Girl Talk - Mary DelGrande

http://www.myspace.com/girltalk

Girl Talk

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South Park

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Final Presentations, Extra Credit

All,

If you have not yet uploaded your final presentation, please do so no later than the end of tomorrow. You will not get credit for the presentation until it is loaded at the blog. If you are having problems loading it, please let me know via email.

If you are interested in doing an extra credit, which can increase your grade by a maximun of one-third of a grade, here is the assignment:

Write a 750-1,000 word response (must be text) in which you apply the theorist you found most interesting to a cultural or political phenomenon. This is like the responses we've been doing all semester, but you should pick a fresh topic and make sure to use direct quotations from the theorist and clear, distinct examples from the topic under discussion. Extra credit responses should be completed no later than 7PM on Sunday evening, December 21.

Jason Andrews - Final Presentation

IMS 390_final

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Nick Engel Final Presentation

Textual Poachers

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Scott Turner's Final Presentation

Here's my final presentation, titled "Slashing Boston Legal."

Enjoy!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9099299/Slashing-Boston-Legal

Chris Crocker Final Presentation-Andrea

Here is my final presentation on Chris Crocker. The powerpoint would not load, so I just cut and pasted the text and images.

Chris Crocker (born December 7, 1987) is an American internet celebrity and self-described “edutainer" who produces and acts in transgressive videos. Almost all of Crocker's work has been attributed to his being an openly gay Southern adolescent in a “small-minded town” in the Bible Belt where his sexual orientation and outspokenness are a "subtext... rarely addressed directly and never completely accepted."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euIhTOuAk3o&feature=related

Crocker has often tried to make himself look and sound like Spears, as well as mock her mannerisms.

Crocker gained international fame from his tearful video defending Britney Spears’s "lackluster MTV comeback" with over four million views in two days. The video received international media attention, hundreds of parodies, criticism and generated death threats for the androgynous performer.

Crocker claimed his rational for the video was due to the fact that he did not want fellow Southerner and gay icon, Spears, to spiral out of control like Anna Nicole Smith, who had died in February 2007.

Leave Britney Alone!: Within the first 24 hours of its posting, the video had accumulated over 2 million views. It has over 23 million views and is the second most discussed video of all time on the site (in all categories), with nearly 338,000 comments as of October 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh3eHxtIGxw&feature=related

The video received worldwide attention and earned Crocker interviews on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, The Today Show, Maury, The Howard Stern Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! And Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM morning show.

YouTube said "the melodramatic two-minute clip made Crocker an instant YouTube star" and named it one of the top videos of 2007.

Wired magazine named it the top video of 2007.

The video has also provided Crocker the chance to present several awards and perform for different concerts.

The video has also been redone by several other YouTube members and celebrities to cut and change the meaning.

Poaching a Career:
According to Variety, Crocker has signed a development deal, prior to his famous video, with 44 Blue Productions to create a "docusoap“ reality television show, show, which will be called Chris Crocker's 15 Minutes More.

As of March 2008, Crocker's videos have received a combined 45.8 million plays on MySpace, and his vlog channel on YouTube is the 18th most viewed of all time in all categories, with over 153 million views.

Crocker's videos include "sex-filled confessions” and “wild monologues” talking “about everything from AIDS to pubic hair.” In many of the videos he portrays characters, such as an older deeply religious woman in the "The Earl Annie Edna show" series and exaggerated comic characterizations of Southern stereotypes earning comparisons to Andy Kaufman and being called "an insidious satiric mastermind".

On 19 September, 2008 Crocker released his first single "Mind In the Gutter" from his debut album Turned On set for release in January 2009.

Website: http://www.sharenow.com/relations/profile/chriscrocker/

Final presentations for class on Wednesday, December 12

For your final assignment, please prepare a class presentation that is between four and seven minutes total in which you analyze an act of "textual poaching" as defined by Henry Jenkins or some other unauthorized or "impertinent raid" on a literary or cultural "preserve."

Your presentation should explain briefly how the author(s) of your text, video, music, picture, etc. in question appropriates a source and then use(s) it to its own ends--which might be for a political statement, personal expression, or something else altogether. To the extent that your analysis is informed by other texts we've read this semester, the better.

It is very important that you practice your presentation so it does not exceed seven minutes, to allow for questions and answers from the class.

You should clear topics with me via email no later than Wednesday, December 3.

As with the midterms, the presentations will be taped and uploaded to YouTube and the class blog.

