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Exploring Visual Aspects of Audience Membership

Media Studies and Photovoice

David R. Novak and Tonny Krijnen

While it might be obvious to state that television is a visual medium, relatively recent television shows take visuality to new levels. Take, for example, Michael Slovis, director of photography for AMC's Breaking Bad, who described his show as “real film-making, more so than even many films that you work on now” (Gajewski 2010). As media critic, Erik Kain (2011) argues:

Breaking Bad is but one of a new guard of cinema-quality television shows. Mad Men, The Sopranos, Lost, and The Tudors similarly display filmlike qualities in terms of the emphasis placed on production and on photographic and design elements. Research also shows that the media industries perceive audiences as demanding good-looking television, with aesthetic elements playing a primary role (Bielby, 2011).

Culturally speaking, visuality continues to grow in importance – from the invention of the film camera to the evolution of moving pictures to the present pervasiveness of digital photographs. Evidence of visual culture's pervasiveness is everywhere. New mobile telephones and tablet computers highlight the ability to play movies and stream television episodes (Wingfield, 2012). A recent New York Times article noted that a shopper would be hard-pressed to even purchase a small television nowadays (Grobart, 2012). The same article claims that in 2011, “the size of the average TV sold in North America was 38 inches, and you can buy an 80-inch model for a little more than $4,000.” Just in the last few years, a renaissance of 3-D films – such as Shrek, Star Wars, and Avatar – has been framed as providing new visual experiences for audience members. One can even purchase a three-dimensional television to use in the home.

This emphasis on visuality is not necessarily a new phenomenon. Television reception studies demonstrate that viewers frequently express a preference for television shows based on their aesthetic qualities (Krijnen, 2007). Evidence suggests that the aesthetic quality of US television dramas and sitcoms is one of the reasons they are so popular globally; as production companies serving a smaller region have smaller production budgets, US productions' aesthetic quality is comparatively higher (Kuipers, 2011).

Despite this cultural emphasis on visuality and research demonstrating the importance of visual elements on audiences' media consumption choices, research methods in media studies have traditionally relied largely on textual or spoken methodologies to explore these visual aspects of media experiences. While interviews, focus groups, and textual analyses are perfectly good and well-established ways to study media, we base this chapter on the position that great theoretical and methodological potential lies in studying visual media with visual methods, particularly photovoice methodology. Media studies and reception studies have embraced methodological variety, using in-depth interviews, focus groups, media ethnography, and participant journals among other methodologies, and we see photovoice as a significant additional opportunity to continue methodological development in media studies.

This chapter proceeds first with a brief review of the relevant literature, including audience reception studies and photovoice methodology. We then discuss the specifics of this research project by outlining our participants and procedures. Finally, we present the visual and textual results and discuss the possibilities of photovoice methodology in media studies.

Review of Relevant Literature: Television Reception Studies

Television reception studies have a long-standing history and take a wide variety of forms, traditions, assumptions, and debates. For our purposes in this chapter, we define television reception studies as a set of approaches in which the researcher engages with the audiences of one or more television shows to (re)construct the meanings created in the process of viewing. Such studies view audiences as explicitly active in their engagements with TV shows. Scholarship in mass media and communication has explored television reception in depth (Staiger, 2005), with studies from a media studies tradition moving increasingly toward an interpretive perspective (i.e., trying to find out how people make sense of TV and construct everyday life meanings) during the last two decades, while those from a communication sciences perspective have been moving toward behaviorist approaches (i.e., trying to find out how TV affects our behavior).

While a thorough discussion of the history and underlying epistemological perspectives of reception studies is beyond the scope of this chapter, some brief historical background is necessarily to locate photovoice in its proper context. Reception studies have focused on topics as diverse as identity questions (Gauntlett, 2008), fan cultures (Sandvoss, 2005), moral meanings (Krijnen, 2011), and girl culture (Kearney, 2011), just to mention a few relatively recent examples. Researchers use an assortment of methodologies as diverse as the research questions they are aiming to answer. Research questions in audience studies usually start with the word “how,” indicating that the researcher wishes to explore audience activities without being preoccupied with testing hypotheses or burdened by assumptions regarding what audiences do with the meaning they draw from the television that they watch. To get at that exploration, the most commonly used methodologies are the in-depth or semi-structured interview and focus groups. In both occasions, the researcher engages in conversation with one or more audience member(s) about a case, using some starting questions or a topic list. Usually these conversations are audio- or video-recorded and transcribed afterward. The transcripts are then analyzed using a certain form of textual analysis (common choices are discourse, semiotic, or narrative analysis).

The most famous and therefore “classic” examples of this kind of analysis include Liebes and Katz's (1990) The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of “Dallas,” which employs focus groups; Morley's (1980) The “Nationwide” Audience, which employs media ethnography; and Ang's (1985) Watching “Dallas,” which employs analysis of letters written by audience members. Each of these studies employs a different method but shows something similar in the results: audiences actively engage in sense making, and popular culture products have importance for them beyond mere entertainment value. In turn, studies following these “classics” sketch a tremendously nuanced picture of how people make sense of (popular) culture products in a welter of relevant fields. Almost all these studies are based on interview or focus group material discussing how audiences construct meaning from certain themes offered by TV content (Hill, 2005; Krijnen, 2011), or how they perform aspects of their identity when participating in the research (De Bruin, 2008).

