Fans, viewers and television theory
p. 113-131
Texte intégral
1Influential contributions to television theory have regarded viewers as normally little engaged in whatever the small screen is presenting. Raymond Williams’notion of flow1 and John Ellis’idea that television is watched at a ‘glance’ rather than with the ‘gaze’ typical of cinema2 both suggest this image of how audiences relate to television and its programs. That TV is generally watched with a rather low level of attention is also the conclusion of decades of empirical research on television viewing3. Research has included the use of video cameras in people’s homes, revealing that “watching television” is often an activity which is mixed with other everyday practices, and sometimes a quite marginal aspect of them as well: The set was on while people were eating with their backs to the screen, or making love on the couch, reading, or devoting themselves to whatever other home activities one can think of4.
2Still, television is also at times watched with a very high degree of attention. Audiences might in such cases even regard these moments of television as highly important elements in their lives. This has especially been demonstrated in studies of serial drama such as soap operas and their audiences5. When a TV program is not only experienced as important but also inspires various productive cultural activities among its most devoted viewers, some people would talk about “cult-TV”, and the viewers in question may be called “fans”.
3In this article, I want to discuss two main questions. First, I wish to have a closer look at the term “fan (s)” as a name for a type of media audience and/or television viewers, particularly in US “cultural studies” circles. There “fandom” has been celebrated as the ultimate example of “active”, “producerly” audiences, exercising their capacity for “resistance” in relation to the cultural industries. To which extent is this an adequate definition of fandom, and what distinguishes “fans” from other types of engaged TV viewers? The second question I want to address is what various forms of intensive viewing and the energetic investments in TV programs, associated with “fandom” or not, might entail for television theory more generally. They are, it seems to me, relevant both to our understanding of television’s general cultural status and to a discussion of the approaches to the medium preferred by scholarly television studies.
WHO AND WHAT ARE “FANS”?
4If we are to believe the on-line Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word fan most probably originated as a short for fanatic, and its first recorded use in English was in 1682. The first of these two pieces of information was hardly a surprise, the second was. I, and I presume most people, would have assumed the word were exclusively tied to modern popular culture.
5According to Joli Jenson6, most literature on the fan phenomenon has seen it as “a response to the star system” which is typical of modern popular culture. But fans are also regularly thought of either as “obsessed loners” or as “members of a mob”, categories that reflect conceptions of the alienated individual and the irrational, easily manipulated crowd in the modern “mass society”7. From the upper layers of the social hierarchy, then, the people who are fans of something or someone appear pathological, as irrational beings, potentially capable of monstrous behavior, either as crazy loners (e. g. attacks on celebrities) or as crazy crowds (e. g. football hooligans). Jenson sees this as an expression of a social contempt and fear she does not and will not share, and proceeds to describe examples of “fandom” in her own personal life and in the lives of other academics and middle-class people in order to demonstrate that even such folk may well be “fans” without being perceived as such. A rather long quote is necessary here:
“Anyone in academia, especially those who have written theses or dissertations, can attest to the emotional components of supposedly rational activity. A figure or topic can become the focal point of one’s life; anything even remotely connected to one’s research interests can have tremendous impact and obsessive appeal. For example, while I was writing my dissertation (on the commercialization of country music in the 1950s), the chance to buy Patsy Cline’s mascara wand, retrieved from the site of her 1963 plane crash, gave me chills.
Similarly, (but far more respectably) the handling of a coffee cup made by William Morris was deeply moving. I have also envied a colleague who once owned a desk that had been used by John Dewey, and I display a framed copy of a drawing of William James in my office. I would be thrilled if I could own any memorabilia associated with Lewis Mumford, to whom I regret not having written a letter of appreciation before he died.
Am I, then, a fan of Patsy Cline, William Morris, William James, John Dewey and Lewis Mumford? Or of country music, the pre-Raphaelites, the pragmatists and iconoclastic social critics? Yes, of course I am, if fandom is defined as an interest in, and attachment to, a particular figure or form. Would I write a fan letter to these figures? Yes, if fan letter includes (as it does, in academic circles) review essays or appreciative quotation. Would I read a fanzine? Again yes, but in the scholarly versions – heavily footnoted biographies and eloquent critical appreciations. Would I seek autographs? Yes, if I could do so without losing face, via auctions or books or scholarly correspondence”8.
6The first two paragraphs in this passage are about the affective and emotional investments in academic work and Joli Jenson’s personal, emotional relations to certain objects and people. I see no reason to doubt or object to any of this. The problem lies in the extremely inclusive definition of “fandom” – “an interest in, and attachment to, a particular figure or form”. That opens the way to all the strained redefinitions in the third paragraph: an appreciative book review becomes a “fan letter”, “heavily footnoted biographies” becomes “fanzines”, correspondence with, say, leading scholars becomes a way to collect their autographs.