Lyndsay Ehrmann's Final Presentation

Material for my Presentation:

The Hills has something called "The Hills After Show" which is entirely based on crazy Hills fans participating in the show with fellow fans and textually poaching it to an extreme.  It is hosted by two Hills fans who discuss the show with other fans, and it's very sarcastic so it does change/poach the meaning of the original show.

Meg's Presentation Videos/Power Point

Michael Jackson’s “Bad”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b34OpbG7Res&feature=related

 

Weird Al’s “Fat”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqz1ojIQTBk

Power Point:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8785083/Weird-Al

Final Presentation - Chelsea Clements

I will be doing my presentation on Peter Pan and how it has been reproduced and textually poached. One form of poaching I will be talking about it a man who lives his life as Peter. You can check him out here: http://www.pixyland.org/peterpan/

  

Final Presentation-Jennifer

I am doing my final presentation on textual poaching and fan art of Andy Warhol. Below are a series of youtube videos called "Alpha Kitty and Andy Warhol" that I will be talking about in class tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N93urBXUE0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F30RdOjzYVA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzkkOlzPRko

There are 8 total videos of this series, but I've only linked 3 of them.

Cassie Gladden's Final Topic

I am going to do my presentation on textual poaching of MTV's "The Hills" as well as MTV's series, "The Hills According to Me"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5foV2Bd8XLM&feature=related

http://www.mtv.com/videos/the-hills-according-to-me-season-3-ep-22-thats-not-cheese/1596709/playlist.jhtml

meg luby's final presentation

i'm going to be talking about weird al yankovic and the career he has built on taking popular music and making it his own. here's a link to one of his latest video parodies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYrL5md5e_o

Final Topic - Jason Andrews

For my final presentation I will be using the website/comic strip "Garfield Minus Garfield"

You can explore on your own here:
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

Megan Skelton Final Presentation Topic

For my final presentation I will be discussing South Park's general ability to successfully poach a variety of texts as well as some specific examples.
Visit Comedy Central's website if you are unfamiliar with the show and its creators.

Nick Engel Final Presentation

For my final presentation I will be discussing Barney Crank That Soulja Boy popular YouTube video. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvDbVFB2iUE

Andrea Pelose-Final Presentation

For my final presentation, I am doing Chris Crocker. He is the famous internet celebrity and Britney Spears fanatic. I'm sure you guys all would recognize him from his "Leave Britney Alone!" video.

Here's the YouTube clip just in case you need to refresh your memory:
Leave Britney Alone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

See you Wednesday!

Final Presentation - Mary DelGrande

I'm doing my presentation on Girl Talk. Gregg Gillis is the creator of Girl Talk and he takes songs and music from other artists and mixes them together and calls it his own. He has not received any licenses from any of these artists, and is touring across the United States. It is a "lawsuit waiting to happen."

Jane Hall Resp. Meg Luby

            Jane Hall seems to be a modern woman with many interesting view points within the new evolution of media and the government and I enjoyed reading her point of view on several modes and mediums of recent political issues and topics. First of all, the very lengthy journal she wrote about embedded journalists during wartime and how the media will work within the next war was very intriguing. At first, I was more struck with how many quotations and statistics were cited as opposed to what she was saying but as you continue to read, her point of view also nudges its way through the piece. Journalists are key to covering a war, they shape many perspectives of society and how citizens see and support the war, and we need to acknowledge the work these journalists do. However, it is also important to take the information they gather with a grain of salt. She points out how the journalists covering the Iraq war had often never covered anything like this before, saying that they often misconstrued what was actually happening or covered hardware and technical aspects of the war with a “geewhiz” attitude. Additionally, they only see their small piece of the grand puzzle in what is happening over there. While their experiences are obviously true to what is happening, there are greater issues and problems that they are perhaps out of touch with and only aware of what is happening right within their realm of vision.

            The most important point she made, however, was that even though we had 600 journalists covering this most recent war and even though embedding journalists seems to be the plan in terms of how future wars will be handled in terms of media coverage, we still don’t and won’t have a handle on what is happening within the war and wars to come. The reason being the growing importance of Special Operations during war tactics and the simple fact that journalists cannot be informed of what these missions are doing or, even if they were allowed to access this information, they could not be embedded with the special ops team because they simply could never keep up with the work load they would have to manage in order to stay with the team.

            Wars that won’t be covered is obviously a powerful issue, the way the media can mold society’s support of the war stands within the balance of power in terms of media and military. We were given several other pieces of Hall’s point of view in political issues however, such as Obama and the media, which I am going to touch on now.

