The performative persona
- a case study on persona-centred cultural journalism
Introduction
We live in a time where the boundaries of journalism are being negotiated. Many forms of old media struggle to survive and new forms of media and new forms of journalism appear amidst this struggle. New formats such as immersive journalism and long reads are becoming increasingly popular and we are witnessing a diversification when it comes to the voices that enter the field of journalism. Non-trained, non-professionals are producing material that could be labeled journalism and new genres add to the ongoing discussion on the blurring boundaries and stresses the need for new conceptualizations of journalism in academia.
The majority of the academic research into the blurring boundaries of journalism has so far primarily focused on the altered status of journalism (e.g., Blaagaard 2013, Domingo 2014) and the challenges to legacy news organizations (e.g., Singer 2014, Coddington 2014, Ananny 2014). However, in recent years we have also witnessed an increased academic interest in issues of journalism that are less connected with the normative understanding of journalism and the idea of a political public sphere. These issues include emotions/emotionality and affect in journalism (Wahl-Jorgensen 2013) as well as the 'softer' genres/aspects such as lifestyle journalism (Fürsich 2013, Hanusch, Hanitzsch & Lauerer 2015).
A strong tendency yet an academically neglected research area is an increased focus on the individual and the personality of the journalist. Media partly brand themselves through their high-profile journalists, who are situated as unique assets; and the journalists themselves play into this profiling in their published journalism across formats and genres as well as through their use of social media to create and strengthen their cross-media personas or mediated personalities. Against the backdrop of some of the wider transformations we need to critically examine the perspectives of this personality- and persona-driven journalism.
One of the areas where the persona-driven journalism is most present and most distinct is within the field of cultural journalism compared to for instance financial journalism and news reporting. Some academics have argued that cultural journalism could be interpreted as having a special beat. The beat perhaps relates to the areas cultural journalism cover. Some research (e.g. Forde 2003, Supinen 2003, Harries & Wahl Jorgensen 2007) point to a different self-perception among cultural journalists compared to other kinds of journalists where
cultural journalists often seem to have a great deal of passion about the topics, they cover, and in many cases feel they are almost part of the cultural sphere or even the arts sphere. And some research (e.g. Jaakkola 2015) suggest that the cultural journalists are special because they work both within a journalistic paradigm and an aesthetic paradigm and can be understood as cultural intermediaries (Bourdieu 1984) situated between the artist and the art/culture consumers while other studies has illustrated that the relationship between cultural journalists and their sources are different from other journalist-source relations (Kristensen 2004).
Areas within the arts and culture in general perhaps just invites to take a more flamboyant, less norm based, more personal and somewhat more experimental approach, which likely occurs most for persons involved with reviews and other subjective genres and less so for journalists involved with cultural news and more factual based genres which is one the findings from the early stages of my study. This more “lose” approach opens up for the possibility of creating a persona specifically within cultural journalism as the making of a persona seem to demand a certain degree of creative latitude. Historically we also find a number of examples of a more personal approach to doing journalism within the field of cultural journalism compared to other fields of journalism (Isager 2006).
In recent years, we have seen an increased academic interest within the field of cultural journalism and a growing numbers of different conceptualizations of journalism (Zelizer 2016, Hanusch, Hanitzsch, & Lauerer (2015). This can be interpreted as an attempt to expand the research agenda within journalism studies, a field primarily occupied with political
journalism and news production well aligned with the normative conceptualizations of journalism. My study should be seen as a small step in the desire to expand this research agenda. The study is a case study focusing on six cases from contemporary Danish media.
In this paper I will introduce the cases and the journalistic institution they represent.
Furthermore I will provide a preliminary theoretical framework and finally outline some analytical points.
An illustrative case
When the National Danish radio station Radio 24syv started airing November 1st, 2011 it was the result of a long, political discussion. Several political parties wanted to facilitate a national radio station that could counter part of the vast diffusion of the radio stations run by Danish
Broadcasting Cooperation (DR), which some politicians coined as a monopoly. In the media agreement 2010 it was decided to allocate close to 100 million crowns (around 15 million dollars) as a yearly subsidy from the state to the new radio station. Several media companies considered applying to run the new radio station but it in the end there was only one
applicant, namely a joint venture between the media group Berlingske Media (who also runs several national newspapers) and the communication company PeopleGroup (which has a number of activities including publishing house and a film company).
