>Is the total affect of a multimedia presentation
>therefore a legimating, sense-making, authenticating
>ideological mode rather than the presentation of more
>information in a smaller amount of time?
I would like to second this thesis.
Japanese news programs have used elements of this multimedia format for
some years, specifically the use of titles on screen for a variety of
purposes: as headlines for the current topic, as summaries of what is
being spoken, as literal clarification of what is being spoken, etc. The
technical term used here is telop, and use of telop have increased so
much in Japanese TV that they not only can be presenting many information
points in the same screen, but also can constitute a major element of
non-news programming. In fact, Japanese variety programming, which makes
up a major part of broadcast time, is using telop so much that in some
shows, every single word spoken by every participant is reproduced as
titles on screen. They can be used in different ways: to summarize
dialogue, clarify what is spoken, analyze speech (picking out what is
important), interpret dialogue (using "eerie" fonts for scary
conversations), emphasize certain jokes (using different colors and sizes
of fonts, as well as animated fonts), and sometimes even comment on what
is spoken (creating a kind of third-person presence).
I have finished a draft of a paper for an anthology on Japanese TV in
which I analyze the phenomenon. The practice has interesting
potentialities (one can even see telop criticize politicians in news
programs while they are speaking), and can be related to discussions as
far-ranging as the benshi in Japanese cinema (splitting the text, as
Burch discusses) to database media (from Manovich to Azuma Hiroki in
Japan). Some of the shows consciously emulate the computer screen in
multiplying the words and windows viewers must process, viewers
themselves becoming a kind of interface as they process the raw date in
front of them.
I, however, have found it to be more of a sense-making, commodifying
process than anything critical. In most cases, telop acknowledge viewer
participation in textual construction only to then take over that
activity, perpetually making sense of what is going on while at the same
time arguing for viewer attention in a medium where attention is the
product sold to advertisers.
Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171
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