            The transcript from the Fox News interview eventually fell into the issue of how the new President Elect has so easily charmed the media and how they seem to be embellishing his pros and ignoring his cons for the time being, and someone posed the question of when and if they media was going to turn on him. Hall’s logic in this area doesn’t get further explained within the article, she simply states that she believes he will get turned on by the media as they realize he won’t be the ultimate president they had all preened him to be and, while I feel it’s very true, it’s probably going to be the question I ask her. Feeling it’s true isn’t a basis of why it must happen and, considering her background in media, I am sure she could explain why it is inevitable for our new president to get turned on by those who lifted him up to his new pedestal.

            Hall touched on several more issues in the other pieces. The sexism of the media in terms of Hillary Clinton and how that affected and propelled her campaign for one. Her comment of all women thinking “I’ve experienced that form of sexism” rang true within myself, and pity stirred for the collapsed Clinton campaign. Looking at the Gore piece, we see further how much the media impacts current politics (as well as past). The buddy-buddy Bush relationship with the media as opposed to the wary and distrustful relationship between Gore and the media had a powerful affect in that election. Hall presents several interesting points which all connect back into the larger issue of, how much power does the media wield over politics and society?

Lyndsay's Hall Response

Mary DelGrande - Hall Response Before I read this article I thought how interesting it would be to talk with someone from Fox News Channel, especially

Hall

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Hall Response - Chelsea Clements

Boy have things changed since Hall wrote “Gore Media Coverage - Playing Hardball.” Written in September/October 2000, Hall juxtaposes the medias treatment of Al Gore and George W. Bush, saying that Bush “is given the benefit of the doubt on subjects where he could be vulnerable”, while Gore is portrayed as an exaggerating liar. Gore's media coverage is marred by scandal while Bush's media coverage is about him being “a different kind of Republican”, and being a “compassionate conservative.”

Anyone who has been alive in the past six years knows that this is not the same media coverage Bush receives today. Due to failed policy with the war in Iraq and the failure of the US economy, there isn't a media outlet left in the US that has anything nice to say.

Moving towards a more recent article written in 2004 by Hall, Hall once again describes media coverage but this time talks about the war in Iraq.Hall talks about the war taking an ugly turn as the opposition organized and began to fight back. She said that viewers in this country have been shocked by news of suicide bombings, daily casualties, and the mutilation of bodies of American citizens. I've always remembered my mother telling me about the media coverage she saw growing up of the Vietnam war. She describes the coverage as more uncensored, graphic and shocking than most things that are shown today. 

Hall describes how the Iraq war has set new precedents on how journalists cover conflicts. Journalist have been embedded within Iraq in order to give continuing coverage. With each war, new journalistic tactics have been created. “How will we do it next time?”, Hall asks.
While some journalists say that embedding has been successful, others argue that embedding has negatively affected the quality of reporting. While the question of the reporter's safety has always been raised, the embedding of journalists has given US viewers a new appreciation of the US military as a whole while offering little context and perspective on the war as a whole.

For someone who considers themselves knowledgeable about the world's on-goings, I feel like I don't know the real progress of the war. Whether or not that is the fault of the journalists or the censorship of the US government in the information that is disseminated throughout the media, I don't have a broad understanding of the progress that has been made.

December 3 videoconference with Jane Hall of Fox News and American University

On Wednesday, December 3, IMS 390B will play host to Jane Hall of Fox News and American University (that's her on the far right, having her microphone being cut off by Bill O'Reilly).

Here's her official bio:

Jane Hall is an associate professor in the School of Communicaiton at American University in Washington, D.C. She specializes in writing about media and politics and media ethics. Before joining American University in 1998, she was a long-time journalist writing about the media for publications in New York, including nine years as the media reporter for the Los Angeles Times in New York. She has been a regular contributor on media and politics to the Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics and Columbia Journalism Review. She regularly moderates the American Forum, panels on important issues of special interest to young people regarding media, politics and public policy, from young people and the news to her most recent Forum, on media and Islam. The American Forums are conducted on campus at American University and broadcast on WAMU, the NPR station in Washington, D.C. Hall also is a longtime commentator on television about media issues; she is a weekly analyst on "Fox News Watch," the long-running media-analysis program on Fox News Channel.

She also has appeared on “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” “Charlie Rose,” CNN newscasts and other programs as an expert on media and politics. In 2005, she co-authored a study of issues of censorship and self-censorship among journalists in Iraq that was praised as an “important new study” by Columbia Journalism Review.

