Is this a language thing or a culture thing?

[yvannairie]

Is it really accurate to say most people "consume" media instead of engaging with it?

(I've been confused about it for a while b/c the people who don't use their critical thinking skills while watching/reading/playing things have always been in the minority for me, and even they have usually been uncritical of things they haven't fully engaged with -- so, the same as me, I don't do the neck deep character dives into everything either.)

(It has that same suspicious sound as someone saying "sheeple" tbh)

Comments

[cassini]

[i'd like to hear the various answers on this, because i noticed i was using 'consume' rather than 'engage' and i'm sure i picked it up from tumblr, accidentally, as i was making constant efforts to not engage (ha.) with fandom in that arena because i Don't Like It. it seems to have happened regardless, and i didn't think too deeply about it until the 'backlash to the backlash' wave of people saying 'you don't consume media like an unthinking construct, don't you engage with it like a sentient being with ethics etc?!' that made me pause, and think, huh, i get you. i get what you're saying, backlash-squared folk. and i get what you're saying, yvannairie ]

[so what the funk is everyone else doing with these words? i'm going to continue to use 'consume' to speak for myself personally because i'm making some mental health humour about my status as an unthinking construct, and i link the word consume more closely with indulgence and experiential sensation than i do with mindless absorption or indeed capitalism ]

[engage implies some level of critical sparring that i used to enjoy with stuff like elder scrolls but i now reserve the mental spoons for the work arena. i consume my entertainment hedonistically and with a noncommital flippancy, whenever i can ]

[yvannairie]

My working theory is that it's a register issue brought about by the way people get into critical theory on the internet -- in mass media studies, the term "consumption of media" is value-neutral, like how "cultural appropriation" is, but when people are introduced to it through a critical, negatively-tinted context, the understanding gets muddled by the "common sense" understanding of the word. "Consumption" brings to mind digestion -- you cannot decide what nutrients you take in from the food you put into your mouth, so you have to be critical of what you eat in the first place -- even though consumption of media doesn't imply that you cannot affect what message you take away.

Similarly to the consumption vs engagement thing, I've seen people try to distinguish between cultural appropriation and "cultural drag", so that people can have a value-neutral and a judgemental word for the same thing.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

A lot of media is just passive entertainment for people, or a distraction. There's a significant portion of the population which doesn't engage in fannish behavior, in that they watch things and go "that was cool/nice/alright" and then that's it and it's just another thing they saw and they don't stay up at night obsessing about it or thinking too closely about it. Many people are casual about media and serious about other things instead, like maybe sports. And obviously there are people who exist in the reverse, too, like those who are casual about sports but die-hard about certain film franchises. And it's not like. Good or bad if people aren't "critical" about every form of "entertainment" or art, it's just like. Something to consume.

So I think that's what "consume" alludes to.

[yvannairie]

So you think it's more a culture thing? It doesn't sound like it applies to anyone who is interested in media in the transformative sense fannish folks are.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

I'm talking about the entire population of society--I feel like "consumption" gets used a lot within fannish discourse as a way to signal a relation to passive or lowkey or non-immersive enjoyment (or simply... consumption which isn't even necessarily enjoyed) of media. Which is related to how "critical" mens lots of different things, and in this case, "critical" alludes both to thinking about the social context of the media content as well as enjoying it for its intellectualism or commentary or realism or anything beyond "simple" entertainment.

[yvannairie]

That makes sense.

[cimorene]

I think that only a minority of people intend that distinction when they talk about media consumption, probably essentially only the ones talking about critical consumption.

[yvannairie]

Yeah, I touched on that in another comment on this post. "Media consumption" is a "value-neutral" word in, like, media studies, but in fannish contexts it doesn't make much sense.