To date, reception studies largely lack a visual element. This does not in any way invalidate these studies, as it may be possible to explore people's interpretations of visual elements via observation or interviews. However, just as all methodologies have their own particular strengths, photovoice is particularly strong in helping researchers get at aspects of understanding and interpretation that cannot be gained in other ways. Specifically, photovoice allows researchers to get at visuals in a dedicated manner. Participants can provide and discuss images of moments in television shows that are meaningful, or document visual aspects that provide insight into how they experience or interpret the world in light of a television program or film. In the next section, we briefly review the background and applications of photovoice methodology, our primary method for the research project described later in the chapter.

Photovoice

Photovoice is a qualitative research method whose usage in communication, mass media, and media studies is growing. With photovoice methodology, participants use cameras to generate visual data (e.g., take pictures) about the subject matter of a research project or of an existing phenomenon. The photographs generated by participants then become central artifacts for discussion in an in-depth interview and/or focus group. Researchers can use the resulting images and interview data to discuss participants' thoughts, emotions, behavior, and communication practices. One of the distinct strengths of photovoice is the centering of the participant perspective in the research process. While the directions given to participants can vary in their degree of specificity, photovoice, in general, encourages participants “to take photographs of lived experiences that the researcher is not (or could not be) aware of” (Wolfe & Novak, 2011, p. 7; for a more detailed explanations of how to perform a photovoice project, see also Novak, 2010, or Wang, 1999).

Photovoice developed from three main theoretical traditions: critical education, feminist theory, and documentary photography. Critical education, in the vein of Friere (1993), influences photovoice in the sense that photovoice, and its participants, seek to understand and act upon historical, institutional, social, and political conditions that impact people and communities (Wang, Morrel-Samuels, Hutchinson, Bell, & Pestronk, 2004). Feminist theory is a key underlying framework for photovoice in that the method seeks to center the individual participant experience in the research process and to de-center the position of the all-knowing researcher. Finally, documentary photography influences the development of photovoice methodology with the belief that images have the power to raise consciousness on social, political, and historical issues.

Photovoice methodology originated from the field of public health with the publication of Wang and Burris's (1994) groundbreaking essay. A high percentage of photovoice research still stems from public health (e.g., Jurkowski & Paul-Ward, 2007; Schwartz, Sable, Dannerbeck, & Campbell, 2007), but photovoice research is also prominent in the study of education contexts (Sands, Harper, Reed, & Shar, 2009), social change research (Wilson, Dasho, Martin, Wallerstein, Wang, & Minkler, 2007), disability studies (Booth & Booth, 2003), and community-based research (Gant, Shimshock, Allen-Meares, Smith, Miller, Hollingsworth, & Shanks, 2009). However, photovoice's utility has not been widely harnessed in explorations of communication and media. Searches in popular databases reveal very few published articles that use this method in communication and media-related studies (see Novak, 2010; Singhal & Devi, 2003; Singhal, Harter, Chitnis, & Sharma, 2007; Singhal & Rattine-Flaherty, 2006; Wolfe & Novak, 2011).

This chapter continues to build on previous arguments (e.g., Novak, 2010) concerning photovoice's utility as a method needed to investigate communication and media phenomena. More than just an example of photovoice, this chapter will highlight the means by which interpretations and understandings of media can be explored via photovoice. Photovoice has great potential in media studies to (literally) see a variety of issues and context from a new perspective. Photovoice provides a new methodological twist to reception studies as well as other areas within media studies. By involving participants in the research process, photovoice increases participation with the potential of revealing experiences and situations that can extend theoretical knowledge. Ultimately, photovoice can reinvigorate audience reception studies as the method shifts interpretation away from a research structure dominated by the researcher.

Methodology

In order to explore the possibilities of using photovoice to study audience reception, we recruited 10 participants¹ for an exploratory study. We proposed two condition paths to explore photovoice's utility in this context, with half of the participants taking part in one condition and the remaining participants in the second. The two conditions are potential variants of photovoice conceived by the authors based on prior photovoice projects and the uniqueness of studying media artifacts. In our study, five participants watched an episode of the HBO television series True Blood and used screen captures to talk about the show. Five participants used a more traditional photovoice approach whereby they watched the episode and then took photographs in the world of people, objects, and events that related to their experience of the television program. (For detailed procedures for this study, see Appendix A.) Participants were undergraduate students recruited from communication and media courses. No extra course credit was offered for their participation, though students did receive small gift bags. The next section briefly describes our rationale for choosing this particular text. A discussion of the specific details of each photovoice condition follows.