From the offset it was a clear vision from the management of the new radio station that they wanted to provide an distinct alternative to the radio stations of DR. Three keywords were often repeated in the visions: The management wanted to apply an experimental approach to radio, they wanted to create radio programs that were an experience to listen to and finally they wanted to allow new kinds of voices to enter the airwaves (Ramskov & Knudsen 2011). Or put differently: they wanted to do talk radio in ways that departed from the normal
approaches.
This clear vision is part of the reason I have chosen Radio24syv as my primary institutional case as they seem to illustrate an example of the blurring boundaries of journalism mentioned above. But the choice also rests on an analysis of selected shows from the station that actually verifies that (some of) the shows on the channel succeed in taking an experimental approach and allowing new voices to enter the airwaves. Allow me to describe a few examples for clarification:
Every Tuesday afternoon radio host René Fredensborg appears nude while interviewing women from the cultural elite in the cultural radio show AK24/7.
The author Martin Kongstad scripts food reviews performed on air by a professional actor, and he writes food reviews by using the voice of a fictitious character from his own novels. Journalist Poul Pilgaard Johnsen creates very intimate, almost private features and uses his cross-media-made persona in a personality-driven conversation about wine in the radio show “Spirit of the Bottle”. Reporter Ditte Okman invites guests into the studio for a talk about the latest gossip and celebrity rumours while remaining very personally present in the show by being bodily expressive (snoring, sneezing) and linguistically informal (swearing).
I find that two traits seem to be reoccurring when it comes to these cases.
First of all, they all inhabit what we might term distinct mediated personas. If you change the host of their shows, the shows would be different meaning that these hosts all take a distinct
personal approach to their journalism. The personal approaches helps to create a (mediated) persona that seem to be developed across time as well as across media. It is namely significant that almost all of my cases work in several media. Some are freelancers and some have
contract-based full time jobs next to their commitment at Radio24syv.
Secondly, one could argue that all of my cases use what we might term a performative approach to doing journalism. I will elaborate further on the notions of performative and performance later on in this paper but just briefly state that the cases are performative in different ways. Some are explicit and bodily performative such as Fredensborg interviewing while naked or Okman being bodily expressive on the radio show (as well as on social media) while others such as Pilgaard Johnsen adopts a more implicit performative setup by mixing the personal (almost private) details with a more professional approach and acutally could be said to have two very different journalist personas that are activated in different genres and different media.
These two traits which I have located by applying an inductive approach has led me to term this type of journalism as a performative persona-driven journalism which I will try to analyse by combining qualitative interviews with textual analysis.
The theoretical framework
Before the outlining some analytical points, I will introduce the overall theoretical framework and more specifically outline my two main theoretical concepts (persona and performance).
At the moment I work with two overall levels in my theoretical framework. This overview model should provide an idea of the current framework:
In the top frame we can locate all the macro level elements that in various ways
determine/condition and facilitate the matter below. For instance, a certain institution will play by specific media logics and strategically attempt to position itself in the media market.
The institution will have certain tools at disposal such as specific formats and platforms. All the different elements in the macro level contain possibilities as well as limitations to what is possible in the matter below. At the moment, I am considering expanding the model with a middle level (which could be termed the meso level) where some elements from the current macro level such as 'genre' and 'formats' could be placed as there might be a too great dissimilarity in scope between for instance a concept such as mediatization and format).
In the bottom frame we can locate the matter, which is the empirical object of study that I will mainly focus on, namely the agents (journalists and critics) and the products (a written article, a radio show, a Facebook update, a television show etc.). This is the level that I intend to examine by using the glance of persona and of performance. Allow me to present these two concepts more extensively.
