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Producing Nature(s): A Qualitative Study of Wildlife Filmmaking

Kennedy, Addison F
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1589201321354644

Abstract Details

2020, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, American Culture Studies.
Focusing on the lived experiences of media producers, this study provides one of the first global and industry-level analyses of the wildlife film industry and represents the first phenomenological and hermeneutic approach to wildlife filmmaking. The author draws on 13 in-depth interviews with a diverse group of freelance wildlife cinematographers, producers, directors, editors, researchers, writers, and narrators in addition to autobiographies and other accounts from professional wildlife filmmakers. Using systematic qualitative analysis of interview texts, the author examines the production of wildlife film from a critical interdisciplinary perspective and answers the following research questions. How are media representations of Nature shaped and conditioned by media forms and conditions production? How does the production ecology of wildlife filmmaking shape the content of specific wildlife films? What are the dominant interests of the wildlife film industry? How do wildlife filmmakers represent themselves and their work in an era of environmental crisis? Finally, how do wildlife filmmakers form communities of shared practices, languages, and cultural understandings of the world? Kennedy ultimately argues that the concept of the production of Nature dovetails with a production studies approach and provides a useful framework for evaluating the symbolic power of media institutions in shaping environmental discourse and cultural understandings of Nature. There is, in fact, nothing natural about the processes by which audiences learn about or understand the concepts of `Nature’ and `environment’ and studying cultural understandings of nature necessarily involves studying of consciousness and the objects of direct experience in the phenomenological tradition Although, the author demonstrates that the wildlife film industry is the ideal object of study for assessing the widening gap between mass-market Nature imagery and real social and environmental change, it is a remarkably under-researched area of film and media production. The scholarly neglect of the wildlife film genre and industry has resulted in major gaps in critical scholarship. Future research should consider a labor studies approach that assesses the continued exploitation of freelance wildlife filmmakers by film and television executives. Following a Gramscian analysis, the thesis features a plethora of thought-provoking interview passages that help shed light on the relationship between creative labor, commercial interests, and technology in media production of Nature(s). A systematic qualitative analysis of these interview passages eventually charts the relevant themes of the sub-genre of `blue chip’ wildlife film. The author posits that this controversial style of wildlife film epitomizes the dualisms of `society-Nature’ and `human-Nature,’ explored by theorists such as Neil Smith, David Harvey, and Don Mitchell and then utilizes Jean Baudrillard’s philosophical treatise Simulacra and Simulations to theorize the relationship between wildlife filmmaking and what she calls `Nature’s veil.’ The thesis concludes that when the wildlife genre draws a categorical distinction between human and animal, society and nature it in effect de-politicizes nature and prevents audiences from imagining what a healthy and sustainable relationship with nature might look like. Instead, in the age of the Anthropocene, all forms of environmental media must work to destabilize the binary between nature and culture in order to see the human as part of nature and the environment rather than distinct from it.
Lara Lengel, Dr. (Advisor)
Cynthia Baron, Dr. (Committee Member)
Clayton Rosati, Dr. (Committee Member)
159 p.
American Studies; Communication; Environmental Studies; Film Studies; Mass Media; Wildlife Conservation
wildlife film; wildlife filmmaking; nature and culture; nature and society; nature imagery; nature representation; production studies; media industry analysis; environmental film; natural history film

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kennedy, A. F. (2020). Producing Nature(s): A Qualitative Study of Wildlife Filmmaking [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1589201321354644

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kennedy, Addison. Producing Nature(s): A Qualitative Study of Wildlife Filmmaking . 2020. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1589201321354644.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kennedy, Addison. "Producing Nature(s): A Qualitative Study of Wildlife Filmmaking ." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1589201321354644

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1589201321354644
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© 2020, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Producing Nature(s): A Qualitative Study of Wildlife Filmmaking by Addison F Kennedy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.