7Such equations neglect even the elementary differences that allow us (and everyday language) to quite easily categorize scholarly efforts as something other than expressions of mere fandom – e. g. the necessary element of critique (the emphasis on differentiation and evaluation in the treatment of possibly highly respected or even beloved material), and the demand for elementary thoroughness, validity and reliability in argumentation. Such virtues are not nearly as central to the discourses typical of “fandom”, where subjective enthusiasm (i. e. ethos in the terms of classical rhetoric) is clearly more important than rational argumentation and theoretically guided analysis (i. e. discursive forms which give priority to logos). If scholarly work were not significantly different from “fannish” work in these respects, then the legitimacy and funding of academic institutions would be in serious trouble.
8The fact that one has to point out such banalities is telling of the situation in some forms of cultural studies, where populist moralism to a significant extent has replaced sociological and textual analysis. Since “fandom” has traditionally been associated with popular culture and lower-class audiences, a main point of contributions such as that of Jenson is to demonstrate that fandom is a highly respectable cultural phenomenon if regarded from a people-friendly point of view. For her, the main argument is that fandom is found wherever someone is really interested in something. Consequently, it cannot stigmatize anyone.
9For John Fiske, a key point is that “fandom is characterized by two main activities: discrimination and productivity”9. Fandom is thus, one might say, formally parallel to the work of critics in high culture. But Fiske, contrary to Jenson, recognizes that there are important differences between fans and what he calls “middle-class appreciators of highbrow art”. Fans “draw sharp and intolerant lines between what, or who, they are fans of and what they are not”. Fiske says that “textual discriminations are often homologous of social discrimination” – and so “choosing texts is choosing social allegiances and fans form themselves into a community much more explicitly than do the middle-class appreciators of highbrow art”10. According to Fiske, the productivity of fans can take many forms. They include “the walls of teenagers’ bedrooms, the way they dress, their hairstyles or makeup as they make of themselves walking indices of their social and cultural allegiances”. In a phrase very typical of Fiske, he says these young people are thus “participating actively and productively in the social circulation of meaning”11. Then there is the creativity typical of soap opera fans, who speculate about and evaluate further developments of the storylines, orally (in what is known as ‘soap gossip’) or in writing, for example in letters to the producers. The latter activity is approaching a third level or the most advanced forms of fannish production. These may consist in for example the writing of alternative scripts to the ‘official’ episodes of a series, or the creation and recording of songs about characters and events12. Fans of the pop star Madonna have produced pastiche versions of her videos, where the fans themselves appear and mimick her songs – etc.
10Clearly, then, ‘fan’ may mean a number of very different things. This becomes even more obvious if we look at the ways in which the term is used in everyday talk and the popular media, also outside of English speaking countries. The term ‘fan’ has for instance been imported into Norwegian, and I believe this happened during the 60s, along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. After being quite exclusively tied to popular music, i. e. as a name for people who particularly favored a certain group or performer, it has since been used in a variety of contexts – sports, show-biz in general, politics or whatever. There might even be talk of opera fans or fans of certain acclaimed writers. The word’s origin in popular culture still clings to it, so that there is a somewhat humorous tone to the use of the term in high culture contexts. ‘Fans’ of Pierre Boulez do not try to look like him or cover the walls of their bedrooms with pictures of him. ‘Fandom’ here simply means that someone is very enthusiastic and possibly knowledgeable about something or someone, in an ironic version of Joli Jenson’s boiled-down definition of the term. And so there is nothing ‘wrong’ with either being a fan of Beethoven or a Blur fan or a Bergman fan. Being a soap opera fan could be different, but not in the ironic sense of the word. One is then only playing a soap opera fan, self-consciously marking a difference between oneself and those who take the genre seriously. A real soap opera fan is ‘fanatic’ about a certain show because it is actually considered a seriously important element in one’s life. And this could be stigmatizing. Not so much because of fandom itself, it is the object of this fandom that makes it a problem in certain contexts. Increasingly, however, even serious soap opera fans are nowadays accepted as something in the way of ‘people with a peculiarity’ about as interesting or revealing as a particular liking for bowling or stamp collecting.
11I agree with John Fiske that true fandom is characterized by discrimination among available objects and by productive activities. But it is also more, as can be seen from his examples of the latter type of activities. Fandom is in a sense an exaggerated version of what goes on among all consumers of culture, be it television, pop music or high art. The watered-out use of “fan” as a name for anyone who likes something particularly well is therefore inadequate. It is important to keep in mind that ‘fan’ is short for ‘fanatic’. Fandom is thus a relationship between a subject and an object that is to some extent marked by obsession and intolerance to other views and preferences. This sort of psychic relationship is the crux of the matter, and it invites psychoanalytical and social-psychological interpretations and explanations as much as sociological.