The Show True Blood

HBO's hit series True Blood has received abundant attention since its release in the fall of 2008. Based on a Charlene Harris novel, the series' main plot revolves around the people of the fictional village of Bon Temps, Louisiana, at a time when vampires – no longer dependent on human blood after the invention of synthetic blood by Japanese scientists – are trying to integrate into society. Main character Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress, gets involved with vampire Bill Compton. Their relationship evolves over several seasons, falling from one catastrophe into another. People around both Sookie and Bill get involved in the story, making room for several plotlines and more “creatures of the night” such as werewolves, shape-shifters, and fairies (HBO, n.d.). The series is directed by Alan Ball, who is also responsible for Six Feet Under. The show received a vast amount of attention (Moody, 2008), in part because of several elements that also make it an excellent case for our study: it uses technical innovations to create a highly visual spectacle; elements of this spectacle are sexualized; and the show must be understood in the context of its intertextual connections with other similar (and often highly visual) texts.

As a result of technological innovations in the TV industry, the use of special effects and other aesthetic elements has increased and gained importance over the years. In True Blood, these technological possibilities are exploited to a maximum. This turns the series into a true visual spectacle. Second, the danger True Blood's characters represent generates a high erotic potential. The power of the vampires to “glamour their victims” (True Blood-speak for putting a victim's mind at ease) and the intimate bond that exists after a vampire drinks one's blood are both visualized in an erotic manner. Additionally, the show has elaborated on this theme by incorporating sexuality as a powerful weapon of many creatures (both human and nonhuman): seduction is often employed as a means to get one's way. Though explicit, the sex in the show is of a certain aesthetic quality. Highly stylized visuals of sexually explicit scenes are part of the show's overall spectacular visuals. Finally, True Blood is a visual evolution in the lineage of vampire serials and can be read as intertextually related to other vampire stories, starting with Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula, its multiple film iterations, as well as contemporary vampire television (e.g., The Vampire Diaries) (Beck, 2011; Hardy, 2011). Because these elements are so central to the show and because the show is so highly visual, exploring them through a visually driven method, such as photovoice, is likely to yield a deeper understanding of audience interpretations.

Combining Photovoice With the Reception Interview

We chose episode 10 of season 2 of True Blood, titled “New World in My View,” as a strong exemplar of the elements just described. Moreover, as it is part of a narrative developed through a season, it is difficult to decipher exactly what is going on if one is not a regular viewer of the show, and we made this choice purposefully as we felt this would increase participants' need to interpret the show.

Here, we outline two ways in which the power of photovoice might be harnessed to deepen investigations of media. The first involves a more traditional take on photovoice. In this condition, students were told to watch the True Blood episode from beginning to end without pausing. Students were provided with paper and pen to take notes or record thoughts about what they saw. Once the show was completed, they were told to take photographs that captured what was important to their understanding of the episode. Participants were asked to choose a maximum of 20 pictures to discuss during the interview. Most interviews took place one week after viewing, which we judged to be an ample amount of time to allow participants to think about the episode as well as take photographs, while not allowing their memory of the show to fade significantly.

The second condition is rooted in traditional photovoice methodology but envisions new possibilities for harnessing photovoice for media studies research. In this case, students watched the stimulus episode in full. Participants were asked to capture images of the show itself via pausing and screen-capturing, either as they watched or after watching and reflecting on it. Students were provided with a notepad and pen in order to take notes about scenes, notable dialogue, and the like. They were encouraged to screen-capture images that were important to their understanding of the show or significant in their interpretation of the episode. These students were also asked to choose a maximum of 20 captures that best expressed their understanding. These captures were a major component of the interview, which took place directly after they finished watching the episode and taking captures.

The interviews were guided by a topic list (see Appendix B) that was sensitive toward whether participants took photographs or screen captures. We started the interview by asking them to recount what happened during the episode (e.g., what did they think was important, which themes were apparent to them, etc.). This retelling of the episode was based on Liebes and Katz's (1990) approach and was meant to give insight into initial starting points of meaning and sense making. This kind of interview is an example of an “active interview,” in which both interviewer and interviewee engage in constructing meaning (Holstein & Gubrium, 1999). Next, we discussed the screen captures or photographs, engaging the interviewee in a narrative on the how and why of each capture/photograph and allowing the participant to reflect on the photovoice approach. This approach offered insights on the pros and cons of each method that might be applied more generally to media reception studies.

Results: Using Photographs to Talk About Television

In order to discuss the utility of photovoice in helping us understand participants' experiences of the text, we will discuss the findings of this project in two broad themes. First, we will address the potential unique contributions of this method both within and across the two proposed iterations of photovoice. Second, we will discuss the methodology's ability to inform our understanding of the aesthetic dimensions of a text. Of our 10 participants, two considered themselves fans of the show and had seen all or most of the episodes. Three participants had heard of the show and knew the basic idea (e.g., that it was a show about vampires) and had maybe seen a few episodes. These participants liked the fantasy genre in general, though sometimes preferred “softer” versions such as Twilight or The Vampire Diaries. Five participants had either only heard of the show but not seen any episodes, or knew nothing about the show at all. These five participants, in general, did not find shows in the fantasy genre appealing. There were both similarities and differences between the “fans” and “nonfans” of the genre in terms of how they used photos/screen captures to express themselves. Based on these findings, we will argue that our adaptation of photovoice is in some ways more suitable to investigate fans than nonfans of a certain genre or show.

