Hi all, I'm looking for one more person to join my panel for SCMS 2012 on media paratexts and gendered marketing (see abstract draft below). If anyone is interested, please shoot me an email. Best, Colleen Colleen A. Laird Lecturer Japanese Studies Department of Language, Literature, and Culture University of North Carolina at Greensboro PhD Candidate Japanese Cinema and Gender Studies Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures University of Oregon Media paratexts: magazine cover shoots, television promos, interviews, Rotten Tomato aggregates, Roger Ebert tweets, theatrical trailers, leaked photos, gossip mags, Happy Meal toys, soundtrack music videos, official websites, DVD box sets, SNL parodies. Media paratexts, as conceptualized by Jonathan Gray, are the materials that surround a media text (e.g. a film or TV show), but they are more than marketing campaigns and bonus features; “they create texts, they manage them, and they fill them with many of the meanings that we associate with them” (Gray 2010, 06). Paratexts bind the target text by way of repetitive explanation or contextualization (howsoever homologous or seemingly polysemous), enveloping target spectators within an info-sphere of predetermined, “correct” meanings and interpretations. Through the process of creating packaged meaning in media packaging, paratexts “tell us how producers or distributors would prefer for us to interpret a text, which audience demographics they feel they are addressing, and how they want us to make sense of their character and plots” (72). Although many paratexts are created and repurposed by spectators themselves—fans and detractors alike—those produced within and approved by the industry do the most work to align texts with safe images and interpretations designed for successful mass marketing. Safe, of course, refers to meanings shaped by and molded to dominant social norms, ideologies, and power structures; constructs that do not challenge patterns of normative social dominance and are as such those most profitable for the industry. Analysis of paratexts, as Gray suggests, allows us insight to the mechanics of industry created sociocultural demographics—the manufacture and maintenance of group taste derived from the illusion of tailored market niches. This panel is concerned with the particular intersection of marketing paratexts and gender. First and foremost, our panel acknowledges the tremendous economic power female audiences possess. Their economic potential is of great interest to media industries and we see evidence of increased efforts to target female audiences and their economic capital. From media remixes of “Girl Power” and the postfeminist sexuality of popstars (Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry) and chick flicks (Sex and the City, Bridesmaids) to the Twilight franchise and the rise of tween primetime programming (the CW lineup, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance) female audiences are rapidly outnumbering and outpurchasing their male counterparts thanks to the proliferation of media specifically targeting their presumed needs and desires. We ask: How do paratexts conceptualize and shape female audiences? What do paratexts reveal about contemporary constructs of gender? How do paratexts imagine or create gendered tastes and desires? What role do female audiences have in the maintenance or rejection of these constructs? What are female audiences buying into (or not) and how? Sources Gray, Jonathan. 2010. Show Sold Seperately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New York and London: New York University Press. ---- To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]