12The difference between fandom and other forms of enthusiasm for some cultural object can be related to a distinction once made regarding car enthusiasts13. On the one hand, you may have the typically British (but also more generally European) type of car enthusiasts who are organized as, say, “The Ford Anglia 1967 Society”. I don’t now if this particular association exists, but the point is that it might. People in such clubs are extremely fond of a particular brand and/or model, and they get a lot of pleasure out of knowing that a particular handle was replaced in March 1967 or that car no. 227 that year ended up as a bathtub on a farm in Spain some twenty years later. This type of car enthusiasm is a hobby, like stamp collection or whatever. On the other hand, there are organizations such as The American Car Club of Norway. Members here tend to experience their love for American cars as a central element in their general love for America, or, rather, a certain image of America that they have constructed and cherish. Their enthusiasm for American cars (particularly from the 50s and 60s) defines a whole lifestyle, which also incorporates strong preferences for certain types of American popular music, American clothes, American food or whatever. It is also tied to certain values and political opinions. The magazine published by the American Car Club of Norway typically had an editorial once which argued in favour of increased US military presence in Norway – because such an increase might lead to easier access to spare parts. Members of the American Car Club of Norway have chosen to be buried with gravestones where the logos of American car brands are prominently placed. I would like to propose that proper fandom exists when an enthusiasm for some cultural object or other takes on such a totalizing, defining role in people’s lifestyles and identities. The term ‘cult’ is also related to such instances, since it compares the relationship between some people and certain cultural artifacts or practices to religion. Ordinary enthusiasm, likings, emotional attachments or just special interests or preferences are something else.
13It seems to me that there are still quite few instances of such extreme or ‘proper’ fandom in relation to TV programs, considering the immense total number of shows produced, and there are even fewer outside of the US. If these observations are correct, they are in themselves probably telling of particular conditions in the US relating to the nature of television there, the role and status of popular culture, and the kinds of struggles over the formation of identities that may characterize American society more than others. Star Trek is an endlessly recycled series that does have such a devoted fan community among its viewers and one that has lasted for a very long time. Other shows may have produced similar phenomena, but for shorter times and possibly also with more irony and less serious devotion than in the Star Trek case (even if tongue-in-cheek playfulness and irony are also involved in the appreciation of that show). One of these was Dynasty, a prime time soap opera that in many ways can be seen as an emblem of the decade in which it was produced – the 1980s. In the following, I would like to discuss some of the features of audience relations to this show, which I researched mainly in Norway14. The point here is not so much to describe empirical patterns of viewing and attitudes to this particular series as to point out how there may be many forms and degrees of viewer appreciation and devotion which does not necessarily merit the tags “fandom” or “cult”. And since these other, less fanatic varieties are much more widespread, they may also be of greater interest to a general theory of television.
ENGAGEMENT WITHOUT PROPER FANDOM: DYNASTY IN NORWAY
14While researching the production of Dynasty and the textual traditions it refers to in Los Angeles, some friendly person – I am very sorry to say I have forgotten who – told me that the son of someone he or she knew was extremely preoccupied with the show. The teenager in question had even, with the assistance of some friends, produced his own series on video as a sort of Dynasty spin-off. I was given a videocassette containing what seemed to be excerpts from a dramatic series called Julia or, sometimes, The Julia Chronicles. These excerpts were hilarious amateur video scenes with young men (partly dressed as women) and a couple of young women, mixed with scenes from Dynasty. Typically, Julia (played by the young man in charge of the project) would call up Alexis, who would annoy our girl by repeatedly calling her Kirby, but they would still seem to have some sort of conversation going. Exteriors (like, a stylish sports car arriving at the Carrington mansion) would be taken from some Dynasty episode. The title sequence for the Julia show would mix the presentation of its own amateur characters and performers with some of those from Dynasty, from which the music and certain visuals were also taken. The amateurs indulged in radical overacting and ironic fun. The playfulness – and cleverness – of the whole thing was also obvious in a scene where Julia introduces a female newcomer to the family mansion: The two of them suddenly burst into a lively musical number, i. e. start lip-synching (with perfection) to the song from the musical Annie which is about poor Annie’s first encounter with a millionaire’s home!
15I never came across anything like this in my research on Dynasty in Norway: Nothing so energy demanding, creative and clever. Even if something similar may have been produced, the Dynasty enthusiasts in Norway would generally be less productive and less festive or humorous. Kids who played with video cameras in the mid-eighties, such as my own daughter and her friends, then 12-13 years of age, would rather produce, say, dance numbers inspired by Madonna videos or small dramatic pieces based on their own lives and pop culture aspirations, blending social and magic realism. Dynasty was not able to inspire such activities either among young people or adults since it was largely perceived as a sort of serious drama. As I once put it, Norwegians (of all ages) were simply used to taking television seriously.