We were impressed by the creativity with which all 10 participants took part in the research process. Participants taking photographs sometimes engaged in role-play, some involved friends, some went to visit certain sites to capture the images they thought they needed, others took photographs that they happened upon while going about their day. Moreover, each participant clearly used the method – either photographs or screen captures – in an individual manner to express their thoughts about the program. Their overall enthusiasm and creativity is indicative of the value of photovoice as a media studies method. Additionally, all participants reported that having to take screen captures or photographs caused them to engage with the episode's content in a deeper way than they usually would. As one participant said:

While this participant usually does something else while watching television and focuses more on the dialogue than on what is shown on screen, she reported that she enjoyed paying careful attention to the visual content when participating in the study. This suggests that photovoice, on one hand, may fail to fully capture the “natural” way in which viewers normally watch television. It may, on the other hand, help focus their viewing efforts and foster more active and engaged viewership and reflection.

Almost all interviewees expressed some appreciation for the visual quality of the show. Each of them used screen captures or photographs to visually explain what they thought about the various elements of this episode of True Blood. Many photographs and screen captures depicted elements of the show the participants found enlightening, interesting, or funny. A few images related to scenes or images that participants found “disturbing” or “creepy” or that they did not like. Overall, we believe the photographs and screen captures enabled participants to express themselves more thoroughly regarding their thoughts and feelings about the quality, symbolism, and meaning of the show than an interview without photographs.

Using Photovoice to Express Manifest and Latent Themes

Our first theme covers the participants' discussions of content, its meaning, and their interpretations of the symbolic and narrative elements of the program. Since it is not our aim to unravel what meanings participants construct, but rather to focus on the process through which they construct this meaning using either verbal or visual means of expression, we will not delve into the “what” of these themes, but the “how.” While we felt a more traditional interview would have sufficed for discussions of the manifest themes, the contribution of photovoice as a method became particularly clear in the discussion of latent themes in the show's episode. Manifest themes can be understood as themes that are obviously proffered by True Blood. These themes are what the show is about – the topics we find in the descriptions of the serial's episodes. Latent themes, on the other hand, are more interpretive and less easily accessible in the text. Wester and Weijers (2006) refer to them as the meanings in a text that are shaped by contextual factors of production, such as genre, language, cultural habits, economic criteria, medium, and so on. These latent themes are commonly understood as the deeper layers of meaning in a text. Not all audience members engage with these themes (Fiske, 1987). We will nevertheless briefly discuss participants' engagement with manifest themes before moving on to address how they expressed latent themes.

Manifest themes are themes around which True Blood revolves. The “Other,” good and evil, religion, and relationships (between friends and family) were manifest themes mentioned by most participants. In our study, both participants taking screen captures and those taking photographs used visual means to express their thoughts on the (manifest) themes, which is what we asked them to do. However, the ways in which they creatively expressed their thoughts via the photographs was particularly surprising and exciting. Figure 20.1 represents how Brittany interpreted an element of the show and translated that into a visual image. This participant talked about how she wrote the quote on the paper very neatly and then tore the paper out, ripped it, and wrinkled it to capture the flawed nature of human beings, as is also evident in the quote she chose.

In the other condition, a participant taking screen captures chose a specific scene to express her thoughts. Gina used the screen capture in Figure 20.2. She described how she wanted to capture this exact frame when watching the episode because you can just begin to see Tara's eye turning white (which means the curse that is on her is breaking). Gina stated, “I took this picture at this exact moment because it represents when you can see that there is good in her and that the evil is going away.” Still, we feel that this manifest theme could have been easily addressed in an interview as well, without photovoice.

Figure 20.1 Crumpled paper that reads “sinners by default”

Figure 20.2 Screen capture of eye changing from black to white

According to Beck (2011), manifest themes should be read intertextually. In this case, intertextuality is the understanding created about one text (an episode of True Blood), in relation to other texts. Fiske (1987) distinguishes between horizontal and vertical intertextuality. Horizontal intertextuality addresses True Blood's meaning in relation to other programs in the genre (i.e., other primary texts), such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Vampire Diaries. Vertical intertextuality focuses on the True Blood's meaning in relation to other texts that refer to it, or “secondary texts.” Secondary texts would be things like newspaper articles and pictures, and tertiary artifacts such as fanzines and blogs. We think that photovoice, especially at the vertical level, offers a small advantage over interviewing, as it enabled us to grasp the (visual) articulations of intertextuality by our participants.

For example, in discussing religion in the show, intertextual meanings became apparent. In one respect, this is not surprising, as religion is part and parcel of the vampire genre. Vampire stories relate to Christianity (e.g., you can ward off vampires with a cross or holy water), and religion and ritual were key elements of participants' interpretations of the episode. Multiple participants saw religious themes running throughout the episode, including, as Theresa stated, “religion, pagan religion, symbols, statues.”

