The best bits: Non-narrative pleasures and creative practice

Partington, Angela

Abstract

This article is a discussion about the development of media practice both as a creative endeavour and as the collaborative interaction with audiences. It argues that innovations in media practice are dependent on the relationships between practitioners and viewers and that in order to work as ‘cultural intermediaries’, media practitioners need an understanding of how audiences’ relationships with media forms (specifically the ways in which viewers use them to experience shared pleasures) drive innovations in practice. It is also intended as a contribution to the development of Visual Culture as a discipline which is distinct from older critical discourses such as Art History and Film Studies, insofar as its ‘objects’ of study are the practices of looking/watching, rather than images/visual forms as fetished objects. Any critical discourse which aspires to understand the emergence/development of contemporary media forms needs to focus on the ways in which audiences use them, rather than on aspects of ‘form’ such as narrative. © 2008 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
• Journal: Journal of Media Practice
• Print ISSN: 1468-2753
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 9-18
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.9.1.9_1
• Keywords: creativity, pleasure, spectacle, audience-participation
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1020987
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.9.1.9_1