16The sort of fannish productivity that The Julia Chronicles demonstrate presupposes a perception of Dynasty as camp. ‘Camp’ originated in gay subculture as a name for an appreciation of a number of things that were known to appeal only to ‘bad’ taste – especially exaggerated elegance, melodramatic emotionality, flamboyance etc. The ‘too much’ of styles associated with Liberace or Las Vegas or Hollywood musicals could be examples of objects for ‘camp’ appreciation. What is nowadays often forgotten is, however, what Susan Sontag pointed out in her seminal essay on the ‘camp’ phenomenon, that there had to be something genuinely ‘lovable’ about that which was to qualify as ‘camp’15. This is why there is also true appreciation involved when, for instance, a television show is ridiculed in the way Julia ridiculed Dynasty. At the same time, though, a parody such as Julia also presupposes a sort of distanciation, a knowledge or understanding that the show in question is ‘bad’. Using Bourdieu’s well-known distinction between a ‘pure’ and a ‘barbaric’ taste, one might say that ironic fan productivity of the sort that Julia examplifies, is a demonstration of pure taste’s distanciation from a barbaric object which is somehow perceived as charming in its more or less childish naïveté. Camping, the verb form of the noun ‘camp’, is thus an activity which expresses an experienced superiority in relation to the object – and, often, indirectly then also in relation to its less sophisticated audiences. It seems to me, that much of what is regarded as ‘fannish productivity’ is the result of such a middle-class ‘camping’ of objects that audiences of other social classes may take seriously. There is often an irony in the fannish texts produced which represent camp’s ‘we know it’s bad but we like it’– attitude. If so, then one might question whether ‘true fandom’, true fanaticism about cultural objects, can include tongue-in-cheek ‘camping’ and products that come out of it.
17Dynasty was a soap opera which, after the first 13 episodes, was more or less intently constructed for two different kinds of reception – one which took it seriously as a sort of family saga, and one which saw it as camp16. These two forms of reception are clearly class-related. There is empirical evidence indicating that Dynasty was never a great success with working-class women in the US, who thought it was too far removed from their everyday lives to be interesting, and who consequently preferred their regular, daytime soaps – while middle-class, educated women enjoyed it17. It was also a tremendous hit with the gay community, as indicated by all the gay bars in major US cities which in the mid-80s had very popular ‘Dinner & Dynasty’ – evenings every Wednesday. In such places, one would often have a hard time hearing the actual dialogue since the audiences in question had such a great time, loudly suggesting alternative lines, cheering and booing. These productive ‘fans’ clearly appreciated the show – but also expressed that they did not really take it seriously.
18In Norway, I observed a shift in the attitude to the show over the years among middle-class people, publicly represented by newspaper journalists writing TV reviews. It was at first regarded as purely lowbrow culture, and there was considerable sympathy for the idea that it should be removed from the schedule of the then only TV channel in the country. After a first year, Dynasty was replaced by Falcon Crest for a year – and when Dynasty then returned, one could register a change in attitude in TV reviews and elsewhere: Middle class people had learnt to ‘camp’ the show, i. e. appreciate its badness. Norwegian lower-class audiences tended to love the serial from the start, and loved it as a hollywoodesque (i. e. larger than life), melodramatic family saga they were quite seriously involved in. This was particularly the case in the show’s first year run. Since there were people who publicly demanded that this idiotic and morally problematic entertainment did not deserve its space in the public service channel’s schedule, and the broadcaster vented the idea of stopping its run after 13 episodes, then after 26, and again later, lots of ordinary viewers were very anxious they would not be allowed to see “how it all ends”. They wrote their protests to the broadcasters, they told the newspapers in letters, phone-ins and interviews. Much of this engagement was in other words based on a misunderstanding of the genre. Unfamiliar with the never-ending soap opera format, large sections of the audience expected the story to have an end, like the proper family sagas they knew beforehand. As the serial returned for a second and a third run, the intensity in their engagement dropped significantly – their narrative desire had in a sense been misplaced, soap opera viewing was something different from watching a feuilleton or reading a novel. When the public broadcaster finally decided to take Dynasty off the schedule for good, this could be done without any protests worth mentioning18.
19The most striking productive activity that Dynasty enthusiasts in Norway engaged in, then, was protests to the management of Norway’s public service broadcaster when they threatened to cancel their favorite show. That is, they acted as license fee-paying citizens rather than as ‘fans’. It was explicitly stated in the majority of these utterances that their protests were aimed not only at the threats to remove Dynasty from the schedule, they were also protesting against a programming policy with too much educational and high art material in general. This was also the point of the only ‘fan’ organization in Norway, called ‘Friends of Dynasty’. The initiator and leader of this short-lived, spontaneously created organization, a taxi driver by the name of Freddy Andersen, also emphasized that the crux of the matter was programming policy, not just Dynasty. He asked questions like “who watches programs about the inside of the brain on Wednesday nights?” and demanded television “for those who watch it”, not for the highbrow people who have very little interest in the medium.