However, religion and ritual in True Blood are taken beyond their traditional or expected meaning. One particular element in the episode, a kind of totem pole, symbolized this exceptionally well. In the episode, the totem is built for the maenad Maryann who wants to evoke her god Dionysus through a sacrifice, which refers to ancient Greek mythology. Though some participants found this totem disturbing, most participants pictured it because it is an engaging visual feature: it contains meat, vegetables, some skulls, flowers, and fruit. All participants who took screen captures took a capture of the “meat tree” from one of the opening scenes of the show. Figure 20.3 shows a representative example of the screen captures. Similarly, even participants who took photographs remembered this scene. Multiple variations of the photograph in Figure 20.4 were taken by the photography participants. Some participants took pictures of lunchmeat packages, while others took pictures of their dinner with meat in it.

This meat tree, due to its disturbing nature, would also have been point of discussion if no photos or screen captures had been involved. However, participants taking photographs also elaborated on this theme with their photographs, making multiple mentions of religion. Consider the photograph of a lit cross that one participant came across while biking around town at night (Figure 20.5).

Due to the method used, participants taking screen captures were, of course, unable to take anything other than images available in the show. It is interesting, though, to see how, in that sense, the approach of manifest themes for the participants is highly intertextual: they read the ancient Greek religious theme in association with Christian religion and, ironically, their lunch (Beck, 2011). We believe this manifest theme would have shown up in interviews as well. However, the contribution of photovoice in this case is in the visual articulations of the intertextual meanings of a manifest theme proffered by the text. The photographs and their articulated meanings highlight connections to everyday practices, such as eating meals and walking around the city, and not only to other mediated texts and interpretations of the program. These results enlarge our understanding of intertextuality. This is a small but important extension of intertextuality that is made possible via photovoice. Photovoice's greatest potential contribution, however, rests in its ability to capture latent themes. Both participants taking photographs and the ones using screen captures touched upon latent themes that, they argued, would have been impossible to explain without the visual aids.

Figure 20.3 Screen capture of “meat tree”

Figure 20.4 Photograph of meat in butcher's case

Figure 20.5 Photograph of lighted cross

Figure 20.6 Screen capture: seeing True Blood as a character

Gina, using screen captures, touched upon what she felt were different perspectives on the same “reality” the episode tries to provide for its audience. In the episode, a rather chaotic event, probably a Dionysian bacchanal, takes place. This event is shown in True Blood from various perspectives, giving the audience the opportunity to take the perspective of the people involved. The characters in the bacchanal – who are under maenad Maryann's spell – see the scene in orange and red lighting. The onlookers, who view the scene in its harsh reality, see as if they are viewing a first-person video game. This theme of the three different perspectives would have been near impossible to describe orally. As one participant explained:

GINA:	I think this is how black-eyed people see it. I wanted to show the different types of how they see stuff. What I did notice is that the whole scenery and how we see it [as viewers] is really dark but whenever they [the characters] see it, it is all colory and yellow and green. Like, lots of colors.
INTERVIEWERS:	Does that mean anything to you?
GINA:	Well, not specifically that I can think of now. But it shows that there is a clear difference between how the people with black eyes see things and how. . . it really shows that there are two different types of people.

Participants taking photographs came up with latent themes in a similar way. For example, Ingrid took the photograph in Figure 20.7 because, as she explained, she felt that there was “something military” in the show – some characters reminded her of Vietnam vets. Nevertheless, she could not really explain why she thought about this theme: “It just stuck in my head.”

Using the visual tools clearly enabled participants to express thoughts and feelings about the episode that would have been difficult to explain or express otherwise. In the case of screen captures, participants could show us exactly which scenes or images induced these thoughts. Participants using photographs had more time to reflect and process their ideas and thoughts, but still produced some photos associated with “vague impressions that stuck in one's head.” In that sense, the contribution of the screen capture participants was much greater than it would have been in a “classic” photovoice approach (see Novak, 2010), as it allowed them to refer to specific visual elements that generated particular reactions and feelings.

Figure 20.7 Photograph: soldier's graves

While there are many similarities between what is gained via photovoice and what would be gained in a traditional interview when simply considering the themes of this television show, photovoice generates an additional layer of interesting data. As the examples of Gina and Ingrid demonstrate, participants often struggled with voicing and formulating thoughts on some of their own interpretations. Using the photographs and screen captures provided them with an additional means to explore and share these interpretations. The use of visuals might have also brought themes to the conversation that would otherwise have been ignored. The results of this small exploratory study do suggest that photovoice might contribute to a more in-depth and multidimensional understanding of what audiences do with the media products they consume. In addition to a discussion of the latent themes in the episode, the photographs and screen captures also elicited numerous comments on the aesthetic elements of the show.

Providing an Aesthetic Foundation

Regardless of the iteration of photovoice they applied, participants talked about how they saw the episode, the world outside of television, their relationships, and many other aspects of the text using visual language – both literally and symbolically. Thus, photovoice has great potential to move beyond an exploration of what themes participants might see in a particular show, toward a better understanding of how they see the show and interpret meaning visually – as this exchange with Tina illustrates:

TINA:	I don't think I'd continue to watch this show. I don't know. I like the whole vampire thing but I don't know what it is about this show. Maybe because it is more adult or visually, things that I don't like.
INTERVIEWER:	Like what?
TINA:	Well, there is a lot of blood and it's all a little more extreme than what I'd normally watch. Like Vampire Diaries is at a bit more of a high level.