Since coming to American University, Hall has pursued her interest in young people and politics and young people and the media. In Fall 2007 Hall began a year-long collaboration with her students and WashingtonPost.com around issues of special interest to young people in the presidential campaign. Her students created a national network and online survey of issues of special interest to young people in the campaign—and the results of two different surveys were published in a series of stories in November 2007 and March 2008 on WashingtonPost.com. This project was one of the most-viewed on the Web site and was featured in an hour-long program on C-SPAN TV.

Hall was a finalist for the 1996 Pulitzer prize for her media coverage for the Los Angeles Times; she also won the Los Angeles Times Editor’s Award and the Los
Angeles Press Club Award. She is a graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of journalism and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. A native of Texas, she attended Mills College in Oakland, California, and received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

For class, please read and watch the pieces below and create a response to the following articles. Also, include three questions you would like to ask Hall.

Post your responses by 5PM, Tuesday, December 2.

The Fire Next Time: Fighting the Next War (PDF), Harvard Journal of Press and Politics, Summer 2004.

Gore Media Coverage: Playing Hardball, Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2000

Fox News' Hall on comments like Matthews' about Clinton: "Every woman I know" said "'I've experienced that kind of sexism'", Media Matters, January 11, 2008.

Read/Watch "Fox News Watch," November 8, 2008

Jane Hall-Jennifer's Response

Jane Hall's writing addressed many points that are important to showing the media's role in our society. The media has a tight grip on shaping the way people perceive a story. The use of vivid imagery and carefully thought out words spin viewers into sense of disillusion. Viewers only see through the eyes of the media, this is their only perspective. In the transcript from "FOX News Watch" the panel suggests that the media played a major role in electing Obama as President. They implied that the media's "crush" allowed for a more positive outlook on his campaign, unlike McCain's campaign where the media focused their attention on all of Sarah Palin's mistakes. All of her flaws became a huge hype, gravitating negative opinions. Next she was blamed for McCain's loss. The obsession of highlighting any mistake or flaw of someone famous has become so aggressive in the media that people are only seeing the negative sides of the story. The blind trust that some viewers have in the media is scary. The idea that they could of played a major role in choosing the president should be a concern for the public. Below I have drawn a cartoon that characterizes this scare of the media brainwashing people into following their opinions.

Cartoon

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Jane Hall — Jason Andrews

Media bias is a term used to describe a real or perceived bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media, in the selection of which events will be reported and how they are covered. The term has become synonymous with a perceived pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, —extremely common in political reporting—rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. Jane Hall as a specialist in media ethics and media and politics, addresses these concern in her various articles. The relevance and intrigue created by these would not have been so strong had the presidential election not just concluded. Hall’s writing in these articles, examines neither solely the politician nor the reporter, instead the basis on which news is produced and trends that may impede or promote a bias within various editorials.

In Halls article Gore Media Coverage: Playing Hardball she examines the bias developed in the 2000 presidential campaign between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Hall begins, “Gore's motives are frequently questioned, frequently framed in the most negative light,” a statement that would normally prelude a long diatribe about the injustice of media bias and the harmful effects the reporting holds for Gore’s campaign. However Hall continues the article analyzing the effects of demeanor and interaction candidates may have on the reporting that is done on their campaign. Bush’s likable buddy buddy approach to the media has granted him a faithful audience within the media. Allowing for poise and humor to distract from rhetoric and experience, while Gore’s “stiff style and lack of access,” fail to create a connect with the press. It is interesting how Hall’s examination of this trend lends itself to the most recent presidential race.

In both transcripts from the Fox news channels Jane Hall continues her assessment of political reporting. For Sen. Hillary Clinton, Hall argues that the media’s subtle sexism—“the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around… She didn't win there on her merit.”—only helped Clinton gain momentum in such a highly scrutinized and covered primary While the rock star image and media love affair of Sen. Barack Obama, gave the candidate a multitude of avenues within media and news coverage for face time and campaigning. President elect 2.0, Barack Obama used the media frenzy to his advantage. So much so that many feel that the media never forced a true examination of the Senator from Illinois, “We don't know this guy,” Cal Thomas pointed out. And because of this Hall presented the inevitable… the media will turn on Barack, just as they always do. A fact that I personally, had yet to consider. I was more wrapped up in the You Tube fireside chats, and the obvious historical implications of a black president to anticipate the upcoming years. Barack will be ridiculed and challenged if only for the so-called Liberal media to claim non-bias reporting.

Overall I feel as though bias will exist—though some news organizations are attempting litmus style testing for potential employees—and blame should fall solely on the consumer to not believe everything they hear.