20Dynasty was very popular among Norwegian television viewers. It clearly meant a lot to a great number of viewers, especially lower-class women – the letters to the broadcaster and other reception materials are telling in this respect. These viewers certainly demonstrated an ability to discriminate between various types of drama. Still, these enthusastic viewers were not particularly productive as fans in the sense outlined for instance by Fiske. They would very rarely decorate their homes with pictures of stars from the show or wear clothes or hairstyles that identified them as Dynasty fans in public. They did not write letters to the producers or publish alternative storylines in any way. And they certainly did not produce videotapes where the show was lovingly parodied. In fact, a survey I conducted in May 1984, towards the end of the show’s first year in Norway, indicated that the people who were the most faithful viewers (i. e. those who claimed to have seen all or almost all episodes aired) also were those who talked less about their possibly intense experiences with friends or colleagues at work19.
21One possible conclusion to be drawn from this, is that, at least in relation to television, the elaborate, advanced forms of fannish productivity described by Fiske20 and Jenkins (1992) are American rather than Western, not to speak of Universal, phenomena. They are tied to social and cultural conditions that at least until quite recently have been specifically American (see below). These conditions now also include whole traditions of fandom and fannish productivity. People in the US now know what to do if they begin to regard themselves as fans of, say, a particular television show. Julia was not only inspired by Dynasty, it was also inspired by fan and camp cultural practices more generally.
22But the lack of typically fannish activities in connection with Dynasty also has to do with the differences between the medium of television and other media and cultural forms that are fan objects. Popular music fandom, for instance, seems to be less of an American specialty. It has a longer history, and its audiences are predominantly young, even very young, i. e. it consists of groups to whom the formation of identities is a particularly pressing issue. Television’s audiences include all age groups, and older people tend to be the heaviest viewers. Popular music is also performed live, at clubs, concert halls and stadiums and it is thus in a sense a more public phenomenon than television, which normally is almost exclusively enjoyed in the privacy of people’s homes. Concert venues are places where fandom and creativity associated with it can be publicly displayed and immediately pay off. The fandom found in sports, outside of the US especially in connection with soccer, is most certainly tied to a desire for collectivity, in public situations. Songs created by and for soccer fans are to be sung (or shouted) before, during and immediately after matches. I have not heard of soap opera songs sung in public before, during or immediately after an episode, but this may of course have occurred. The point here is, however, that the relative privacy and intimacy of the TV experience will tend to shape also the activities of fans – or enthusiasts, as I think I would prefer to call the viewers in question.
TELEVISION FANDOM IN NORWAY TODAY
23What I call the Dynasty event in Norway took place at a time when broadcasting was undergoing a veritable revolution all over Europe. Not only technologically, economically and politically, but also in terms of contents. Satellites, cables and VCRs changed the form of distribution and significantly reduced the possibilities for regulatory control over programming profiles. Former public service broadcasting monopolies have had to struggle with national and to a varying extent international competitors over audiences. This has made even these institutions, traditionally arbiters of high culture and educational forms of television, much more interested in broadly entertaining programming, both fictional and factual. Consequently, the differences between public service and purely commercial television have become much less pronounced. In Scandinavia, one of the most striking differences between television programming before and after the transition to a multi-channel, competitive broadcasting system, is the introduction and increasingly central position of the soap opera genre.
24In the 1990s, Norwegian viewers have not only enjoyed a great number of American serials which to a greater or lesser extent are constructed as soap operas (Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, Chicago Hope, NYPD Blue etc.) In addition, there have been for instance British (East Enders), Swedish and Brazilian serials on offer. More importantly, though, Norwegian channels have produced their own soaps. The national commercial channel with public service obligations (TV2) started a weekly soap, with the aid of Swedish experts on the genre, and the old public service monopoly (NRK) soon followed with a weekly serial of their own. These two have interesting differences in terms of style: The commercial channel’s product was more ‘trashy’, had more action, more sensational or even bizarre situations than that of the NRK, which maintained a degree of traditional, social realist style in its portrayal of milieus in the Norwegian oil production business. Both shows have been considerable successes, with the NRK as a winner in terms of ratings. But in 1999, TV2 started a new serial with daily episodes, Hotel Caesar. This show has a central element that smacks a bit of Dynasty – a young blonde marries a rich, much older businessman, owner of the title’s hotel. Otherwise it is as original as any other soap. After a slow start, this serial has gained considerable popularity and clearly developed an audience where some groups could qualify as ‘fans’ in some sense. The producers receive letters that suggest storylines, and an actress who plays a young ‘bitch’ has received death threats. But there is no Hotel Caesar fan club, as far as I know, and no significant productive fan activities outside of the letters to the producers21.