Performance
I will turn to Carlson’s understanding of performance as a “display of culturally coded pattern of behavior” (Carlson 2004: 4). Drawing on Schechner’s term “restored behavior” (Schechner 1985), Carlson suggests we differentiate between performance understood as a display of skills and performance understood as “performance not involved with a display of skills but rather with a certain distance between “self” and behavior, analogous to that between an actor and the role this actor plays on stage” (Carlson 2004: 3). In the latter understanding we have an activity involving pretending to be someone other than oneself but still carrying ourselves within the pretended behavior as we find it in for instance theatre, role-playing and rituals. Or as Schechner puts it: “it is a matter of the performer’s not being himself but also not not being himself” (Schechner 1985).
The idea of pretending is a central point, as there seems to be a playful element in many performances. We stage ourselves or stage certain parts of ourselves, which we then mobilize in specific ways in order to obtain the functions of the performance. According to Carlson
“performance implies not just doing and re-doing but a self-consciousness about doing and re- doing on the part of both performers and spectators” (Carlson 2004: ix). This quote is
important in order to understand why performances are not just acts of self-presentation or self-fashioning. The doing and re-doing implies that there is a repetitional aspect to creating performances which connects quite well to the many mediated performances that are central in my analysis of the cases in this study and which often takes place within institutionalized, repetitive and mediated formats.
Another important element in the understanding of the term is the need to think of
performance involving someone else than just the performer. Again we can turn to Carlson who claims that a performance is “(…) always performance for someone, some audience that recognizes and validates it as performance even when, as is occasionally the case, that audience is the self” (Carlson 2004: 5). According to this quote the person doing whatever actions and behavior included in the performance needs an audience. There is a relation and a social interactivity, which is vital if we are to grasp whatever takes place as a performance.
Even if the audience is not directly involved in the performance, the performance itself is framed for that audience and is affected by that audience. The given frame is also an
interpretive frame, which can help the audience understand the performance (Bauman 1989), somewhat similar to the functions of genre.
Now I briefly want to turn to an important distinction between the term performance and the related concepts performative and performativity. The distinction is vital both as a framework to further grasp the performance concept but also because the two related concepts will be explicitly activated in my analysis. Drawing on art historian Mieke Bal, Anne Jerslev has pointed to the relevant distinction between performance and performativity (when it comes to the analysis of certain documentary sub-genres) (Jerslev & Gade 2005). First of all there is a origin distinction: performance derived from aesthetics and performance art whereas
performativity has it’s roots in linguistics and a more constructivistic approach implying that the verbal utterance is actually also an utterance that performs what it says (Ibid: 104).
Language is not just wordings about something. They can have an element of action in
themselves. For instance: saying ”I promise” is actually making the promise itself, the action of a promise by phrasing a few words. Or the ”doing of words” is also a doing in the world. This latter point has been developed as part of the speech act theory of J. L. Austin. In his book How to Do Things with Words (1962) Austin worked on a categorization of utterances in which the perlocutionary utterances implied a performative aspect meaning that the utterance contains
the action in itself and does not refer to a meaning outside the utterance. Applied to the agency focused research area of my study, we could state that performativity can be understood as producing who are you by what you are doing.
Drawing on these notions concerning the performative in the language, Butler (1990, 1993) develops a theory of gender performativity understanding gender as something, which is constructed, activated and maintained through reproduced linguistic and social practices.
According to Butler, we can understand identity and gender by doing and re-doing it, by performing them they are also being established/carried out. Following this line of thought, there is an ongoing development of definitional characteristics by the social doing of the concepts. And perhaps it could be argued that journalism does indeed have some normative levels of understanding but that these norms are also re-negotiated constantly by the doing and re-doing of journalism. Some of the cases in my study challenge the hegemony and try to alter the dominant notions of journalism by for instance applying performative approaches to the doing of journalism and by doing so creating attempts at expanding the frames of
journalism and cultural criticism.
