Core post #4 - I want to believe

Whenever I think of media, I do so mostly from a political economy or production, they-are-out-get-us perspective, rather than from the point of view of audience interpretation. In fact, I get annoyed when I read texts that completely disregard the production side to focus solely on the multiple possible interpretations of a text (hi Tony Bennett). However, after delving deeper on cultural studies, I have incorporated (or try to) a more nuanced approach to media analysis that conceptualizes audiences as active interpreters that bring their own personal experiences to their readings. This is why I really liked Andrejevic’s piece because it is about audience research and what audiences do with media texts, but it also looks at how that stands vis-a-vis the producers. So, while he recognizes that audiences are active, Andrejevic also understands their practices as unpaid labor: “… the advent of interactive media highlights what has been true all along: that all audiences are active although perhaps not in the progressive sense the term has come to imply. What is perhaps distinctive about the advent of interactive media is the development of strategies for promoting, harnessing, and exploiting the productivity of this activity” (p. 25). Two things that I thought were really interesting in this text are this notion of this fan activity as free labor, and also how these practices, under the false promise of accountability, actually engender more loyalty to the content/show/text/product. In relation to the first, Andrejevic situates these fan activities in a wider neoliberal context and so just like the “responsible citizen”, the viewers are invited to take on some of the duties associated with their media consumption. This reminded me of the notion of “consumer surveillor” (Stark & Levy), which refers to the idea that the consumer becomes a sort of middle manager that needs to assume risk (that would have traditionally been the responsibility of the employer/company – like audience research) as part of his consumption practices. I particularly associate this with the sharing economy where Uber, for example, does not verify the conditions of the cars that become part of its fleet but rather depends on the users’ feedback to jumpstart the vetting process. In relation to the second, I enjoyed Andrejevic’s explanation of the role of personal investment as the generator of an increased value of the TV content: the more work or time you dedicate as a fan, the more you are loyal or tied to the show (as well as incorporating the perspective of the producers). For example, just the other day I was re-watching an X-Files episode that was dedicated in memoriam of someone in the final credits. I googled it because I wanted to know who that person was, and it turned out to be none other than a fan who was an active organizer of online chats with other fans of the show that died in a car crash. Of course, I thought: Ohh, how nice! Those are cool guys, the producers…

The other thing that happened to me recently was that one day I randomly decided to put on a T-shirt I bought after a Brandi Carlile concert and went to my local post office, and while waiting in line (staring at the lady in front who was taking forever buying stamps because there were no screens) a voice behind me said: “I went to that concert too”. I turned and started a conversation with the woman behind me who was also a fan of Brandi Carlile and, when I told her that no one had ever commented on my shirt, implying that I had never met another fan of the singer, she commented that that was a shame because “that’s how you find your people”. I think that this exemplifies the sense of belonging that Jenkins talks about when it comes to fans. He explains that the entry into fandom for a lot people represents a movement from social and cultural isolation toward more active participation in a community receptive to their cultural production and brings the example of a girl who felt alienated and then found other girls who also liked Start Trek. So while the woman behind is not “poaching” the songs, being a fan of this singer was such a marker for the woman behind me that she likened other fans to members of her personal, inner community.