Core Post #2

I’m stuck on Andrejevic’s description of the online forum in relation to our platforms today. On the one hand, online discussion is very much the same. Online forums continue to exist as an extension of the complete TV show experience. One could even say that they have adapted consistently with the original TWoP format, despite the new host of platforms. In other words, the scope from large social media sites to the more niche message boards stems from a need to adapt to our new diverse experiences of watching (from traditional live TV to streaming), and not from a need to have different kinds of discussions. Yet, it’s hard for me to imagine the ideal community that he describes. Not only does he largely ignore the bitter arguing and trolling that are all too common now (especially on the massive sites that cannot possibly be moderated like TWoP was), he also presents the writers less as fans than as thoughtful critics. I don’t know if I’m just looking in the wrong places, but the wild west of the message boards for today’s popular shows is a free-for-all, a place where people go to either voice their opinion and leave or argue. The posts that he describes, often the result of a significant amount of time and research, are far more difficult to come by.

To me it seems that he fabricates this flattering portrait of online communities in order to support his thesis that the forum is part of a transfer of labor. Consumers of the shows can only participate in the labor if they are truly being productive. Thus, what they write is inherently valuable to the producers, whether in the form of market research or actual quality control over the product. If, however, the fan commentary is not as valuable as Andrejevic likes to believe, and the producers actually ignore it, it is much harder to claim that online forums are exploited.

I do agree that forums help enhance enjoyment and interest, and in that sense, labor is transferred onto the writer as the show continues to exist after it’s off the screen. But, I find it unlikely that fans really do have much influence, especially as TV becomes more film-like and auteur-driven. Andrejevic, writing at a time when TV was still primarily low in quality, did not rule out the possibility that fans could help improve the programs. I would argue that the push towards better TV went the opposite way—producers opened their doors to individual auteurs and showrunners, not to a community of fans. For example, looking at last year’s Twin Peaks The Return, a show with a huge fan following and an auteur completely independent of it, we could not be further from Andrejevic’s analysis. In other words, at the peak of quality TV, the online community takes on a strictly passive role, as an admiring group of spectators whose only goal is to make sense of what is happening in an auteur’s mind.