Persona
Now I will turn to the second major concept of my theoretical framework, the idea of a 'persona'. The term relates to the word ‘mask’, both in a theatrical understanding (how an actor wears a mask and acts as a different character than himself) as well as a more general understanding implying how “aspects of one’s character is presented to or perceived by others” (Oxford Dictionary of English). This latter definition also states that the term can both be understood as a conscious acting out, that an agent choses to present to others as well as the actual impression that these others might have of the agent. Another important
understanding of the term comes from Jungian psychoanalysis where the focus is on the relations between the individual and the collective, stating that “fundamentally the persona is nothing real: it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be” (Jung 1992: 158). The focus is on appearance and seems to imply a somewhat superficial nature of the persona; that it is not the real self but only a display put on as a way to deal with the world. According to Jung our persona changes according to the situation and
seems to be adapted to different situations and contexts so that we comply to the different expectations and norms. This understanding connects somewhat to Hannah Arendt’s reading of the ancient Greek’s use of the term where it implied a necessary mask, which was natural to put on when a person entered the public sphere. According to Arendt the mask was in no way seen as a derogatory entity but rather as a natural way to approach the world where we should keep a border between the private and public self.
Philip Auslander (Auslander 2015) diverts from the theatrical understanding listed above (where the persona seems equal to the actor’s character) and in stead treats the persona as a third entity. We have the real person and we have the character (of a play for instance) but in between these two entities we have the persona, which according to Auslander “is anchored in the performer’s personal experience and takes on the appearance of the performer rather than the character” (Ibid: 66). The persona is a contextualized construct, which suits the specific performance situation and is not necessarily similar to the person’s self-presentation in other contexts. This last point is very important to understand Auslander’s distinction between the persona concept and the many instances of self-presentation. The persona according to Auslander is an actual tool that is used to “serve the needs of the performance”
(Ibid: 66).
I have tentatively tried to convert the ideas from Auslander, who mainly works with the fields of music and acting, into the field of journalism. A model of the persona concept in acting vis- à-vis journalism could look like this:
At the bottom of the model we have the real person/ the human being and the private sphere located. At the top of the model we see the final outcome of what takes place in the middle of the figure: either a play/musical performance or a piece of journalism/criticism. Now in the middle part of the model we can see the persona developing by drawing on both elements from the real person and the private sphere as well as drawing from the blue box. In the acting version of the figure the blue box could contain elements such as the script, the character description, input from the theatre director while in the journalism version of the figure the box could include elements such as research material, interview transcripts, guests in the studio, editorial input, “reality”, journalistic norms etc. Via the interplay of the blue box and the real person a persona will appear in the blurring area between the private and the public. This might especially happen when the person uses as rather performative approach to the tools in the blue box and, by doing so, emphasizes a personal approach to the doing and
re-doing of journalism. According to the model, it is also the case that the final product (the published material) feeds back on the persona and helps to reaffirm, alter or erase that particular persona.
The persona concept has recently received renewed academic attention, especially within the field of communication and media studies. In 2014, professor David Marshall published what he labelled “a persona studies manifesto” where he calls for the development of persona studies (Marshall 2014: p. 164). Marshall claims that one of the most significant cultural traits of contemporary society is the predominance and use of personas (or in Marshall’s words an increase in the “publicisation of the self” (ibid: 154) ). That “everybody” tries to make a name for themselves, creating personas in order to stand out from the crowd. Marshall connects this trend to the following three frameworks:
1) changes in labour (from collective to a more individual and project based where one needs to make clear for the capital holder that “I am different” and thus have an extra emphasis on personal branding
2) the spread of social networks and its’ impact on society
3) the idea of “affect” as a driving force in the relationship between individuals and the collective.
From these three frameworks Marshall builds his argument that “the new intensified play of the personal in public needs closer scrutiny” (Marshall, Barbour & Moore 2014). This closer scrutiny could take on a number of perspectives that Marshall lists in his manifesto and which include how the intentions, affordances and functionalities of various networks varies when it comes to persona creation; how affect clusters form through chains of public persona and how journalism is involved in the expansion of the public self (including the journalist himself).
According to Marshall persona studies should be seen as a “wider study of how self and public intersect” and by being so diverts from its rather close attachment to the study of celebrities.
In celebrity studies we mainly deal with a representative system in a confined field whereas persona studies should examine the expansive and pervasive presentation of the self. Marshall extends this argument to differentiate between representational media such as newspapers,
television and radio opposed to presentational media such as individually performed media through online applications and social network sites such as Facebook and YouTube which is one of the main reasons as to why I intend to study the persona in a cross-media perspective.