Regardless of whether or not participants liked the show, all of them showed appreciation of its aesthetic quality. Even when images were discussed as “disturbing” or “creepy,” they were still appreciated as “engaging.” For example, Theresa commented that a screen capture of a vampire crying blood was an “important image.” As she explained, however:

THERESA:	Yeah. I think it is weird. Why is he crying blood? She's making out with him. I don't know.
INTERVIEWERS:	But the image of the man's face with blood was disturbing or shocking?
THERESA:	Yeah. Right. Mostly shocking. Normally with vampire shows there might be blood around the mouth or something, but that he's crying blood? That's weird.

Many of the participants in both conditions commented and took photographs of the colors and lighting of the episodes which they connected to moods, emotions, and feelings that are supposed to be evoked by the show. Consider the following interview excerpt:

THERESA:

They work a lot with lighting and colors. For example, in darker areas – for example the scene at the house, it was only lit with candles and it gives a certain ambience, so to say.

Tina took a screen capture of the nearly complete blackness of one scene (a shot of what Sookie sees when she looks into Tara's head) to talk about the darkness of the episode and the mood that it attempts to convey, and stated, “I think it was the lighting that created the mood about the show.”

Another participant, who took photographs, took a photo of the reddest item she could find (Figure 20.8) because the show was saturated with red colors and certain emotions that this participant associated with red.

THERESA:

Visually for example, the very first scene where she walks through this hallway. The warm. The colors. The red colors which create this rather warm but stuffy atmosphere and reminds you of blood. I like how they use the lights to convey a certain feeling.

Many participants commented on colors and darkness and how the show used these elements to portray a certain mood or feel. Participants took pictures of leather couches, bags, buildings, and trees to talk about the mood of the episode and how that was connected to color.

Another highly visual scene is where Sookie, who manifests as a fairy in a later season, attacks the maenad with a power coming from her hand. Multiple participants noted this scene. Figure 20.9 shows a representative screen capture of the scene. However, the aesthetics of the show were also sometimes the reason a participant might reject it. Ingrid called the show “over-dramatized” because of some of the visuals. Ingrid, along with a friend, acted out the picture shown in Figure 20.10. Ingrid explained how the photo expressed her ironic view on this event from the show. The scene was “a bit too much” for her.

Figure 20.8 Photograph of red building on campus

Figure 20.9 Screen capture of lighted hand

Figure 20.10 Photograph of re-enactment of lighted hand scene

While Ingrid took an ironic viewing position (in the sense explained by Ang, 1985), some participants were embarrassed or shocked by some of the elements, causing a definite rejection of the show. The explicitly sexual scenes, in particular, evoked this kind of response. Interestingly though, participants also used visual means to point out exactly what it was they didn't like. For example Mihaela commented:

She, and another participant used screen captures to explain why she did not enjoy watching the episode. Some scenes were “too explicit, too much in your face.”

It is here that an interesting difference between fans and nonfans appears: the fans of the genre generally were enthusiastic about the aesthetic elements that cause nonfans to reject the show (and maybe genre). Fans of the genre, and especially fans of True Blood, called the show mature and saw it as aimed at an adult audience and therefore found it much more enjoyable than, for example, the Twilight series, which is aimed at teenagers. Similarly, the elements that Ingrid calls “over-dramatized” are interpreted by fans as important additions to the show's quality. Helen, for example, explained how she felt about these visual aspects:

To Helen, these elements are not “over-doing it” but show her how much effort, thought, and even craftsmanship went into producing True Blood. The aesthetic elements seem to be an important part of liking or disliking the show. Though this is a common element mentioned by interviewees in reception studies, we believe that using photovoice delivers a valuable contribution to understanding exactly how these aesthetic elements interact with interpreting media.

Another interesting difference between fans and nonfans that became clear through discussing the photographs and screen captures is the amount of attention paid to the aesthetic elements while they were viewing. Nonfans of the genre used their photographs and screen captures more often to express what they thought the show was about, touching on manifest, sometimes latent, themes. Take Ingrid, for example, who was not a fan, and her comments regarding the “meat tree”:

INTERVIEWERS:	Could you talk about what you remember about the show visually? What did you see? What did you think about the visual aspects of the show?
INGRID:	Uhhh . . . visually? I think some parts they captured quite well. Like the rituals. I think they made a tower of . . . what was it? Rubbish? Meat.
INTERVIEWERS:	[Laugh] I think it was both.
INGRID:	Yeah. It looked disturbing.
INTERVIEWERS:	Did you like that? I mean, when you say disturbing, do you mean, they did it well.
INGRID:	Yes.

Fans of the genre, however, used their photographs and screen captures more often to express all the reasons why they liked the show, including the aesthetic elements. We feel this difference is related to the ease or difficulty the participants had in making sense of the show. Participants who had never viewed an episode mentioned they felt “somewhat lost” and “in the middle of a season” (which was, of course, the case). For them it might have been a priority to make sense of “what's happening” first. Participants who were familiar with the show or genre obviously had less difficulty understanding what was going on. Having knowledge of the codes and conventions of a genre enabled them to interpret and construct their own view of the show. In other words, these results do suggest that our method might be more suitable to study fans of a certain genre than nonfans because the power and utility of photovoice are harnessed when researchers want to learn from participants who know a subject well.