25Hotel Caesar and other serials can of course be used as occasions for people to socialize. Groups of friends, primarily young people, meet in order to watch an episode together and have a few drinks. When doing research on the cultural tastes, preferences and practices among university students in Bergen22 we discovered that students of medicine, who otherwise were significantly less interested in television and more interested in, say, classical music than most other categories of students, totally loved watching Chicago Hope, a fairly intelligent hospital serial. Rumors have it that medical students get together in groups on Chicago Hope nights. But I very much doubt they write to David E. Kelley (the producer of this show), suggesting further developments, and I also doubt they have taken up any of the other more advanced forms of fan productivity. It is their choice of education that motivates their interest in Chicago Hope, not the other way around.
26At least in Norway, then, ‘proper fandom’, with high visibility and advanced productivity, is still something related primarily to popular music and soccer. Television may have enthusiastic viewers for some of its programs, but it seems not to develop productive ‘cults’ or ‘fandom’ worth mentioning.
PERSPECTIVES ON FANS, TELEVISION AND TELEVISION THEORY
27A recapitulation of some of my arguments so far may be useful at this point:
- I have rejected the all-inclusive use of the terms “fan” or “fandom” for any kind of enthusiasm for a cultural object or practice. Such a use is found in everyday talk, the popular press and in an argued, scholarly form in the article by Jenson23 referred to above.
- I have agreed to John Fiske’s idea24 that “proper” fandom is characterized by strict discrimination and productivity, and argued that it thus is a kind of exaggeration of responses found much more widely in audiences of many sorts.
- The term “fan” is a short for “fanatic”, and “fandom” is more about defining an identity and/or a lifestyle than just any engaging “hobby” is.
- I have pointed out that some of the more advanced forms of fannish productivity, especially in relation to television, are probably also dependent on specifically American conditions and an established tradition for fandom. Included here is also a tradition for camp appreciation and the ironic “camping” of products from the cultural industries. In my description of the Dynasty event in Norway in the mid-1980s and the situation here in the 1990s, I have tried to show that there are lots of highly engaged and enthusiastic viewers, but few signs of any of the more advanced forms of fannish productivity.
- Television fandom – in the stricter sense – is more rare and less visible than pop music and soccer fandom. In fact, while “proper” fandom is a quite widespread phenomenon with these two latter cultural phenomena, it remains marginal with television. I have suggested that this has not least to do with television’s location as a domestic medium and hence the private character of the television experience.
28The question is now what to make of all this in relation to a more general theory of television. According to Raymond Williams’ classical Television: Technology and Cultural Form25, flow is the major organizing principle of television’s discourse26:
“Even when, as on the BBC, there are no interruptions of specific ‘programme units’, there is a quality of flow which our received vocabulary of discrete response and description cannot easily acknowledge. It is evident that what is now called ‘an evening’s viewing’ is in some ways planned, by providers and then by viewers, as a whole; that is in any event planned in discernible sequences which in this sense override particular programme units. Whenever there is competition between television channels, this becomes a matter of conscious concern to get viewers in at the beginning of flow. Thus in Britain there is intense competition between BBC and IBA in the early evening programmes, in the belief – which some statistics support – that viewers will stay with whatever channel they begin watching”27.
29The notion of ‘flow’ is in other words tied to the development of programming in a situation of competition between broadcasting channels. But on the other hand, Williams claims that “the fact of flow” is also “the central television experience”. And that experience is almost beyond words:
It is indeed very difficult to say anything about this. It would be like trying to describe having read two plays, three newspapers, three or four magazines, on the same day that one has been to a variety show and a lecture and a football match. And yet in another way it is not like that at all, for though the items may be various, the television experience has in some important ways unified them28.
30This is a claim which there are very good reasons to doubt. Williams’only attempt at empirical support for the idea is that (a) “most of us say, in describing the experience, that we have been ‘watching television’, rather than that we have watched ‘the news’ or ‘a play’ or ‘the football’ on television’”, and that (b) “many of us find television very hard to switch off”29. While both of these statements are partially true, they are contradicted in various ways by Williams himself, directly and indirectly: He keeps saying that of course people still watch specific programs, and his abundance of specific comments about specific programs indicates the extent to which he himself finds individual programs interesting. The ‘flow’ perspective on the TV experience is also contradicted by the fact that viewers actively prefer certain programs before others and also speak of watching particular programs. The groups of viewers that may be called fans do so to an extreme degree. But also ordinary, day-to-day talk about television among people tends to be about specific series, discussions, documentaries or whatever. And this becomes even more obvious in a multi-channel situation: The question at work or wherever else people meet, is not “did you watch TV last night?” – but “did you see Coronation Street/The X files/the soccer match?”
