The New Folk Medium
People’s consumption of the media has always tended towards the passive.
The classic passive media activity being watching tv - you know, the old
couch potato, surfing the channels, that kind of thing. There are those who
have said that’s how it’s meant to be: that we’re supposed
to mindlessly consume what ever the media throws at us so that both the consumer
society and the status quo are maintained. Feel free to interpret that as
a conspiracy theory if you like. Personally, I consider it a given. Outside
of Media Studies courses and the small amount of scholarly analysis of film
and pop culture that goes on, I think that’s mainly the way it is.
The internet could go the same way, if it gets regulated, commercialised
and censored - and all the other bad things that governments and vested interests
seem to want to do to it to control it. But, actually, I’m hopeful.
It’s a rather young medium, still growing, still proving itself. And
most of all I see a lot creative, individual and community-grown ideas being
generated by it. It’s full of sites, newsgroups and mailing lists that
take an active/critical/creative response to the media, rather than a passive
one. And that’s what Media Studies is all about.
Take something like fan fiction, for example. That’s when fans of particular
genres, movies and tv shows start writing their own episodes, stories, poems,
etc, and present them online for other fans’ perusal and enjoyment.
Of course, sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad; but
they’re all vital examples of an active approach to what was previously
considered the domain of ‘the professionals’. Think you'd like
to try writing your own episode of say, the X Files? Or how about Xena, Warrior
Princess? There's plenty of people doing it.
The X Files is the classic example. Sites like ‘X Files Fan Fiction
Links’ and ‘X Philes Finis Romantics Society Literary Vault’
have all the fiction and links you need if you're a budding Files scribe.
It's amazing how diverse 'Philes Phiction' is, with whole sub-categories
dedicated to different story threads, like the 'Oncology Ward thread' (ie:
stories involving Scully's cancer), and the very popular 'Shipper thread'
(ie: stories about a possible relationship between Mulder and Scully).
Then there’s the mailing lists and newsgroups that offer people the
opportunity to engage in in-depth discussions about their favourite tv shows,
bands or whatever topic on the internet. It's surprising and enlightening
to see the range and depth of knowledge that people display on these things.
Take, for example, the ‘X Files Mailing Lists’ site (okay, I admit
it, I’m a fan!). This show has some substance, and now in its fifth
season it has had enough history to generate a phenomenal amount of discussion
that's everything from erudite and arcane to just plain silly. You can find
out at one of this site’s many mailing lists who Mel Cooley is (a brief
reference from the Pusher episode), or you can read entire episode reviews
by fans (or write your own). Watch the feeding frenzy as new episodes are
shown and those fans get scribbling.
But all of this is nothing when compared to the kind of critical and creative
energies Star Trek fans have been capable of, presumably in the pursuit of
creating a future just like that of the Star Trek universe (or at least of
living it in some way in their present). Most interesting are the various
Star Trek ‘rings’ that populate the web, where like-minded fans
have set up interconnected sites that celebrate whatever aspect of the Trek
universe they’re fascinated with. Some have even created their own Starfleet
histories, captaining their own spaceships, accepting and interacting with
new members as fellow officers and crewmates, going on ‘adventures’,
and generally indulging in some kind of obsessive fan behaviour psycho-analysis
therapy that often combines fan fiction, analysis and photo manipulation.
Information and popular culture is mutating and exploding with the help of
the internet’s greater interactivity. People are participating in it
- and changing it - in ways that were previously unheard of. Pardon me for
sounding Utopian, but the internet is the new folk medium. I’m not quite
sure where all this will end, but I know it’s a more creative and
imaginative (and healthy) way to deal with ‘what’s out there’
than letting it all be controlled by ‘the professionals’. Here’s
to the death of the couch potato.