"How does the physical and social context of a text message
impact the meaning of its content?"
Rosemary Dryley
“We
are all Gossip Girl!”
Jessica
Pressler and Chris Rovzar
(Toffoletti, K., 2008, ‘Gossip Girls in a Transmedia World: The
Sexual and Technological Anxieties of Integral Reality’, Paper 18, Page 74)
In
today’s digital society, many individuals, particularly women have embraced
mobile phones and the World Wide Web.
They use these sources to discover and distribute information and scandal;
what is commonly known as gossip.
However, it is easy to misinterpret information uploaded onto the web
and sent to our mobile phones. In order
to understand how we are able to correctly interpret the information,
particularly if it is scandalous gossip that is provided to us, we must use concepts
such as Representation, Signs and Semiotics.
We must also understand the Intimacy some women, especially Fans can
feel as they participate in the frequent distribution of scandal. The social consequences which occur from
these actions will be explored. A media
text which demonstrates these concepts is a scene in the television series Gossip
Girl.
Gossip
Girl is about the characters that frequently appear on a gossip blog run by an
anonymous owner. Amongst the teens of
New York, the Gossip Girl blog is considered to be “the number 1 source for gossip on the scandalous live of Manhattan’s
elite” (Gossip Girl, DVD, 2007). Though
the webmaster often publishes scandal of her own, the majority of the daily scandal
has come from her loyal followers, of who are predominately female. The scandal provided to the webmaster is via
email or SMS message which the she posts onto the website. She then sends an SMS of the blog post to the
fans on her SMS mailing list. There are
no rules and the webmaster has no care for any of the consequences which may
follow from the scandal that is spread.
In
an opening scene episode during the series’ first season, ‘A Thin Line Between Chuck and Nate’, one of the central female
characters, Serena van der Woodsen is purchasing a pregnancy test on her best
friend’s behalf. While Serena asks the
sales assistant which brand they would recommend, she is unaware that a
classmate, Penelope Schafai is taking her photograph with her mobile phone
which is then sent to the Gossip Girl website.
When the photograph is published on the website, underneath the image is
the caption ‘Is S with child?’ Once the
blog post is published, in true Gossip Girl fashion, the reaction of Serena’s boyfriend,
Dan Humphrey, his younger sister Jenny and their father is overly dramatic. What this scene demonstrates is that it is
very easy to misinterpret a seemingly obvious image, even if accompanied with a
caption. Because Penelope personally saw
Serena purchasing the pregnancy test, she automatically assumed it was for her,
she did not consider it may actually be for someone else. The social context of Serena’s purchase going
viral resulted in her boyfriend, Dan Humphrey’s, little sister Jenny and father
finding out that they had sex and their very intimate, meaningful moment was
now public knowledge.
However,
we cannot blame Penelope for assuming this was the case, as she was merely
making connections between Serena’s debauchery filled past, current
relationship and the purchase of the pregnancy test. To understand what was happening Penelope
made these connections by using the ‘System of Representation’ approach. The System of Representation approach is
defined as containing not only single concepts, but the various ways of
organising them and understanding their meaning (Hall, S., 1997). In using this
approach, Penelope mentally arranged the events in the order she would assume
they would happen to her and the consequences from those actions (Hall, S., 1997). She took the knowledge of Serena’s debauchery
filled past, assumed she had unprotected sex with Dan and that their action caused
a pregnancy scare. This would be
considered a conceptual system. The way
how Penelope knew that unprotected intercourse often causes pregnancy is from the
concepts which represent our meaning of objects, people and/or events and the
connections they have (Hall, S.,
1997). Therefore, it was natural for her
to assume Serena was purchasing the test for herself and was the person who was
pregnant.
There
are two other approaches to Representation this scene could take, especially
from each girl’s different point of view.
In Penelope’s case, as she saw Serena as the person buying the test her
approach would be the ‘reflective approach’.
