<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><div style="font-family: times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span><span class="yiv1764789485Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">Hi all,<br>I'm looking for one more person to join my panel for SCMS 2012 on<br></span></span><span><span class="yiv1764789485Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">media paratexts and gendered marketing (see abstract draft below).<br>I work on Japanese cinema, but the other members of the panel</span></span></div><div style="font-family: times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span><span class="yiv1764789485Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">work on American (US) media and other national media. We welcome</span></span></div><div style="font-family: times, serif; font-size: 12pt;
"><span><span class="yiv1764789485Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">all geographic fields.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span><span class="yiv1764789485Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">If anyone is interested, please shoot me an email.<br><br>Best,<br>Colleen<br><br>Colleen A. Laird<br>Lecturer<br>Japanese Studies<br>Department of Language, Literature, and Culture<br>University of North Carolina at Greensboro<br><br>PhD Candidate<br>Japanese Cinema and Gender Studies<br>Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures<br>University of Oregon<br><br><br><br>Media paratexts: magazine cover shoots, television promos, interviews,<br>Rotten Tomato aggregates, Roger Ebert tweets, theatrical trailers,<br>leaked photos, gossip mags, Happy Meal toys, soundtrack music videos,<br>official websites, DVD box sets, SNL
parodies.<br><br>Media paratexts, as conceptualized by Jonathan Gray, are the materials<br>that surround a media text (e.g. a film or TV show), but they are more<br>than marketing campaigns and bonus features; “they create texts, they<br>manage them, and they fill them with many of the meanings that we<br>associate with them” (Gray 2010, 06). Paratexts bind the target text<br>by way of repetitive explanation or contextualization (howsoever<br>homologous or seemingly polysemous), enveloping target spectators<br>within an info-sphere of predetermined, “correct” meanings and<br>interpretations. Through the process of creating packaged meaning in<br>media packaging, paratexts “tell us how producers or distributors<br>would prefer for us to interpret a text, which audience demographics<br>they feel they are addressing, and how they want us to make sense of<br>their character and plots” (72). Although many paratexts are
created<br>and repurposed by spectators themselves—fans and detractors<br>alike—those produced within and approved by the industry do the most<br>work to align texts with safe images and interpretations designed for<br>successful mass marketing. Safe, of course, refers to meanings shaped<br>by and molded to dominant social norms, ideologies, and power<br>structures; constructs that do not challenge patterns of normative<br>social dominance and are as such those most profitable for the<br>industry.<br><br>Analysis of paratexts, as Gray suggests, allows us insight to the<br>mechanics of industry created sociocultural demographics—the<br>manufacture and maintenance of group taste derived from the illusion<br>of tailored market niches. This panel is concerned with the<br>particular intersection of marketing paratexts and gender. First and<br>foremost, our panel acknowledges the tremendous economic power female<br>audiences possess.
Their economic potential is of great interest to<br>media industries and we see evidence of increased efforts to target<br>female audiences and their economic capital. From media remixes of<br>“Girl Power” and the postfeminist sexuality of popstars (Beyoncé, Lady<br>Gaga, Katy Perry) and chick flicks (Sex and the City, Bridesmaids) to<br>the Twilight franchise and the rise of tween primetime programming<br>(the CW lineup, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance) female<br>audiences are rapidly outnumbering and outpurchasing their male<br>counterparts thanks to the proliferation of media specifically<br>targeting their presumed needs and desires.<br><br>We ask: How do paratexts conceptualize and shape female audiences?<br>What do paratexts reveal about contemporary constructs of gender?<br>How do paratexts imagine or create gendered tastes and desires? What<br>role do female audiences have in the maintenance or rejection of
these<br>constructs? What are female audiences buying into (or not) and how?<br><br>Sources<br>Gray, Jonathan. 2010. Show Sold Seperately: Promos, Spoilers, and<br>Other Media Paratexts. New York and London: New York University Press.</span></span></div></div></div></body></html>