Comments on: Downloading Serial (part 1) http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 By: Jason Mittell http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-438874 Mon, 03 Nov 2014 18:41:52 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-438874 I’m not trying to police boundaries. I’m trying to explore how expectations for what a piece of long-form journalism changes when it becomes serialized. As I note in the piece, my thoughts are evolving and developing as SERIAL unfolds, and the conversations in the comments develop. Thanks for weighing in!

]]> By: bwunderlick http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-438099 Tue, 28 Oct 2014 02:05:32 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-438099 Present-day significance & high-stakes are so broad to cover nearly anything. Again, it could refer to feature, theatrical documentaries, like Citzenfour. Is Citizenfour morally obligated to not use narrative techniques like withholding information during its run time because the subject is important and current day? Because lives hang in the balance, should it not engage in cinematic storytelling because it has an arbitrary, completely constructed responsibility to journalism (and not to truth or justice or some other standard)?

I really think the big issue here is what is “journalism” is changing, but instead of considering how it is changing, you are trying to police discursive boundaries. I’d think that would be a much more fruitful and interesting path of inquiry than weather or not what genre this belongs to and if the practitioners have poor ethics for not following the expectations of said genre.

]]> By: Jason Mittell http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-438062 Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:59:12 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-438062 For me the relevant distinction between journalism and nonfiction storytelling in this case involves the present-day significance & high-stakes of the story: there’s a man in jail who might be innocent, and potentially one or more guilty parties who have not been caught. If this were a historical story with no present day consequences, then withholding information or misleading us for dramatic effect seems more “fair”; but there are lives hanging in the balance and Serial‘s reporting is now part of that story. Koenig has admitted that there is crucial transformative information about the case that she is withholding until later in the podcast. What type of withheld information would feel like a “cheat” to the storytelling, and/or a violation of journalistic ethics? I can think of a few.

]]> By: bwunderlick http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437995 Sun, 26 Oct 2014 05:00:07 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437995 I’m really having trouble understanding what is your criticism here, especially in terms of concern trolling over “journalism”. As others have said, this isn’t even journalism, it’s more like nonfiction storytelling. By your suggestion, every documentary ever would be committing questionable journalism because it presents story information that may or may not be relevant. What you are calling journalism is very ill-defined, and then you are worried it is not adhering to that empty signifier.

]]> By: Greeney28 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437882 Wed, 22 Oct 2014 21:54:37 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437882 I’ve only listened to the first episode so far, but I came right here to read this once I was done. So thanks for enlarging the experience, Jason. Ironically, it seems some avenues of critique may be impossible until this open narrative experiences some closure. For example, I love the point above that there may be a larger commentary on time–a sort of metadiscourse on memory and chronology that might illuminate broader issues of storytelling. But to what extend can we know how fully that theme may be operating throughout the series until the end of the series?

I also wonder if there is an implicit critique already at work, even if Koenig is not yet fully aware of it. This comment may be out of date for those of you further into the series, but at the end of episode one, Koenig is bursting with excitement about her discovery of the library witness, yet Adnan completely shuts her down. Her little victory of storytelling does NOTHING for him, and I was struck by how he punctured her narrative euphoria with his stark reality. Ultimately, while we sit through this story in our cars, homes, and other places of leisure, Adnan is sitting in a maximum security prison. That hangs over the whole, and I’m not yet sure what are the implications of that.

But Koenig as character? YES. Waiting to see how that plays out, too.

]]> By: Jonathan Nichols-Pethick http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437351 Tue, 14 Oct 2014 20:22:37 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437351 Jason, I love what you are doing here and find your ideas truly provocative. I’m enjoying SERIAL as well and am fascinated by its strategies. One of the things that seems to be motivating the storytelling is the issue of time itself. Not chronology itself so much but, rather, the complex interplay between past and present. From the opening gambit, one of the key points of the story seems to be the inability to accurately recall details, events, times, places, and chronology. So while the generic tropes of serialized mystery fiction and journalism come to bear on the presentation (for the sake of entertainment and authenticity), there might be something more elemental at stake here. I agree with you that there seems to be something odd in the treatment of Mr. S as a “red herring.” What’s the point if it doesn’t build to something more important later on? I’m wondering if it’s all about Koenig’s (and the police’s) process which has to slog through so much potentially promising and ultimately misleading information – and she wants to share this with the audience. So, again, maybe there’s something about the impossibility of accuracy here – the way in which no investigation can ever resolve as satisfactorily as a well-crafted story.