A pregnancy test itself is a fixed object and reflects the meaning of
the possibility of being pregnant, this “‘reflects
the true meaning of an object, or event as it already exists in the world” (Hall, S., 1997, Page 24). Penelope and Gossip Girl’s ‘gossip blast’
with the image of Serena holding a pregnancy test and the caption ‘Is S with
child?’ was an intentional approach.
Penelope waited for what she considered to be the best photo opportunity
while Gossip Girl chose the specific caption to include. They intentionally published what they felt
was the most important aspect of the scene.
Signs
are important when studying media texts as we are able to read between the
lines of what the story is trying to say, they assist us to make sense of our
thoughts. They are sorted into languages
and with our shared cultural languages we are able to edit our thoughts into
text, images and sound which are then used to distribute our knowledge to
others (Hall, S., 1997). Language also consists of variety of entities
including facial expressions and body language.
These are evident in Serena’s distressed state as well as in Penelope’s
overly excited facial expressions and rush to take a picture of her
discovery. Even though we all have the
ability to interpret images and text, we all do this differently, we all see
the world from a different angle.
However,
what we do share are the same cultural codes.
These codes are fixed which ensures us to have a greater understanding
of what they mean (Hall, S.,
1997). Codes in this scene would be what
purchase of a pregnancy test means as well as Penelope and her mobile
phone. It is seen in Penelope’s facial
expression as she positions herself in such a spot so she is unnoticed by
Serena and in her desperate need to take such a great photograph. This desperation of being the one who
discovers such scandalous news and who distributes it to others can remind us
of how some women take great pleasure in being the first to make such a
discovery and the excitement such big news can bring. These fixed codes assist in building the
connection between understanding Penelope’s actions. Within the codes we are able to understand
Penelope’s excitement over her news and her mobile phone through semiotics.
We
can use Semiotics to understand Dan and his family’s dramatic reaction when
they discovered the news. According to
Saussure’s Semiotics techniques, the signifier would be the “physical object” (Lacey, N., 2010, Page
57) of the pregnancy test and the
mobile phone. They made the connection
she must be pregnant from the signifiers and the fixed signs our society share. “The
signified is the mental concepts we learn to associate with that object”
(Lacey, N., 2010, Page 57) which
would be the automatic assumption Serena is pregnant. Understanding the signifier and signified is
a level of denotation. The girl who
heard the gossip and did not try to make any other assumptions about what was
happening is the basic level of denotation.
If they looked further, they would be aware there was more to her
actions. The absoluteness of what a
pregnancy test means is due to our society’s mental agreement (Lacey, N., 2010)
of particular signs. “The meaning of a sign is determined by it’s
context, it has no meaning on it’s own” (Lacey, N., 2010). By
looking at Penelope’s actions of hurriedly capturing the moment and informing
Gossip Girl as a sign which we then form a “mental
concept” (Lacey, N., 2010, Page 57) with women’s interest in hearing
scandalous gossip. In this particular
media text, it would be natural to assume that girl’s love to participate in
distributing scandal as it is stated in the show’s title. It is also clearly demonstrated in this
scene.
Gossip
Girl successfully incorporates the use of mobile and Web 2.0 technologies,
enabling its fans to participate by sending through (Chandler, D. & Munday,
R., 2012) gossip ‘blasts’ and to be informed at all times. Those who are subscribed to Gossip Girl’s
blasts are a loyal, interactive fan base that is eager to please. The fans that are subscribed to Gossip Girl’s
SMS’s enjoy distributing their new found knowledge to those who are not aware
of the latest news. This is proving
Henry Jenkins’ definition of fans: “Fans
are motivated by epistemaphilia – not simply a pleasure in knowing but a
pleasure in exchanging knowledge.” (Jenkins, H., 2006, Page 139). The viewers of the show Gossip Girl can
understand why and how Penelope snaps her photograph and publishes the gossip
as viewers have the ability to do these themselves. They to belong in a social environment
dominated by the endless possibilities of online media and can “participate in creating, disseminating and
exchanging content via the World Wide Web” (Kearney, M.C., 2006, Toffeletti,
K., 2008, Page 74). Because the web is
easily accessible, such as, through a computer or an app on their mobile, fans
have the ability to view the unlimited source of information any time they want
and as soon as it is uploaded. This is
why the Gossip Girl blog works so well, the webmaster understands that her followers
like to participate and they constantly want the information. This is demonstrated in the scene while Jenny
is reading the gossip blast on the blog – she is doing this while she is
getting ready for school, as she wants to be informed of recent scandal by the
time her classes start.
