Abstract
This book is a sort of a novelty for Romanian media scholars, with its compilation of 15 chapters concerning the degrees of fictionality that charactierize the various kinds of discourses in different types of media, ranging from TV to the Internet, and taking the forms of news, TV drama, news feeds, political discourse and public identity. Each angle of approach employed here has its finer points; each can serve as a useful tool for becoming familiarized with this field of investigation. One drawback may be that the book’s focus on fictionalization may lead the general reader to believe that all media are fictionalized. The editors would have done well to have included a preface that featured a straightforward statement of their goals, their research methods and, most important, a common interpretative framework for all the articles. Without disregarding the true value of almost all the studies here, the book leaves the impression of a somehow sketchy approach to fictionalized media or to fiction in the media rather than an organic, coherent and well-organized volume.
The book is structured into three main sections: ‘Semi-Fiction in Media’, ‘Fiction in Media of the Information’ and ‘Virtual Worlds and Fictions’. Overall, this collection of studies stands out by some brilliant work in deciphering the devices by which we live by means of fiction(s).
With very strong ideas related to what the editors understand as semi-fiction, largely deriving Janka Kascakova’s chapter concerning fictionalization as found in a contrast between J.R.R. Tolkien’s Aragorn versus Peter Jackson’s Aragorn of the cinema, the first section of the book draws attention by Andre Krauss’ article on the distinction between reality and fiction in entertainment media. After compiling a brief but comprehensive history of entertainment, stemming from the idea that entertaining is ubiquitous, and approaching some coherent viewpoints on media effects, author Andre Krauss successfully attempts to present and comment ‘the special effects and editorial techniques’ (p. 10) that are intended to blur the clear distinction between reality and fictionally rendered reality, managing to achieve, as he calls it, ‘a platform for discussions’ (p. 54). Dealing to a certain extent with the same problematic relationship, Valentina Marinescu’s attention is drawn to how newly broadcast Korean TV dramas (starting from 2009, the author identifies an increasing number of Korean dramas as a response to an increase in the number of audience) echo in the audience perception scale. Based on ‘interview sets and […] online discussions on forums devoted to these TV series’ (p. 97), Marinescu manages, by means of sociological methods, to paint the reception picture of such movies by compiling a list of moral, cultural, social and historical key terms the viewers most commonly resort to when talking about these movies they are more than keen to watch. Not disregarding a confusion in terminology, the author enlists aspects like ‘movies, music, video or computer games’ under the heading ‘folk Korean culture’ (p. 91). Her findings may very well provide a solid starting point for further research on how the Korean wave produces patterns of cultural consumption in the Romanian society. Displacing the focus from the audience and media relationship, Valentina Gueorghuieva’s approach to TV dramas is equally valuable for investigating fictional femininities in the ongoing Bulgarian TV drama ‘Home of Glass’. Guided by the femininity performative profiles described by Anglea McRobbie in her 2009 ‘The Aftermath of Feminism’, the author details how the two main characters of this TV series negotiate their media-created images of ‘success and independence’ (p. 57). Without the explicit goal to read the media-created profile from a gender-generated perspective, Daniela Roventa-Frumusani and Adrian Stefanel achieve a brilliant reading of how the media managed to create a public profile for one of the most controversial Romanian political representatives: Elena Udrea. Starting from the idea that individual identities are consistent with Circe and Proteus in terms of ‘perpetual metamorphosis and the multiplicity of faces and masks’ (p. 79), the two authors manage to identify a Cartesian axis–based identity profile of constant mixes of male–female hyper-sexualization and, at the same time, a male–female professionalization which, to a wide extent, can be identified in almost all main political figures.
In the second part of the book, the focus changes to an analysis of how fiction becomes a sort of a cornerstone in information media. Dobrinka Peicheva, analysing the new communication media, is aware of some of their features like ‘mobility and instantaneity’ (p. 115), which seem at times to alter more traditional modes of communication. Peicheva feels the need to find a new conceptual background for such analysis, while Elena Ghinet and Ana Elefterescu concern themselves with more longstanding questions of morality, authenticity and unreliability in creative nonfictions. A more case study–oriented article is Adriana Stefanel’s which focuses on the way reality can be very easily fictionalized by a Romanian tabloid TV channel when they broadcast live the political turmoil and peoples’ reactions to it during the 2012 presidential suspension procedures. Finally, Marian Petcu’s hypothesis that literaturization contributes to a great extent to the fictionalization of press is really an eye-opening account on how one should really read information media, irrespective of their types.
The third and last part of the book deals with what can generically be named virtual identity–building behavior. Distinguishing between an active and a passive ‘digital footprint’ (p. 194), Poliana Stefanescu analyses some aspects of corporate online reputation management cases, while Ruxandra Boicu discloses the game played between disclosed identity and anonymity in both fictional and nonfictional blogs. The last study of the book continues the idea of online reputation building, but this time focusing on the celebrities decline from ‘hero to zero’ (p. 213) by putting together Chuck Norris’ online persona and that of a Romania singer, Fuego.
Placing aside the already mentioned shortcomings and some of the not-so-inspired approaches to the media in some of the studies here, the collection can be read as a first-rate contribution to the media studies, not so much as an in-depth analysis but as grounds for opening what may become a very fruitful debate in this rather controversial field of research which is the fictionalization of media messages.