31The ‘flow’ metaphor does not only point to the fact that quite unrelated things happen in unbroken sequence on TV. It also adds to this sequence a sense of power, an energy, a relentlessness in the stream which viewers can be overwhelmed by, dragged into and along with. Williams’notion of ‘flow’ can thus easily be tied to a particular image of what TV viewers and their relationship to the box is like: basically passive and non-discriminating. This passive and non-discriminating viewer is clearly related to the image of the mass audience in classical mass culture theory, where, in some versions, the ability of the mass media to “inject” opinions and attitudes directly into people’s heads was assumed. In other versions, like that of the Frankfurt School, the long-term “effect” was presumed more an ever-increasing passivity and conformity, a wiping out of critical consciousness. In my opinion, there are reasons to suspect that Adorno and Horkheimer were on to something important here, but even Adorno himself realized (in the 1960’s) that the culture industry would never completely succeed in subsuming the heads of its customers30. The main point in connection with Williams’ ‘flow’ metaphor, anyway, is that it carries some of the fear typical of his generation of critical intellectuals in relation to modern mass media.
32But the audience is only going to be swept away by the flow if they fall into it, so to speak. There is also another option when relating to a stream, flow or river; which is precisely to watch it from a distance, not really get into it, regard it somehow as a whole, without significantly differentiated parts. This perspective obviously informs the theory that television is normally watched at a glance, as opposed to the gaze of film audiences31. The ‘flow’ metaphor in other words carries what seems to be two diametrically opposed images of the television experience: that of being swept away by an external force, and that of coolly and calmly regarding a river at a distance, possibly now and again distracted by what goes on in the immediate surroundings.
33These images of two ways of relating to TV form the basis for quite different approaches to television as an object of research and criticism. What they share, however, is a theoretical and hence fundamental disrespect for the program text in television, i. e. for the individual units that TV production is organized around, on which the television schedule is based, and which still tend to regulate much of most people’s viewing, in a daily, weekly and seasonal rhythm. Television theory based on or closely related to the ‘flow’ metaphor thus tends to be at odds with both the practices of production and the most widespread practices of reception. Most TV viewers are – in spite of the zapping possibilities of the remote control – still drawn toward specific programs – the news, a favorite soap, a particular talk show. Both the intense competition between channels over successful programs and the actual zapping patterns revealed by people-meter technology demonstrate this. ‘Fandom’ in relation to television programs is thus an extreme variety of the very normal practice of selecting certain programs as favorites. As such it supports the idea that television can engage more than a ‘glance’ and that the ‘central television experience’ is still the experience of a distinct program rather than the experience of ‘flow’.
34But the notion of the ‘individual program’ needs to be modified here. Fandom requires repetition, i. e. reapeated encounters with the beloved object. Football fans watch the same team play again and again, fans of movies go to see the film in question over and over and end up buying it on tape or DVD so they can see it twice a day if they want to. Seriality is television’s most important form of repetition here; a TV program which is not a series or serial will never acquire fans. The one-off drama that was an important form both in 50s US television and in the heyday of European public service television could never become objects of fan adoration, and the same of course goes for any occasional documentary or factual program. Fandom is a particular kind of response to repetition in the form of seriality: It is possible to see it as a celebration of seriality that also functions as a way of coping with or enduring it. In its straightforward, earnest form, it is an expression of fondness for the ever recurring, the relatively stable, the well known. Its ironic, parodying form is partially about escaping boredom. In fact, even investing true love in the ever recurring may be seen as a way of escaping the potential boredom of repetition. No wonder the television industry encourages fandom, as do the other cultural industries as well.
35The point here, then, is that while the phenomenon of fandom exemplify in extreme form ordinary viewers’capacity for selection and concentrated viewing of television programs, it can also be seen to exemplify how the thoroughgoing seriality of most television schedules today can be experienced with feelings of ambivalence. On the one hand, it provides a stability or predictability that may be valuable in an otherwise unstable and unpredictable world. On the other, predictability may well also appear boring. Fandom could be seen as a hysterical sign of television’s role as a social pacifier by way of its reassuring predictability, and thus, indirectly, also an indication of the medium’s apparently increasing inability to deliver texts that are truly surprising, thought provoking, disturbing or really out-of-the-ordinary in terms of structure, ‘form’ and content, ideas.
36So what does it mean to identify oneself as a ‘fan’ of some TV serial? With strikingly few exceptions, such as, say, Star Trek, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Twin Peaks, the serials on offer simply do not merit any fanatic following. They are most often ephemeral, trivial, shallow, run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road products aiming most of all to fill time both in schedules and in people’s everyday lives. This is one obvious reason why television is actually given a low priority in most people’s lives and most often watched with a minimum of engagement32. If a run-of-the-mill, middle-of-the-road TV show is the cultural highlight of one’s life, then that is a sign of cultural deprivation.
