Producing nature(s): on the changing production  

Oleh:

Cottle, Simon

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Media, Culture & Society vol. 26 no. 1 (Jan. 2004), page 81-101.
Fulltext: 81MCS261.pdf (104.01KB)

Isi artikel

This study serves, then, to demonstrate the usefulness of attending to ‘production ecologies’ for improved understanding of media organization and production more generally as well as, in this case, the recent development and evolution of a particular media form: natural history programmes. As such it also performs as a case study in the social construction and social evolution of public representations of ‘nature’. Nature, as contemporary sociologists have documented, is susceptible to a diversity of social constructions (Eder, 1996; Macnaghten and Urry, 1998; Allan et al., 2000), and the study of natural history programmes provides important insights into the changing ‘nature(s)’ of public representation and understanding of (or sensibility towards) the natural world. Derek Bous´e has eloquently charted the history and informing cultural narratives of wildlife films and argues, ‘wildlife film producers, working in a competitive, commercial setting, have perfected and come to rely upon narrative formulas, if only to systematize production’, and goes on to say that, ‘the regular application of these formulas, along with consistencies of theme and character give wildlife films the rule-governed coherence of a full-fledged film genre’ (Bous´e, 2000: 20). Recent changes in production and representations of natural history programmes, however, render problematic both the notion of a relatively settled genre defined by predictable formulas, consistencies of theme and character and rule-governed coherence, as well as its functionality for systematizing production. The ‘genre’ of wildlife programming has, if anything, become decidedly ‘un-genre-like’ if this is taken to be a relatively settled ensemble of industry inscriptions, programmes’ formal composition, routine subject matter and appeals, and audience expectations (Williams, 1985; Feuer 1992; Neale, 1995).

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