The long-lasting tradition of print
has established certain patterns of comprehension. Although literature is still
and probably for a long time will be considered high-brow art, it is also a
business based on profit and sales. Ever since the Gutenberg press came into
being literature started to sell itself to wider and wider circles of people
until it gained status of mass product. Literature is commodity. As Pierre
Bourdieu asks in The Field of Cultural
Production “Who is the true producer of the value of the work – the painter
or the dealer, the writer or the publisher, the playwright or the theatre manager?”
(Bourdieu, 76).
In the current thesis I argue that the most admired literary prizes such
as the Booker Prize play their huge role in determining the value of piece of
literature. In order to do so I focus on the way media represent the award, the
contestants and what elements and common metaphors they use to do so. Comparing
several newspaper articles on the topic, I point out important media analysis
elements like the observation that the reporters quote academic experts or
mention well-known people with recognized authority to prove a point.
Significant for my thesis is also the usage of numbers and poles in which way
the media try to solidify the facts giving exact expression of the issue of
sales. In my media analysis paper I consider of a great value the fact that the
topic of the Booker Prize is very well covered in every newspaper I chose to
look at.
In a Guardian issue from the 17th
October 2012, a detailed overview of the sales of the Booker Prize shortlist
books and the winner is provided. The article is under the section News and it
is tagged “data journalism”. This first basic fact points a finger at the
higher level of validity and trustworthiness of the information. Numbers cannot
lie. The article is very accurate in giving them; there are tables, statistics
from previous years, comparisons. The
data provider is cleanly quoted at the beginning – Nielsen Bookscan, considered
a pioneer in the field of providing figures for book sales. In this way the
medium clearly tries to leave an impression of precision in the reader,
persuading him/her to rely on the news provider for the most accurate
information. By constantly using expressions like “leap in sales”, “staggering
1918%”, “high sales”, “long-term boost”, etc. the language of the article
strongly implies that numbers are an important topic of consideration. Such
persuasive language tries to advocate the point that the article makes: being
in the Booker Prize list effects the sales of a book. This thesis is outlined
at the very beginning and systematically proved. Possible contra arguments are
left for the end and are quickly waved aside by yet other evidences of the
contrary. The article is very careful to give only facts in order to keep the
impression of sustained believability. The factology and the clear-cut
arguments support what the article calls “the Booker effect”. The medium also uses images as visual data. A
picture of the Booker Prize winner for 2012 Hilary Mantel is placed at the top
of the page. She is portrayed holding the winning book with a broad smile on
her face. As Barthes argues in Mythologies
the image connotations can create a level of meanings that he calls myths.
By showing the winner in a delighted state with a winning book in her hands the
reader can easily be helped to think about wealth, prosperity and happiness. The
book is at the middle of the shot – in the central position of the view. Not
only does this hints for the important position of the book for the topic but
also promotes the easy access to the product – it says that this is “hot” and
talked about and it is worth buying it since so many people have already done
so.
In a similar fashion The Telegraph
covers the topic about the Booker Prize. In series of articles the reader is
presented with reviews of the books that made it to the shortlist, with
background information of the authors and their previous achievements. But most
importantly it features an article that quotes the jury’s argumentation of
their choice. It works both with image and text. The picture shows the members
of the jury aligned in front of our eyes on a font of book packed library. Not
only the image plays with the possibilities of the meaning of the word
background but strongly implies the idea that these people are representatives
of academic status. They are to be trusted and relied on. The chairman of the
jury is in the middle and a step in front of the others to illustrate the idea
of authority. If we go even deeper in the image analysis we may argue what is
the role of the gender discourse. We have three male and two female jury
members. We can speculate that the masculinity is still dominant source of
believability. But the members of the jury are not decided by the media, what
the media decide is how to represent them. The principle on which they count on
in their choice of books is directly quoted in the subtitle and repeated in the
article. Thus it is depicted as something of great importance and shows that
the jury bases their decision on concrete criteria. As a leading line the
article from the 12th September chooses to juxtapose the “readiness”
of the last year novels and this year ones that are clearly not mainstream. Focusing
on this aspect the article triggers a wide-spread notion that mainstream is not
that high culture and persuades the reader to believe that the books from the
list are valuable and are examples of high literary qualities.
In an article from the 16th October the newspaper keeps the
interest of the reader by providing reviews for the shortlisted books. It
increases the expectations announcing that the award is going to be awarded
later that day and speculate who the winner might be. As soon as the subtitle
it announces that two books are favourites. It also lines the covers of the books
in close-up image. This article taken from the digital edition of the newspaper
allows it to include click away references to other articles. Striking from
analytical point of view is that the newspaper provides extensive articles,
interviews, data for the favourites and for the better known authors. The
lesser known are not that well covered which provokes questions like what or
who exactly determines the favourites. The variety of possibilities that
digital media have, allows The Telegraph
to include videos of previous winners who lengthily explain the importance of
the prize. They, as winners and as established authors, contribute to the
authority discourse.
BBC News includes every of the discussed features. It presents the
winner with a video of her speech, highlights the amount of money the winner
gets and proceeds by listing interesting facts both about the winner and the
prize – the fact that she is the first woman to win the prize twice and also
the first living British author to do so. It quotes the opinion of the chairman
of the jury, who is a sir, well known author like Margaret Atwood and a
bookseller. It also cites the two leading newspapers The Telegraph and Guardian.
In this way it doubles the effect of believability and stands for the medium
which gives the accurate and the most detailed information.
I particularly chose three of the most popular media in Britain. The Telegraph has daily circulation of
approximately 600,000, The Guardian –
359,000. BBC is considered leading medium in Britain. They all present the
chosen topic relying on similar repeatable elements and easily recognized
metaphors. They cover the issue in length and provide variety of information on
the subject. Being broadcasted daily they can refer to the issue over and over
again in passage of time making it appear interesting and worth
reading/showing. It also establishes the issue as of cultural value and even of
national importance. It legitimizes the Booker Prize as something notable in
the literary world and thus directs the people’s attention to the books
included in the list for the prize.
The ability of the media to get to us is the key for understanding their
influence and sometimes power. This is the power to define meanings and to
encode messages no matter overt, covert or both. As a conclusion I would like
to cite Graeme Burton: “In general, the media define all sorts of meanings for
us – about what is normal, what is entertainment, what is news, what is
important, what is valued, what we should believe in. It is the value messages
that are most important because what we value is what we live by.”
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ralica_Luckanova
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ralica_Luckanova
Sources:
Bourdieu, Pierre – The Field of
Cultural Production, Essays on Art and Literature, Polity Press
Burton, Graeme – More than Meets
the Eye, London, 2002
Guardian, 17th October 2012 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/oct/10/booker-prize-2012-winners-sales-data
The Telegraph, 12th September 2012 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booker-prize/9537028/Booker-Prize-shortlist-turns-its-back-on-readability.html
The Telegraph, 16th October 2012 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booker-prize/9535301/Man-Booker-Prize-2012-shortlist-reviewed.html
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