37The study of television fandom could thus, by exploring the various implications of such a phenomenon, be turned into a critique of what television offers instead of just celebratory accounts of the creative activities of minority groups of viewers. Over the last couple of decades, television studies have to a far too great extent lost a critical edge and instead been devoted to what in practice amounts to apologetic explanations and interpretations of why people go on watching.
Notes de bas de page
1 Williams (Raymond), Television. Technology and Cultural Form, New York, Schocken Books, 1975.
2 Ellis (John), Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982.
3 Barwise (Paul) and Ehrenberg (A.), Television and its Audience, London, Newbury Park, Beverly Hills New Delhi, Sage, 1988.
4 Bechtel (R. B.) et al., “Correlates between Observed Behavior and Questionnaire Responses on Television Viewing”, p. 274-344 in Rubinstein (E. A.) et al. (eds.), Television and Social Behavior, Vol. 4, Washington DC, Government Printing Office, 1972/Collett (P.) and Lamb (R.), “Watching People Watching Television”, Report prepared for the Independent Broadcasting Authority, London, 1986.
5 Ang (Ien), Watching Dallas. Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination, London, Methuen, 1985/Gripsrud (Jostein), The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies, London and New York, Routledge, 1995/Pasquier (Dominique), La culture des sentiments. L’expérience télévisuelle des adolescents, Paris, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1999.
6 Jenson (Joli), “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization”, in Lewis (Lisa. A.), The Adoring Audience, London and New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 10.
7 Idem, p. 14.
8 Id., p. 22.
9 Fiske (John), Understanding Popular Culture, Boston, Unwin Hyman, 1989, p. 147. 10.
10 Idem.
11 Id.
12 Jenkins (Henry), “Strangers No More, We Sing’: Filking and the Social Construction of the Science Fiction Community” in Lewis (L. A.) (ed.), The Adoring Audience, London and New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 208-236.
13 Gripsrud (Jostein) and Johansen (A.), “Racing & Cruising. En samtale om bil, kultur og moderne tider” [’Racing & Cruising: A conversation on cars, culture and modern times’] in Samtiden, vol. 97, n° 6, 1987.
14 Gripsrud (Jostein), The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies, London and New York, Routledge, 1995.
15 Sontag (Susan), “Notes on Camp” in her Against Interpretation, New York, Anchor Books, 1966.
16 Voir Gripsrud (J.), The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies, op. cit., ch 1.
17 Press (A.), Women Watching Television, Gender, Class and Generation in the American Television Experience, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991/Seiter (E.) et al., “Don’t Treat us Like We’re so Stupid and Naïve: Toward and Ethnography of Soap Opera Viewers”, in their (eds.), Remote Control. Television, Audiences and Cultural Power, London and New York, Routledge, 1989.
18 Voir Gripsrud (J.), The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies, op. cit., ch 2 et 3.
19 Voir Gripsrud (J.), The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies, op. cit., p. 115.
20 Fiske (John), Understanding Popular Culture, Boston, Unwin Hyman, 1989/Fiske (J.), “The Cultural Economy of Fandom” in Lewis (Lisa A.), The Adoring Audience, op. cit., p. 30-49.
21 One exception I know of: At a primary school in the north of Norway the young students decided in a democratic vote that the school’s Christmas play in December 1999 was not be about Jesus and Bethlehem but about a Christmas dinner at Hotel Caesar. The script was written by the children themselves, and had the dinner party develop into a drunken row between the family members, i. e. the characters from the TV soap. All parents did not appreciate the performance.
22 Gripsrud (Jostein) et Hovden (J. F.), “(Re) Producing a Cultural Elite? Report from a study of university students in Bergen, Norway” in Gripsrud (J.) (ed.), Sociology and Aesthetics, Kristiansand, Norwegian Academic Press, 2000.
23 Jenson (Joli), “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization”, op. cit.
24 Fiske (John), Understanding Popular Culture, op. cit.
25 Williams (Raymond), Television. Technology and Cultural Form, New York, Schocken Books, 1975.
26 The following discussion of the “flow” metaphor is a slightly edited version of some paragraphs in Gripsrud (J.): “Television, Broadcasting, Flow: Key Metaphors in TV Theory”, in Geraghty (C.) and Lusted (D.) (eds.): The Television Studies Book, London, Arnold, 1998, 27-29.
27 Williams (Raymond), Television. Technology and Cultural Form, op. cit., p. 93.
28 Ibidem, p. 95.
29 Ibid., p. 94.
30 Gripsrud (Jostein), The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies, op. cit., p. 7-8.
31 Ellis (John), Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, op. cit.
32 Barwise (Paul) and Ehrenberg (A.), Television and its Audience, op. cit.
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