Discussion and Conclusion

Along with all of the usual benefits of photovoice – such as centering participant experiences and revealing previously unknown details outlined in other essays (Wang, 1999; Wang & Burris, 1994)–photovoice has great potential to develop and challenge theoretical and methodological perspectives within the realm of media studies. As other photovoice studies have noted (Novak, 2010; Wang, 1999; Wolfe & Novak, 2011) one of the strongest benefits of photovoice is that it allows knowledge previously inaccessible to the researcher to be illuminated. With only the 10 participants, our study yielded images and text that point to an increased ability for interviewees to interrogate and display what they meant when asked “Is this show good? Why?” and “What do you like about this show? What makes it better than other shows?” The participants were able to use and capture images to remember scenes and moments from the show and to connect those to their thoughts, emotions, and reactions. By using photovoice we were able to get at deeper levels of individual meaning as well as the complexity of individual interpretation. As such, we believe photovoice can be a fruitful methodological path for researchers to uncover theoretical complexity in virtually any media studies area.

Furthermore, we believe the visual element of photovoice highligh t participants' experiences and explanations of the aesthetic element of the show on multiple levels. Participants were quite easily able to grasp the manifest themes (e.g., good and evil, friendship, religion) of True Blood, even without background knowledge of the show. The ways in which they used aesthetics to talk about those themes were quite creative and enlightening. Both explicitly in their comments and visually in their photographs, participants were engaging the questions: What have I seen? What does it mean to me? How can I express that visually? This added a level of depth to the results and analysis that would not be available with topic-list interviews only. The photovoice interviews allowed us as researchers to explore aspects of the participants' interpretations of the show that may not have come up otherwise. For example, when a participant took a dimly lit screen capture of a scene and discussed how that was a visual representation of evil or darkness, the photograph opened up a conversation with that participant: What about that scene was evil? What represented evil? What was good? This is directly related to the openness and ambiguity of photovoice, which researchers must be comfortable with when employing this method. Because photovoice opens up the conversation topically, there are great benefits to be had, such as deeper but more diverse results.

Having outlined the benefits and potential of using photovoice methodology in media studies, we would like to note some of the limitations and potential pitfalls of photovoice in this context. From sitting in on each of the interviews and seeing all of the photographs collected in this project, we believe that the research process was more fruitful when the participants were fans of the show or genre. Participants did not have to be dedicated fans, but even marginal fandom or awareness of the basic themes, premises, and characters of True Blood resulted in a much more free-flowing and rich interview. In our study, participants were shown an episode that most had not seen before. This, in our estimation, impacted their ability to engage with and interpret the show. Participants who had no understanding of True Blood struggled to make sense of one mid-season episode of this show. Generally speaking, the photographs taken by participants who did not know True Blood were still creative and interesting, but these participants struggled to make sense of the episode. Furthermore, comments from the interviews indicated that people without background knowledge of True Blood had to work harder to pick up on storylines and characters and perhaps were less able to pay attention to the aesthetic elements of the episode. Using photovoice with participants who do not have knowledge of the context of the show may be more useful if participants were to document their thoughts on a full season of the show or on a pilot episode, where background information would play a less significant role.

Similarly, one limitation in this study seemed to be genre. The participants who stated they were not fans of fantasy generally seemed limited in their interpretations of the show, though the creativity of their photographs did not suffer. Participants who were not fans of True Blood or of fantasy in general seemed more likely to identify more superficial aesthetic elements and to not engage as deeply with the show. Thus, photovoice methodology seems to be more appropriate to tap into deeper sense making and interpretation elements for people who are more willing to engage with a show from this type of genre.

One other potential pitfall of this methodology has been noted in previous photovoice studies (Novak, 2010; Wang, 1999). It relates to the directions given to the participants and manifests itself in two ways. First, participants need to be educated that the camera is a tool that comes imbued with power. Participants – even young student participants who are used to having a camera on them virtually all the time – should be made aware of the power a camera wields and of potential ethical issues. One participant in our study took pictures of friends who were posing and re-enacting emotions from the show and, upon finding out that those photographs might be included in a book chapter, the subjects of the photographs politely asked that we not use any of the photos in question. Participants should be told up front and in no uncertain terms in what ways the photographs they generate might be used and what their responsibilities are as photographers. Likewise, participants need to remember to indicate to any subjects of their photographs how their images might be used. Second, multiple participants questioned whether or not they were taking the “right” or “correct” photographs or if they “were doing what we wanted them to do.” In similar projects we would try harder to make it clear to participants that we are interested in their interpretations and the connections about the show and the life they are making, and that there are no specific “correct” answers.

One final potential pitfall mentioned in passing by a few participants was the content of one particular scene. In this scene, characters can be seen engaged in sexual activity, drinking, and rowdiness. Some participants did not care for this particular scene, while others found it entertaining. However, many participants, whether they liked it or not, recalled this scene, and some seemed distracted by the adult material of the scene. By asking participants to take photographs that capture the show for them, some participants may have spent undue attention on a scene to which they normally would not have not given much attention. So, in essence, photovoice might actually call attention to highly visual scenes that would otherwise go unnoticed by the participant or be unnoteworthy to them.