A few analytical points
In this part of the paper I will provide some very preliminary analytical points. The final analysis will combine the data from the qualitative interviews with my textual analysis.
However, at this point of time in the project, the interviews have not been finalised, so the analytical point in this part of the paper is exclusively based on a preliminary textual analysis.
I will sketch analytical points that are connected to three different cases and includes the usage of social media in two of the cases.
The first case is Martin Kongstad. He has a background in the cultural spheres and the arts having played drums in a rock band and worked as an actor in for instance the Danish movie
"Let's Get Lost" from 1997. Since the late 1980s he has also produced a great deal of cultural journalism, especially within the fields of music and food. One of his first outlets was a Danish youth magazine called Mix and later on he joined the Mens magazine Euroman. And especially at Euroman Kongstad started to experiment with the genres. His writings often seem to
undertake the style of embedded reporting or Gonzo-style journalism. When he for instance portrays a rock band in Euroman, Kongstad seems to be a member of the band rather than a reporter following the band. He writes in a point-of-view from the band within and not as a distant voice. The same goes for his food writings in Euroman and the Danish daily
Information. He is often playful when it comes to the writer's voice. In Information for instance, Kongstad has written several articles using the byline of the Mikkel Valin which is one of the main characters from Kongstads two novels. The result of doing so is an
entanglement of a ficticious world with the world of cultural journalism. By using the voice of a ficticious character Kongstad can add a playful layer to the review and alter his style of writing througout the different genres. Something similar has been done by New York Times literary critic Michiko Katutani, who has written a number of book reviews, in which she uses the writing style of Austin Powers and the Truman Capote character Holly Golightly (from the novel "Breakfast at Tiffany's'").
Due to financial limits, Information was not able to pay Kongstad enough money to bring along a guest when he was going to do his reviews. But Kongstad needed a dialogue partner in the text so he started to quote a friend of his - even though this friend had been dead for twelve years. The quotations from the dead friend add a certain dynamic to the text as it allows for two different, alternating voices to appear. However, by quoting a dead friend, the genre of the food review in Kongstad's case is altered somewhat as the tone of the reviews has a tone of an elegy to them, an ode to a lost friend. The melancholy and sense of longing
provides an experimental background to the very sensual and hands-on details from the food description and the review parts.
His radio show is called "Bearnaise er dyrenes konge" which can be translated to "Bearnaise is the king of all animals" which is also a term that the dead friend used to say to Kongstad. The show, which is aired on Radio24syv, is conversational is the way the articles were. Actually, the radio show is even more conversational since the main part of the show is a conversation between Kongstad and an accompanying and (real) restaurant guest. The show normally has three parts. The first part is Kongstad's monologue where he "thinks verbally" and reflect on the coming dinner with the guest. The second part is the conversation during the dinner. This conversation does not necessarily have anything to do with the food or the restaurant venue but can be about anything else. An illustrative example of this could be the show where Kongstad dines at Jensens Bøfhus (a low-budget steak house) with the female war
correspondent Puk Damsgaard and the conversation mainly revolves around the situation in Syria. The third and final part of the radio show is the reading of the review. After the
restaurant visit Kongstad writes down a review based on his notes and his thoughts after the dinner, much like he would do if the review should be printed in a paper or magazine. Then the review is read aloud on-air by the professional actor Claes Bang who has a distinct way of dramatizing the reviews and by doing so applies a very theatrical, almost overdone, element to the reviews.
By applying these various playful elements to his cultural journalism Kongstad has created a persona across time. It is a persona characterized by its playful nature, its desire to renew or alter existing genres and to make use of traits either from Kongstad himself or traits taken from characters created by Kongstad.
My second analytical sketch is Poul Pilgaard Johnsen. His main job is working as a journalist at the Danish national weekly Weekendavisen, which is a very prestigious and highly regarded newspaper. His writings in Weekendavisen can be grouped into at least two different
fractions. He does a number of investigative and research-heavy pieces. For instance he did a number of investigative reports on the scientist Milena Penkowa where Pilgaard Johnsen proved that she had faked some of her scientific results. The articles created one of the biggest scandals at Copenhagen University.