Questions:

In your 2000 article about media bias in the presidential campaign you attribute Bush’s connection with reporters to a McCain approach to the media. Why then with the success Bush achieved in his initial campaign do you think McCain himself faltered to gain the media following Barack Obama achieved?

As a professor of media ethics what is your take on the emergence of online medium as a form of reporting politics and other current events. In your opinion do media such as Twitter have a legitimate lifespan as a means of reporting?

What do you perceive as a logical solution to embedding journalist within troops? Would military trained reporters or emerging technologies help lessen the repercussions these journalists are creating?

Scott Turner's Jane Hall Response

These readings were very beneficial for me because it made me examine my opinions on media bias as an avid news consumer and student of journalism. Ultimately I had to decide both whether or not there is a media bias in the news and then if that is the case whether or not that is a bad thing. In the end I came to the conclusion there are many different types and cases of bias in the media. One thing is for sure: media love both access and the truth, and their reporting will reflect that. Sometimes, the less informed reader will interpret objectivity that reflects that as bias. Other times, there is legitimate skewing of information—which can be recognized by the writer/reader or not. I firmly believe though that as long as journalists recognize their own bias and their readers know it’s there, there is nothing wrong with biased news coverage, and it in fact may be better for us.

This can be seen in Janet Hall’s essay about Al Gore and coverage in the ’00 elections and the opinions reflected in the Fox News’ Obama segment. For example, even though Gore remained consistent on issues such as the Elian Gonzales case, he was portrayed in the media for that and other issues as a liar doing whatever it took to get elected. At the same time, Hall maintains that the media were in a love affair with George Bush. It’s hard to say for sure what the actual effect on the elections this alleged bias had, but the result is certain.

The rub is that candidates and their supporters have blamed the media for favoring one candidate over the other ever since George Washington. The difference back then is that the press didn’t always claim to be ‘objective.’ In fact, most publications were funded by the political parties and their writing reflected those viewpoints.

I must say I was originally taken aback by Hall’s lamenting the lack of journalists asking how will we do it next time in her essay “The Fire Next Time: Fighting the Next War.” Don’t we hope there won’t be a next time? I’m on Eason Jordan’s side when he says “So much depends on where, when, the host-country access, U.S. military involvement, the state of technology and many other factors. Since there’s no such thing as a generic war, it seems to me that pontificating about how we might cover the next big conflict would be wildly speculative and irresponsible.”

But on the whole, I did take away a lot from Janet Hall’s analysis and I liked the way Hall analyzes the reporting of the Iraq war and looks at the benefits and drawbacks of embedded reporting. I think these will be good lessons for the media to consider when it comes to both covering future wars and simply analyzing their own biases in general; something every journalist should be aware of. But this is a prime example of how journalists love access and it biases their coverage.

So how again is bias in the media a bad thing? It sounds to me like if journalists recognize their bias then they can say whatever they want as long as it’s grounded in fact and reason and readers understand that. Pew has shown that listeners to The Rush Limbaugh Show are politically smarter than watchers of The Daily Show and in general those that consume this type of news over other forms. When it comes to forming your own opinions nothing is more important than being informed—nobody ever said the spin you receive affects your opinion, just more likely you’ll pay attention to the ones you agree with.

What do you think are the biggest failures and/or successes of the reportage of the Iraq War?

In your opinion, what makes biased reporting so bad? Is it just that most news nowadays is
portrayed as being objective?

Did Obama get a free pass from the media during the election? Do you think that the fact-checking done on issues that he was constantly accused of were insufficient?

Cassie Gladden's Jane Hall Response

With the exception of Jane Hall’s essay, The Fire Next Time, the articles and TV spots that were examined for Wednesday class focus on the influence journalist have had in the political world.  Specifically, the influence of how a candidate is reported in the media. The three candidates Jane Hall examined in the context of their elections are Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton.

As a well-known professor of Media and journalist, Hall has authority on the topics of these three articles. In addition to her expertise, Hall is convincing due to her use of a variety of writing tactics to influence her readers. These include her use of examples, research, language and her illustration of both candidates.

Her essay, Gore Media Coverage –Playing Hardball, has a centralized theme that the media treated Al Gore unfairly. However, instead of writing an opinion piece, Hall focuses on facts, offering a few of her own personal ideas.  She starts off the essay citing different incidences of Gore coverage, including quotes by the Washington Post, New York Times and Newsweek—all popular and credible sources in the minds of her audience. Hall supports her claims by examples. Hall claims that the media had misquoted Gore, for example they had reported that Gore has stated that he, “invented” the Internet. What he did say was, “during my service in Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” Hall also cites research as support to her argument. Saying that according to the Pew Research Center and the Project for Excellence found that 76% of the 2,400 newspaper, TV and Internet stories paint Gore as scandalous and a liar and Bush as a “different kind of Republican.”