In conclusion, we think that photovoice is a useful methodological tool to deepen our understanding of participant experiences with, and interpretations of, different types of media. We think that an expanded role for photovoice methodology will be a beneficial addition to media studies in general and to reception studies in particular.

NOTE

1 All participants have been given pseudonyms for the purposes of this chapter.

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Appendix A: Procedures

Traditional Photovoice

1. Project overview
   1. (a) This research is about how people experience media visually. We are going to show you a one-hour television show and ask you to think about and reflect upon that show visually. We are going to ask you to take photographs that document your thoughts, feelings and emotions about this show. So, while you are watching the show, please think about the images you see, what they say/mean to you and how you interpret what you see in the show.
   2. (b) We are going to show you one episode of a television show that you may or may not have seen. It does not matter if you are familiar with this show or not. Just watch the show carefully, listen, enjoy it and think about what it means for you. Once you have finished watching the show, we are going to ask you to take photographs to document how you experienced the show, what it made you think about and how it made you feel. You may take notes about the show and/or record thoughts about the show and what it makes you think about.
   3. (c) Do you have any questions about the procedures of this study thus far?
2. Television program
   1. (a) Participants will now be shown a one-hour television show. Participants can pause the show if you like and take notes.
3. Initial wrap-up
   1. (a) Participants will leave the viewing room and take as many photographs that capture their experience of the television show as they like, what it made them think about, what it inspired in them, what frustrated them, etc.
   2. (b) Participants will be asked to select 20 photographs upon returning, but should bring all photographs they took with them.
   3. (c) Emphasize that participants should feel free to think about what photographs they take, but that traditional measures of “good” photography are not important in this research. Participants should take photographs that capture their thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc . . .
   4. (d) Participants will have 1 week to take photographs and will return the following week to complete the interview portion of the project and submit their photographs. Inform participants to bring their photographs with them on a USB drive or to bring a camera (and connective USB cord) with them.
4. Interview
   1. (a) Upon second visit, participants will choose 20 photographs from the photographs they took.
   2. (b) Once images are selected, participants and researchers will proceed with the interview protocol (See Appendix B).

Procedures: Screen Capture

1. Project overview
   1. (a) This research is about how people experience media visually. We are going to show you a one-hour television show and ask you to think about and reflect upon that show visually. We are going to ask you to take photographs that document your thoughts, feelings and emotions about this show. So, while you are watching the show, please think about the images you see, what they say/mean to you and how you interpret what you see in the show.
   2. (b) We are going to show you one episode of a television show that you may or may not have seen. It does not matter if you are familiar with this show or not. Just watch the show carefully, listen, enjoy it and think about what it means for you. While you are watching the show, we want you to pause the show and take screen captures of images of the show that are meaningful for you. Once you have finished watching the show, we will talk about the images that you captured. Capture images that document how you experienced the show, what it made you think about and how it made you feel. You may take notes about the show and/or record thoughts about the show and what it makes you think about. Show participants how to capture images via keyboard shortcut. Leave written instructions on how to do capture image.
   3. (c) Do you have any questions about the procedures of this study thus far?
2. Television program
   1. (a) Participants will now be shown a one-hour television show. Participants can pause the show to take notes and screen captures.
   2. (b) During watching, participants should pay attention to the show and their reaction to the show. Participants should pay particular attention to the visual elements of the program (i.e., interesting, meaningful, frustrating, difficult images, etc.).
3. Interview
   1. (a) Upon finishing the program, participants will choose 20 screen captures (if more than 20 taken). Once images are selected, participants and researcher will proceed with the interview protocol (See Appendix B).

Appendix B: Interview Protocol

Questions About Experience With the Show

1. 1 Have you seen this show before? This episode?
2. 2 What do you know about this program?
3. 3 Would you continue to watch this show? Why or why not?

Questions About the Program

1. 4 Tell me what the show was about. What happened?
2. 5 What aspects of the show did you find engaging? Not engaging?
3. 6 What are the main themes of this show? Are these themes important to you?
4. 7 What did you like about this show?
5. 8 What did you dislike about this show?
6. 9 What are your reflections on the visual elements of the show? How did the show look to you? What did you like? Not like?

Questions About the Photographs

1. 10 Choose 20 photographs that represent your experiences watching the program and/or what the show made you think about?
   1. (a) Why did you take this photograph/screen capture?
   2. (b) What does this photograph/screen capture say about the show and/or what you got out of the show?

Questions About the Method

1. 11 Did you find taking pictures/screen captures valuable? Why or why not?
2. 12 Were you able to express information about the show (and your interpretation of it) via the photographs that you would not have been able to do otherwise?
3. 13 What difficulties or challenges did you encounter when taking photographs/screen captures?
4. 14 How did you go about taking your photographs? What kind of time span after watching the show did you use?

Wrap-Up

1. 15 Are there any photographs/screen captures that you did not take that you wanted to?
2. 16 Do you have any questions for us about this project or anything you experienced?