Pilgaard Johnsen also does a number of more personal, subjective pieces. These articles often deal with some of his passions, especially wine, champagne and women. He often reveals intimate details about his personal life including his love life. Amongst his articles are a number of recurrent article types such as a yearly Champagne article (typically published in the last edition each year) and a Week 29 article (published in week 29 or the week after), which deals with a specific tourism location in Denmark. These recurring articles, which are very much written around the persona of Poul Pilgaard Johnsen, could be viewed as an ongoing performance where each yearly article adds to a narrative about his persona and as such also enhances some of the repetitive aspects of a performance, which we touched upon in the theoretical part of this paper.
Apart from his job at Weekendavisen, Pilgaard Johnsen also works for national Danish radio station Radio24syv where he produces a wine show. The setup is simple: Pilgaard Johnsen invites a person into his Copenhagen apartment. They drink wine and talk for an hour or two, which is then aired (more or less unedited) in the radio. The wine itself it not necessarily the main topic of the conversation just as the dinner not necessarily was the main topic of the conversation, Kongstad has with his guests. Often the conversation deals with themes that relates to the guest. If a painter is invited, it would be the work of the painter that is focused on. However, Pilgaard Johnsen always includes himself as well as the location in the
conversation. The location being his private home is a central element in the show. It is often mentioned, typically at the start of each show, that we are located in Poul's apartment and more accurately that he and the guest are sitting in the oriel of the apartment. The oriel is mentioned so often that is becomes almost a symbolic and ritualistic setting. Now and again other parts of the apartment is integrated into the show for instance in the edition where the guest is artist Augusta Atla (who actually had pleaded Poul several times to be a guest on the show). In that show Poul is cooking a chicken that he is going to eat later that day with some
other (private) guests coming over. Now and again during the show he needs to check up on the chicken. For instance early in the show he asks Augusta to present herself while he just runs off to check the chicken. These small peeps into the private life of Poul, albeit somewhat mundane, all add to the persona layers and creates this figure of passion, man of pleasure and a very sensual being. Suddenly, about half an hour into the show, he interrupts Miss Atla to say how delicious that smell of the cooked chicken glides through the apartment.
The sensual layer is an ongoing element of the show since it does deal with wine and drinking.
This happens on several levels. First of all, we have an explicit psychical level as we hear the sound of wine being poured into the glasses, we hear the sound of glasses touching one another when Poul and his guest have a toast and we hear the bodily sounds of drinking; the wine entering the mouth, the wine being swirled around inside the mouth, the wine being swallowed. Drinking and perhaps especially wine drinking is actually quite an oral activity and lending a term from Wolfgang Ernst (2016) we could argue that the wine show tries to establish a specific 'sonicity of wine' in order for the listener to have a sensation about this wine and how it much feel to drink this wine. This is a radio show and being that, the listener can of course neither see the wine nor taste, smell or touch the wine. We only have sound and by establishing a soundscape that allows the listener to come close to the wine, Johnsen (and his producer) tries to use the sonicity to connect with the listener.
Another level of the sensual is the verbalised level, e.g. the talk about the wine.
Characteristically this talk does not focus on the art of reviewing as in judging the wine or describing it in the language that we know from most written wine reviews where we read that the wine smells of liquorice and amber while the nose of the wine is characterized by hay and mist. Rather Pilgaard Johnsen has an alternative approach where the wine is spoken about by using words that describe how the wine feels, what kind of an experience it is to drink the wine. This could be argued to be Pilgaard Johnsen's approach to wine
communication. In several articles as well as in the book "The Spirit of the Bottle" Johnsen has promoted a more sensual and experience-based approach to wine communication and this also seems to be very much the case in the radio show. This experience-based approach is also a vital part of the sonicity of wine as mentioned briefly above.