Another
important factor to consider in this scene is how the use of the mobile phone
capturing the moment is dominant. While
Serena’s purchase is important, Penelope and her mobile phone are even more so. Gossip Girl notices from the fact Penelope
sent her the information that women prefer to send an SMS as it is a more
intimate form of communicating (Hjorth,
L., 2011) – the information she sends is directly to them and can make
the person receiving it feel special.
Women
often prefer text messages rather than email, which is predominately used for
business purposes, as communicating via SMS appears more intimate (Hjorth, L., 2011) particularly between
close friends. Larissa Hjorth makes considerable
reference in her paper ‘Mobile Spectres of Intimacy: A Case Study of Women and
Mobile Intimacy’ of women’s responses in a survey regarding the various ways and
emotions they have when using technology to communicate. The majority of the responses claimed they
preferred to communicate through SMS and found it crucial to maintaining
intimacy in their relationships as it was far more personal than email. Though the women surveyed enjoyed receiving
hand written letters and postcards, in today’s digital society, texting was the
easiest and at times more direct form of communication and the respondent will
reply when they are available (Hjorth,
L., 2011). However, a consequence from sending an
SMS is that information sent can easily be misinterpreted or SMS’s can be sent
to someone else, particularly if they are rushed. It was noted numerous times in Hjorth’s
survey results that the tone of voice was crucial to ensuring information was
not misinterpreted.
To
conclude, while Gossip Girl does provide a solid source of entertainment for
young women, it demonstrates there can be extremely harmful social consequences
when such scandalous news is distributed.
The fans of the show should take note from the consequences demonstrated
in this scene and although it may bring a sense of intimacy between friends or
acquaintances, they should be careful what they share.
Reference List
Gossip Girl,
2007 [DVD], Season 1 Episode 13 ‘A Thin Line Between Chuck and Nate’, Warner
Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Chandler, D. & Munday, R., 2012,
‘The Oxford Dictionary of Media and Communication’, Pp. 311
Hall, S., 1997, ‘The Work of
Representation (excerpts)’ in Representation: Cultural Representations and
Signifying Practices, Sage, London, pp. 15-30, 36-41, 61-64.
http://ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/login?url=http://onlineres.swin.edu.au/932279.pdf
Hjorth, L., 2011, ‘Mobile Spectres of
Intimacy: A Case Study of Women and Mobile Intimacy’, in R. Ling and S.
Campbell, Mobile Communication: Bringing us Together and Tearing us Apart.
Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, pp. 37-60.
http://ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/login?url=http://onlineres.swin.edu.au/932237.pdf
Jenkins, H., 2006, ‘Interactive Audiences?
The “Collective Intelligence” of Media Fans’, in Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers:
Exploring Participatory Culture, New York University Press, New York, pp.
134-151. http://ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/login?url=http://onlineres.swin.edu.au/932278.pdf
Lacey, N., 2009, Semiotics in ‘Image
and Representation: key concepts in media studies’, 2nd Edition, MacMillan,
London, pp. 56-75.
Toffoletti,
K., 2008,
‘Gossip Girls in a Transmedia World: The Sexual and Technological Anxieties of
Integral Reality’, Paper 18, Pp 71-76
No comments:
Post a Comment