EXPEDIENTES EN SUSTANCIACIÓN
ENTE PROCEDIMI TIPO DE ENTO
When formulating this poetics of virtuality I have used two approaches: analysis of professionally produced media artifacts, and analysis of my own work with
producing media artifacts.20 As mentioned previously, a poetics connects the
process of production and the form of the final artifact, and it bridges practice and theory. Therefore I have chosen to analyze media artifacts from two directions, as an author and as a reader. I have used hermeneutics and semiotics for this analysis and for the interpretation it involves. Note that a poetics does not aim to interpret the meaning of individual works (Bordwell, 2006), but rather I have used
interpretation in order to analyze how virtuality is represented. Authoring – studying media productions
My own media productions have mostly been small-scale visualization projects related to public understanding of science or related to teaching. For the study of my own productions, I have used autoethnography and self-ethnography, two approaches based on ethnography. These are primarily tools for conducting observations, but these tools can also partly inform the analysis and writing. The analysis of these observations has been done with a hermeneutic approach, with support from the theoretical framework of production culture studies.
Reading – studying narratives
The professional media artifacts I have studied are primarily feature films depicting fictional virtualities, but also include short films, TV series, computer games, art works, novels and short stories. These narrative texts need to be interpreted, and analyzed. For this work, I have chosen hermeneutics (text interpretation) and semiotics (sign analysis) as my analytical framework, supported by theories on virtuality and production culture studies. I have used a general semiotic approach to study the different aspects of the narrative texts, and fruthermore visual semiotics have come to play a dominant part since the representation of virtuality has proved to be highly visual.
In her own poetics of virtuality, Lisbeth Klastrup (2003a) argues that the study of online virtual worlds requires a cross-disciplinary approach because the phenomena itself is so complex. Roland Barthes (1977) acknowledges that the different aspects of communication (producer, message and reception) “do not call for the same method of investigation“ (p.15). There can be an advantage in using triangulation, and thus having different methods support each other, providing a deeper
understanding as well as a more holistic overview (Campbell & Fiske, 1959; Creswell, 2003; Denzin, 1978; Flick, 2009; Iversen, 2005; Jick, 1979; Seale, 1999). This is not to say that one methodology can explain the results of the other. The intention is to achieve a deeper understanding, and a more complex theoretical
20 I use the term media artifacts in order to include both narratives (movies and literature) and
understanding, by letting different approaches inform each other on equal terms. When the results from different approaches converge they confirm each other, and when they diverge they highlight areas that need alternative and richer explanations (Jick, 1979). My two approaches – the autoethnographic study of production
processes and the semiotic study of fictional narratives – cover different ends of a continuum, ranging from high-end Hollywood productions (the study of existing narratives) to semi-professional small-scale productions (the study of my own productions). Even though the scale and production value of these different productions diverge to a large extent, they still share similar aspects when it comes to production processes and the representation of virtuality.
Analyzing media – production, text and reception
Media artifacts can be studied from very different viewpoints. These viewpoints can be sorted roughly based on the chronological life-cycle of media artifacts. First, media artifacts are produced, and this can be studied. The field of production culture studies is mostly occupied with issues concerning the production itself, such as for instance gender issues in the production crews. Second, the finalized media artifact can be studied, in order to investigate meaning and meaning making. Different readings can be applied to the text, using the text to illustrate and shed light on external conditions in society, for example by doing a feminist or socio-economic reading of a text. Interviews and other documentations from the production can also be used to shed light on the media product itself. Finally, the reception of the media artifacts can be studied, investigating how the audience responds to and interprets a text, a genre or a media.
My study is primarily an analysis of the different narrative texts, supported by observations of production cultures. It is not a reception study, nor is it a
production culture study per se. Likewise, it is not a study of semiotics, neither general nor film semiotics. Rather, production culture studies and semiotics are used as a means to an end. My analysis of fictional representations of virtuality results in a poetics of virtuality, a poetics that sheds light on how we think about virtuality.
The concept of theory is fundamental in research, and so also in this study. Theory is used in film theory, semiotics, hermeneutics, ethnography, and a poetics is a treatise on theory and practice. However, theory is a multifaceted concept. A narrow and strict definition of theory is well described by Sutton and Staw (1995) – theory answers the question “why”? It explains empirical observations with “causal arguments that are abstract” (p.4) and which can be generalized; that is, they can be applied to other settings then the one observed. Theory is a model to be tested (Brannick & Coghlan, 2014). Usually the theory is able to predict the outcome of a situation, and this often means that an experiment – the intentional arrangement of a situation to test the prediction – can be conducted. The experiment or the
observation of other similar settings is guided by a hypothesis, and if the hypothesis is proved correct, then it becomes a theory verified by empirical observations. This view on theory is highly positivistic and dominates natural sciences. However, it is
also quite well spread in psychology, pedagogy, sociology, as well as in other domains.
A more general view on theory is that it is concept driven. Therefore, theory offers descriptions, but not predictions (Andrew, 1984). This is common in film theory and other media studies. Andrew refers to film theory as “a verbal
representation of the film complex“, an accumulation of “ ideas and attitudes clustered around concepts” (p.3). Theory is then a symbolic system used to organize and interpret culture (Brannick & Coghlan, 2014).
Theory as it is used in ethnography, is also concept driven and primarily concerned with descriptions and interpretations. When coding and analyzing ethnographic observations, theory sometimes emerges in the form of explanatory models. But falsifiable theories are generally not possible to formulate, mostly because of the impossibility of controlling all variables (Atkinson & Hammersley, 1989).
The theory that is offered in this poetics of virtuality should be thought of as an abstract description of the observed practices.