As previously stated, Johnsen often brings himself into the conversation. This ranges from his subjective opinions about a topic (for instance the functions of art in society) to his personal
experiences and feelings. When Miss Atla briefly touches upon the city of Venice as a topic, Johnsen starts to elaborate about his own emotional connection with this particular city. This adds a rather intimate atmosphere to the conversation and perhaps also makes the guest feel more comfortable and more willingly to share intimate details. Another example of Johnsen intimacy sharing can be found in the show from Week 44, 2016 where the guest is famous Danish poet and filmmaker Jørgen Leth. The show has a number of themes but a recurrent one is aging and sex. When this is spoken about Johnsen once again puts himself on the line and shares his own thoughts on sex and mortality.
In another show (week 21, 2016) Johnsen labels himself 'altmodisch', which is a German word describing a person who is old-fashioned (but has some positive ring to it). This is a self- description that Johnsen often uses, also on social media. Tracking his Facebook profile we can find several examples of a self-fashioning strategy, which evolves around the idea of a gentleman caught in the wrong era. Look at this update for instance:
The update above the photos reads: " “For someone, who is now and again accused of
belonging to a different century, I believe it is only Venice that can offer an appropriate attire”.
This is an illustrative example of how Johnsen also uses social media to continually manifest his mediated persona.
My final analytical draft connects to the case of Ditte Okman, which I will outline very briefly.
Okman has a very mixed background having worked in the Israeli intelligence services and as a journalist for a tabloid Danish newspaper. At one point, she was also communications advisor for one of the biggest political parties in Denmark but was fired after having ridiculed a handicapped employee from the Danish parliament on Facebook. Okman now runs a blog and hosts a radio show on 24syv what deals with gossip and celebrity journalism. It is one of the most popular shows on the station. Okman invites various panellists to the show and then they discuss the week's celebrity gossip and create some gossip of their own. Okman and her guests are not shy to share their opinions about topics and people and especially Okman is a very present voice in the show. She has a confessional style and often discloses personal and very intimate details about her life. A recurrent trait is her bodily expressiveness, which takes an almost performative quality. She is bodily expressive on several levels. First of all, she is linguistically performative by using many swear words and foul language, which can be said to be part of her persona construction establishing herself as a straight-forward, outspoken and no-bullshit kind of person. Secondly, she is also explicit bodily expressive in the show by for instance sneezing out loud and making snoring sounds when the panellists say things she find boring or trivial. The conversations in the show often take a bodily and/or sexual
direction, which also goes for much of the social media activity by Okman. This is one illustrative example:
The update can be translated to " ”Today Betty wanted to eat her supper directly from the floor. And Lloyd wanted to do somersaults with a bare bottom that of course ended up in my face. Of course I allowed them to do both. Yes, please. And goodnight”. The update contains both the bodily focus once again as well as the sharing of intimate, mundane life details. This is a very typical Okman post and surely part of her creation of a confessional persona mixing the private back stage area with an albeit provocative, professional front stage behaviour.
A few, final words
As stated above, these are very preliminary analytical points that are based on a superficial and sketchy reading of selected works from the cases. I am currently awaiting transcriptions of my interview material, which will then be combined with a in-depth textual analysis which will hopefully provide the foundations of a more nuanced and substantial analysis.
It is naturally almost not necessary to state that almost no findings have been generated at this stage in the research project. However, I find it beneficial to touch upon some of the possible outcomes from the study. According to the literature on qualitative methods (e.g.
Bruhn Jensen 2012) the question of inference (theoretical conclusion with reference to
empirical material) and generalization suggests that these can take place on a number of levels.
In my case study I assume that the contribution can also take different points of departure.
One area of generalizations can be of the theoretical kind. By applying the theoretical concepts such as performance and persona to an empirical material not studied using the concepts before can enlighten the concepts for instance by expanding the notion of their usability across other fields of study. By establishing theoretical generalizations we could also argue that the data stemming from the empirical material are generative, i.e. the data work as the basis of the process in our way of getting a better understanding of a phenomenon. Or in other words: the data and the theoretical treatment of the data generate new insights by the way we are thinking about a phenomenon.
Analytically the case study could also generate an analytical model or various analytical approaches in the study of personas that could be generally used when studying for instance mediated personalities in other contexts.
