“Oh Lord Have Mercy!”: Visual Media and Public Mediatization in Amusement Parks

• In Event: Visuality, Space, and Place

Abstract

The omnipresence of screens in everyday life presents a variety of visual technologies, as well as of ways of showing, seeing and receiving images – notably also images of oneself. This study focuses on mediatized leisure spaces in the shape of theme-parks, and examines the ‘reception’ end of mediation processes. With the help of ethnographic sensitivities and observations, I look into how actions and interactions that are afforded and elicited by screens are actually pursued in public, consumer spaces. The inquiry reveals the situated effects of site-specific visual media, and how what is displayed is actively received and animated by audiences. Audiences’ reactions amount to identity performances and assemblages of publics.

Author

• Chaim Noy, University of South Florida