Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Fear and the Fragility of Myths
- 2 Playing Games with Heritage
- 3 Drama Writing and Audiences as Affective Superaddressee
- 4 Producing Art, Producing Difference
- 5 Making Reality TV: The Pleasures of Disciplining in a Control Society
- Reflections
- References
- Index
3 - Drama Writing and Audiences as Affective Superaddressee
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2023
- Frontmatter
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Fear and the Fragility of Myths
- 2 Playing Games with Heritage
- 3 Drama Writing and Audiences as Affective Superaddressee
- 4 Producing Art, Producing Difference
- 5 Making Reality TV: The Pleasures of Disciplining in a Control Society
- Reflections
- References
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Extending the ideological emptying of audiences into a more detailed examination of the competing goals and demands of illiberalism in Singapore's media, Chapter Three focuses on how the multiple roles and relations of illiberal capital are embodied by producers in the struggles of scriptwriting a crime drama. These struggles revolve around the audience as a problematic. Developing the concept of audiences as ‘affective superaddressee’, I examine the ways in which the dislocations of illiberal capitalism manifest in anxieties engendered by imagined audiences that serve to perpetuate authoritarian resilience in everyday media production.
Keywords: Affective superaddressee; Control society; Illiberal capitalist democracy; Media production; Drama writing; Imagined Audiences
I barely saw the boss of the production company in the first phases of my fieldwork there, during which I worked more on variety programmes. That changed dramatically in the latter phases of my stay at that company when I worked on several dramas back to back. My daily observations during my time there suggest that he spent much of his time in the office participating in pre-production creative meetings for the company's prime time dramas. This observation did not go unnoticed by others working at the company. Producers working on the variety or infotainment programmes would sometimes comment on the relatively lesser attention the boss showed to their work compared to the dramas. In an explanatory but also frustrated tone, one of the Assistant Producers specializing in variety shows at the time explained to me that this was because the prime time dramas served as the brand of the company for audiences. From an early point in my fieldwork, I had realized that the amount of time the boss of the company dedicated to the writing of its prime time dramas speak to the importance the company placed on them. In some ways, this is not surprising. Despite changes in Singaporean television over the years, ‘it is the Mandarin dramas and comedies that continue till today to produce the highest ratings’ (Tan 2008: 47).
Compared to the constraints of variety and infotainment programmes, drama productions’ higher budgets, bigger teams, longer turnover time, and importantly, their attraction of more viewer attention also often mean their producers have to take more into consideration during their preproduction phases.
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- Information
- Performing Fear in Television ProductionPractices of an Illiberal Democracy, pp. 85 - 114Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2022