at: http://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/solte-gresser/aktuell/serial-narration/handbook/living-handbook/serial-narration/serial-narration-in-literature.html [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Mittell, J. (2012). Complexity in Context. [online] Complex TV. Available at: http://mcpress.media-commons.org/complextelevision/complexity/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Reyes, R. (n.d.). R. Salvador Reyes | Narrative Complexity. [online] Rsalvador.com. Available at: http://rsalvador.com/WhatIsNC.html [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Season 5, Episode 1. (2015). Available at: http://tenplay.com.au/channel-eleven/american-horror-story/season-5/episode-1 [Accessed 27 Oct. 2015].

Reality Television is described as being caught between the borders of information and entertainment, and documentary and drama. Originally used for law and order, of “on-scene” footage on the job – think COPS, reality TV has gone on to become a success in the 90s and 2000s (Hill 2005, p2). It is also said to transform viewers to purport “the truth” or “the real”, and Jonathan Bignell (2005, p86, cited in Winslow 2010) argues that this reality has a powerful ideological effect by the conventions used to produce it.

This is the reason why my Mom and I will be on a roll whenever we tune into TLC ( and somehow I only watch TLC with her), because Extreme Makeover : Home Edition would be on, followed by other programmes such as Jon & Kate Plus 8, and Little People Big World. We can spend the whole afternoon on the same channel watching these shows, as Mom says that the programmes inform and ‘educate’, and make peoples’ lives better, as compared to celebrity reality formats (she doesn’t like me watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians at all because she finds it a bad influence). There were also many moments when we had to grab the tissue box, especially with Extreme Makeover Home Edition, as the backstory of the family receiving the home makeover is usually incredibly sad and touching.

The primary selling point of reality TV is the fixation with ‘authentic’ personalities, situations and narratives (Ouelette & Murray, 2004, p5 cited in Donnar 2015). I will be looking into Extreme Makeover : Home Edition specifically, to understand how the format of reality documentary TV works.

The show is said to be a hybrid of do-it-yourself and reality programming, and follows a fairly simple direction, where the host Ty Pennington and his team of designers travel round America demolishing and re-building a home a week for a deserving family. “The program tells each family’s story in a way that lets the audience know that these are “good,” moral people living an idyllic, all-American existence” (Winslow 2010). Every episode follows the same storytelling conventions where the audience is convinced that the family is unable to improve their material conditions on their own, and that they seem to have reached rock bottom, then they get sent on a holiday while Ty and his team work to solve all their problems with a shiny new house. “The families’ problems that were so dire only a week before are now gone and their previous state of perfection is restored, although with a much larger and fully furnished house” (Winslow 2010). As you can see from the screenshot of episodes taken above, each family chosen has had an awful thing happen to them, or are doing good by helping others despite them not being in a good place themselves.

Kenneth Burke (1931)  argues that this pattern works to create an appetite in the mind of the viewer which is followed with the adequate satisfaction of the appetite (cited in Winslow 2010). The video excerpt above showcases the backstory of the Gilyeat family, and the audience is taken through an emotional roller coaster journey of the single dad of 4 who lost his leg while being deployed in Iraq to feed his family, and his kids are also features in the video saying how much their dad is a hero to them. Ty says “Here’s a chance for us to give back to a guy who has given so much for this country” (2:28-2:31). The show showcases the lives of ‘ordinary’ people and families that we may find easier to relate to, or empathise with, and seeing them having their lives ‘transformed’ in the show makes the viewers feel satisfied and at ease, or at least that is the way Mom and I would feel at the end of every episode.  The reaction of the family members when they first step into the house is ‘authentic’, and is usually followed by tears of joy and many hugs, which is an audience appeal of the spontaneous and unscripted, a sense of ‘liveness’ (Donnar 2015). 

I feel good at the end of every episode as I feel that the family got what they deserved and that their lives would probably be more smooth sailing because of the show, which is exactly what the Producers of the show would want the audience to feel based on the same storytelling conventions they use for every episode.

References

Donnar, G. (2015). Lecture 10 REALITY TV – Origins & Contexts.

Hill, A. (2005). Reality TV. London: Routledge.

Rib Hillis in Extreme Makeover Home Edition – Gilyeat Family. (2011). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXpNjhpo334 [Accessed 26 Oct. 2015].

TV.com, (n.d.). Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. [online] Available at: http://www.tv.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition/episodes/ [Accessed 26 Oct. 2015].

Winslow, L. (2010). Comforting the Comfortable: Extreme Makeover Home Edition’s Ideological Conquest. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 27(3), pp.267-290.