]]> By: Lori Lopez http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437346 Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:48:22 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437346 I guess we’ll have to tune in to find out! A pleasurable assignment indeed… 🙂

]]> By: Jason Mittell http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437344 Tue, 14 Oct 2014 16:40:22 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437344 I see the distinction that you mean, and I agree that SERIAL is journalism but not “news.” But I see two key differences between SERIAL and examples of serialized journalism like the hockey story you link to. The first involves the timeframe: while SERIAL has not announced a number of episodes, they’ve estimated between 12-15. Thus we’re talking about a 3+ month span of storytelling, which creates a different mode of engagement more comparable to fictional TV than a newspaper story spread over a week or two.

The second involves structure. The hockey story is basically chronological, after an intro that “spoils” the ending. Other serialized journalistic pieces follow the chronology of the reporter, uncovering the layers of the story alongside the journalist. But SERIAL seems to be neither of these – at least thus far. This conversation has made me think more about what is motivating the structure, and I’m still unsure – there could be a buried chronology at play, with the opening episode laying out the broader arc and each new episode filling in the details of the chronology. But it doesn’t feel like that to me based on the first three episode, so I’m trying to tease it out.

Thanks for engaging with me on this – as I said above, this is an experiment in trying to serially explore these ideas to be later coalesced into an essay, so such conversations are essential!

(And if anyone else reading this has links to other interesting examples of serialized journalism and/or scholarship about serialized journalism, please share them!)

]]> By: Lori Lopez http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437334 Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:33:47 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437334 I think what I’m saying is that there’s a difference between “news” and other types of journalistic endeavors that a journalist might take up — for instance, writing a book, making a documentary, writing a magazine piece, making a podcast. Even writing a feature article is something different from news, even if it appears in a newspaper and is written by a journalist. Just because a journalist does these things doesn’t make them “news” that demands writing in a way that never frustrates the reader with its artful deployment of narrative. So maybe Serial is journalism in some sense, but it certainly isn’t “news” and doesn’t ever pretend to be.

But more on the idea of feature articles written by journalists — it seems like you are overlooking the existence of serialized journalism, which most certainly already exists. Now this is perhaps not the way that “news” stories are written, but there are plenty of amazing serialized stories written by journalists.

Here’s one from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-boy-learns-to-brawl.html

Many Pulitzer prizes have been awarded to many newspapers for their serialized journalism. There is no inherent demand for journalists to contain their stories within a single chapter — many great stories written by journalists demand that you pick up the paper a day later, or a week later to find the next chapter or the conclusion.

]]> By: Jason Mittell http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/10/13/downloading-serial-part-1/comment-page-1/#comment-437331 Tue, 14 Oct 2014 13:41:31 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=24758#comment-437331 Thanks to both Cynthia & Lori for your comments. I think what’s distinct about SERIAL’s reveal vs. TAL or other forms of nonfiction are the serialized gaps. On an episode of TAL, a compelling magazine piece, a nonfiction book, or a documentary film, you know that everything relevant (which is known) will be revealed by the end of the story that you’ve just picked up. However by adding the serialized gaps, SERIAL defers that reveal in a way that feels odd to me.

Maybe I’m focused too much on this facet because of my interest in seriality, but it felt “unfair” (whatever that means exactly) to spend an episode on the discovery of the body, despite the appearance that this seems to be irrelevant concerning the core mystery. If it were a chapter in a book or other self-contained work, that’s fine, as you know more relevant information is about to come. But because we need to wait each week, it feels like delaying the relevant info is not motivated.

I guess here’s the core question–what is the motivation for not addressing what seems to be the most important lingering question after the first two episodes (which launched simultaneously) what’s the deal with Jay? If the podcast were structured chronologically (following the investigation of either the police or Koenig), that would justify this deferral. But as of yet, it feels like this episode was put here to flesh out the story in an interesting but ultimately frustrating way. Might that impression change? Definitely – but that’s the challenge of consuming and critically engaging with a serial text, as the cultural object changes.

(And I should note that I do love the series, and this reservation of mine is more to generate thoughts & conversation – a post saying how great it is wouldn’t be very interesting…)

Lori – I’m curious why you don’t think it’s journalistic? The host is a journalist investigating a crime. What is non-journalistic about that?

Cynthia – Summer Break seems like Big Brother, as semi-real time reality TV. SERIAL may not know the full ending yet, but it’s not proceeding in a week-by-week reportage, saying “this is what we learned about the case in the last week.” I see a structural difference there.

Thanks again!

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