Hall’s choice of wording helps shape her argument. Her language can be leading, “you don’t have to be a yellow-dog Democrat to wonder just what’s been going on with the coverage of Al Gore…” (Gore 1) or it can be non-opinionated,

 Several people were interviewed after this announcement [Obama announcing Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff] and said, if this is Obama’s idea of post partisanship, what does this mean? Emanuel is saying, I’m capable of that. He was doing that then, he’s doing this now. I think he has gotten critical initial press from people questioning his choice, but he’s obviously close to Obama. And maybe Obama figures he needs him. (FOXNews.com 3)

 

Her ability to waver between persuasive language and unbiased language creates a more convincing argument than an overly opinionated person such as Roger Stone. Stone cannot be taken seriously because bias is so obvious. In addition to her language, Hall appears less prejudice by presenting both political parties in her essay. In the case of the Obama article, Hall points out how unfairly Palin, the Republican nominee for Vice President, was treated. In the Gore article she shares with readers examples of how journalist have presented Bush to the public. For example, The Washington Post Reporter, Howard Kurtz, said, “Bush is consistently portrayed as relaxed and confidant and Gore as someone who often fails to connect with people.”

Where her argument fails is that the three media works do focus on democratic candidates, therefore one may assume that she has the intention of painting the Republican Party as a bully beating up the Democratic Party. This however is refuted in the ‘Fox News Watch,’ November 8, 2008, where Hall agrees with the argument that the media helped Obama, the Democratic nominee, get elected.  It is important to point out that her credibility is even increased by how she handles this topic. While Hall’s colleagues ridicule journalist and Obama, saying things such as “Ok, what I’m saying, if they love you enough, they [journalist] stick with you.” Hall agrees that the media did treat the McCain campaign differently than Obama and she sites two specific incidents in Newsweek as support. The way she agrees, “I think it is really bad, the discrepancy between the coverage of Michelle Obama [and] Cindy McCain or the Newsweek cover of Obama [compared to] the Newsweek cover of Sarah Palin. It was blatant.” Shows her knowledge of the media, pointing out specific incidence (November 3).  In addition, although all three pieces focus on Democratic candidates each media reaction to the candidate is different. The Gore piece shows how the media was unfavorable to the Democratic presidential nominee while the Obama piece shows how the Democratic candidate was presented more favorably than the Republican nominee. Lastly, in the Hilary clip the media treated her unpleasantly, creating sympathy and she gained votes.

 

 Overall, Jane Hall’s discussion on the journalist effect on political election was both interesting and effective.       

Questions.

1. You cite a variety of issues with embedding soldiers in the Iraq war: Lack of scope, the danger involved and the lack of corporation of the military to have these journalists embedded. I was wondering in your mind what would be the ideal or most effective way to report the war in Iraq?
2. You mentioned that it is hard to know how the next war will be reported, especially with the changing technologies and the increasing use of special operation forces, however, do you have any idea on the future of war reporting?
3. As a professor of Journalistic ethics, what concerns do you have with emerging technologies such as blogs and websites such as iReport?

 