Finally, the case study could also construct generalizations of an empirical kind by for
instance offering a typology of mediated personas based on the empirical material; a typology that could then be applied to other areas within and perhaps also outside the spheres of journalism.
Literature
Ananny, M. (2014). Critical news making and the paradox of "do-it-yourself news." In Boler, M.
& M. Ratto (Eds.) DIY Citizenship: Critical making and social media (pp. 359-372). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Auslander, P. (2015) ”On the Concept of Persona in Performance” in: Kunstlicht, vol. 36.
Austin, J. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Blaagaard, B. (2013) "Shifting boundaries: Objectivity, citizen journalism and tomorrow’s journalists" Journalism, Bind 14, Hæfte 8, Side 1076 - 1090
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble. London: Routledge Butler, J. (1993) Bodies that Matter. New York: Routledge
Carlson, M. (2004) Performance. A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge
Coddington, M.(2014) "Defending judgment and context in ‘original reporting’: Journalists’
construction of newswork in a networked age" Journalism, 15(6), 678-695.
Domingo, D.; Le Cam, F. "Journalism InDispersion : Exploring the blurring boundaries of newsmaking through a controversy" Digital Journalism, Bind 2, Hæfte 3, Side 310 - 321 Ernst, W. (2016). Sonic Time Machines. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press
Forde, E. (2003) `Journalists With a Difference: Producing Music Journalism', in Simon Cottle
(ed.) Media Organization and Production, pp. 113—31. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fürsich, E. (2012). "Lifestyle Journalism as Popular Journalism: Strategies for Evaluating its Public Role in the Era of Globalization". Journalism Practice, 6(1), 12-25.
Harries, G. & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2007). ”The culture of arts journalists: Elitists, saviors or manic depressives?” Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism 8(6), 619–639.
Hanusch, F.; Hanitzsch, T.; Lauerer, C. (2015). ‘How much love are you going to give this brand?’ Lifestyle journalists on commercial influences in their work. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. DOI: 10.1177/1464884915608818.
Hanusch, F.; Hanitzsch T. (2013). “Mediating Orientation and Self-expression in the World of Consumption: Exploring lifestyle journalists’ professional views.” Media, Culture & Society.
35(8): 943-959.
Isager, C. (2006) Skribenter der skaber sig (Writers who make a scene). Ph.d.-afhandling (PhD thesis). København: Museum Tusculanum.
Jaakkola, M, (2015). “Outsourcing the views, developing the news: Changes of art criticism in Finnish dailies 1978–2008.” Journalism Studies 16(3), 383–402.
Jerslev, A. & Gade, R. (2005) Performative Realism. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press Jung, C. G. (1992) Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Kristensen, N. Nørgaard (2004). Journalister og kilder: slinger i valsen? Udfordringen af journalistikken i lyset af kildernes professionalisering. [Journalists and sources: Without a hitch? Demands for journalism in the light of the professionalization of the sources.] Aarhus:
Center for Journalistik og efteruddannelse.
Marshall, D. (2014) “Persona Studies: Mapping the proliferation of the public self” in:
Journalism, vol. 15, pp. 153-170
Marshall, Barbour & Moore (2014) ”Persona to Persona Studies” in: M/C Journal, Vol. 17, no. 3
Ramskov, J. & Knudsen, L. (2011) Radio24syv Public Service Redegørelse 2011. Tilgængelig 2/1 2017 på:
http://data.radio24syv.dk/buckets/publicservice/publicserviceredeg_relsetilweb.pdf
Schechner, R. (1985) Between Theater and Anthropology, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press
Singer, J.B. (2014). User-Generated Visibility: Secondary gatekeeping in a shared media space.
New Media and Society, 16(1), 55-73.
Supinen, M. (2003). Sanomalehden kulttuuritoimittajan ammatti-identiteetti. [The cultural journalist’s professional identity in the newspaper]. Tampere: University of
Tampere. (Master’s thesis)
Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2013). The strategic ritual of emotionality: A case study of Pulitzer Prize- winning articles. Journalism, 14(1), 129-145.
Zelizer, B. (2016) What Journalism Could Be. Polity Press