Jane Hall response: Megan Skelton

Jane Hall’s writing had an interesting affect on me that was fairly different from most of the readings this semester. I felt somewhat removed and found it difficult to become involved in the writing. It may have had something to do with the fact that I have a lot on my plate currently, but it may also have had to do with her writing seeming like a culmination of other people’s words and opinions. She did have an interesting outlook on media’s role in politics, war and it’s general effect on the public, however. And reading the FOX news transcript helped for me to get a better grasp on her actual opinion. I think whenever I read a piece of writing, I am looking to know exactly how they feel about a particular topic as well and get a sense of their overall personality and flair in the writing. With Hall, it was difficult for me to get that specific style.
The “New War” article jumped out in front of the rest to me because I got a much better feel of media’s involvement in the past, present and future wars. I knew that to be an embedded reporter or journalist in the field was a dangerous position, but I don’t think I realized to what extent. I’ve always had this vision in my mind of what an actual war battle is like, which I’m sure is far from reality, so that makes it difficult for me to imagine a journalist in the field. And on the same token, it never crossed my mind that American soldiers wouldn’t want journalists to be there. It makes sense I suppose because the media inevitably shapes our opinions for and against wars because it is basically the only information we receive as a general public.
How different would it be if the public was completely shielded from what was going on in Iraq? Would we be more sympathetic to the cause or just more enraged that we were left in the dark? People want to know the facts but it seems they also thrive on the gossip. We will criticize whoever seems most convenient for the time being, but when it comes down to it, I just want the truth.
Media’s election coverage is also an interesting topic of discussion because it is yet another thing that shapes the public’s opinions. In the Gore media coverage article, Hall shows how the media turned the public against Gore. Many of his statements (I invented the internet) were taken out of context to help form and guide the perception of Al Gore as a candidate. History repeated itself again this year with the recent election. Sarah Palin was basically attacked by the media, as was touched on in the Fox news transcript. If in fact the media does turn on Obama as his presidency nears it could mean a change in morale of the country. Anything that is said or done by Obama can and most likely will be used as leverage for the media to mold our outlooks.
Including myself in the general public, I wonder what we can expect for the future of media. How can we avoid the bias and pick out the truth from all of the different things we hear? The Internet is no doubt a possible solution but not the only one. Jane Hall seems committed to scrutinizing over these details and regurgitating her findings. I will be interested to speak with her in person about media and her predictions for the future.

Nick Engel Hall Response

I enjoyed the writings and opinions of Jane Hall. It was interesting to read the article about the media treatment of Al Gore in comparison to her critic of the media treatment of Barack Obama. I also enjoyed reading about the media involvement and future involvement in American wars because I had never really given much thought to the planning behind all the media in wars like the one in Iraq and how their coverage of wars like Iraq and Vietnam have persuaded American opinion for and against these wars. For my response paper I would like to discuss my opinions on these two topics in comparison to what Jane Hall has mentioned.
When I was reading Jane Hall’s article about Gore media coverage in his Presidential campaign I saw many comparisons to what we saw in this year’s Presidential election. The main topic I kept thinking of was media accessibility of a candidate compared to the media treatment of that candidate. When thinking of this I thought of how open and accessible Barack Obama had been in his campaign and how that might have persuaded the media to give him better coverage. Even John McCain prided himself as being very accessible to the media with his “straight talk express” even though one can argue that he may not have been as personable or on message as Barack Obama had been. In contract, when Sarah Palin was first announced as the running mate to John McCain her access to the media was very restricted and this may have led to some of the negative treatment we saw of her in the media. In the 2000 election of Bush and Gore, we saw Bush much more open to the media treating them as friends while Gore never was as open with the media and kept pretty guarded. I also noticed her opinion on how many times Al Gore tried to reintroduce himself with a new message and was not consistent. We saw this in the primaries and the Presidential election with Hillary Clinton and John McCain constantly changing their messages against Barack Obama who seemed consistent with his message of change.
The other topic that I found interesting in these articles was Jane Hall’s writing on media coverage of wars and how the future of media coverage in wars would look like. What I found interesting while reading this article was thinking about how different the Iraq War would have been if we didn’t have the 24 hour news coverage access that we saw. Also, how different would the opinion of this war be if media were not allowed into Iraq? I feel that there are strong comparisons to the public opinion of the Vietnam War and the Iraq War and some of this could be attributed to the media treatment of these wars. I can agree with Bush’s opinion that media focuses often times on only the negatives of war in their broadcasting of death tolls and showing only fights in comparisons to showing the positive results of the war such as a newly formed democratic constitution or children getting an education they never could have before because of their new freedom. This is a tough thing for news organizations covering war because it is so large in scale their reporters cannot possible see the whole picture. I believe that the future of war is going to be more managed by government and become less independent. Also, the future wars that we face may not be anything like what we see now and it will be interesting to see how the media will adapt.
Overall, Jane Hall’s writings and opinions have been some of my favorite from this semester because her topics were interesting to me personally and they made me think.

Hall Reaction by Andrea Pelose

Andrea Pelose
IMS 390

Hall Reading Reaction

Hall’s writing possesses an interesting parallel on contemporary journalism. She uses straight-edge, non-opinion driven writing to explore a third view of media, which looks specifically at neither the politician nor the reporter, but their relationship to one another. Articles, such as the ones we read for Wednesday, explored the trend behind media and politics that have generated interactive media studies courses in the first place.

In traditional journalism classes, we study the politician and how to report them. It is with clear, conventional guidelines to report in a manner that sets aside personal opinions and seeks only the truth based on fact. Contemporary classes, tend to fall more on technology and opinions in entertainment, than hard news in an attempt to keep younger journalists from all falling in the footsteps of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, or The Onion.

As Hall’s articles bare proof, it is not this brand of parody that represents the most dangerous form of opinion, but rather the under-the-radar, seemingly, upfront journalists that have threatened the outcome of elections and issues. As Hall assessed in her discussion with O’Reilly, “media have a crush” on Barack Obama. She also points out several times in the transcript with Fox News Watch, the manner in which they favored Obama and how they may inevitably “turn on Obama to prove their independence”. The power she asserts the news as having on the minds and opinions of the American public is unfortunate. People do not have the ability to personally interact with Obama or McCain in the manner that several journalists do. Therefore it is their civic obligation to ask all the crucial questions, explore every background element, and report it under equal representation for each article unless the source producing the article is clearly formatted under opinion.

However, let’s be more realistic. Journalists will continue to be viewed by the American public as a notch in between lawyers and car mechanics on the slim scale, unless their names are Sawyer or Brokaw. This is not due to cynical or humor-driven columnists, but to the manner in which our hard-hitting journalists are spearing and spinning the news. The rating game of news corporations has led the bloody and tragic into headlines, disregarding the family members whom it may cause grief. Then of course, there is the focus on Palin’s pregnant daughter and Obama’s new family dog that has often taken precedent over issues such as their stance on foreign policy. It is a double-edged sword, the American people want to know the gossip, but then they relish the opportunity to criticize journalists for their lack of coverage on certain necessities.

It seems to be a problem with little solution. You can’t strip journalists of opinions on something as relevant as who will be the next leader of their country, which will inevitably corrupt even their most noble attempts at neutrality. New corporations have to one-up each other in order to continue their funding at the expense of their own morality, or else there will be no news. Even the reader cannot adjust their natural interest in certain less substantial news despite how important it is for them to look at other elements. This is not to imply that all journalists are crooked, all news corporations soulless, and all Americans ignorant. It merely promotes the problematic nature in the relationship amongst reporters and politicians, as well as its imposition on the people. This is not a new issue, either. Undoubtedly it has existed through several American wars, elections, and scandals. Our country has just become liberal and advanced enough, like Hall, to express it.

The only meek possibility one can inherently rely on is the accessibility of the internet and the hope that the American public has taken time to follow a variety of sources, see through the biases, and formulate their own educated opinion.

Questions:

How much of a candidate’s success in an election nowadays is campaign strategy and how much is media’s tilted coverage?

What causes the media to get a “crush” as you said, on a candidate or political figure?

What solution do you see for fixing this tilted coverage on the minds of the American public?

Textual Poachers Response - Mary DelGrande

Poachers

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Chelsea Clements' Textual Poachers Response

Reading Chapter 6, entitled "Welcome to Bisexuality", sparked my interest due to my involvement in the class Mediated Sexuality's. In this chapter I was introduced to the concept of Slash: a genre of fan stories positioning homoerotic affairs between series protagonists. According the chapter, slash originated as a genre of fan writing within Star Trek fandom in the early 1970s. 

Slash was met with criticism, with an essay by Kendra Hunter dismissing slash as a form of "character rape" and a violation of the fans' desire to remain faithful to an original program. 

This quote is what made me think of the concept of aura. What fans are doing by creating these story lines that are far away from the creators intentions, is prying these characters from their aura. This is very similar to what I spoke about regarding queer theory. Media can perceived in many way, including ways in which creators and producers did not intend. Slash seems to be taking queer reading to another level. Not only is the reader or viewer creating a queer reading of Star Trek and Kirk and Spock's relationship but they are going to the additional level of creating a new plot line outside of the original series. 

Initially, I thought that fans must be writing this Slash because of the lack of GLBT characters on television and an obvious lack of same sex affection on TV and in the movies, with very few exceptions. 

It was a surprise to me to see that slash could be seen as a projection of female sexual fantasies. According to feminist Joanna Russ, slash contains elements that women find are lacking in pornography: the lovers' personal interest in each other's minds, the tenderness, the refusal to rush into a relationship, the exclusive commitment to on another. 

Contstance Penley helps me understand my confusion about women's role in this male homoerotica.

"the tendency of slash writers to depict Kirk and Spock as lovers while simultaneously asserting the the protagonists are not gay and have no history of previous homoerotic experiences; such a formulation allows the writers to maintain their own sexually charged relationship with these characters even while they are describing Kirk and Spock's commitment to each other. "

This is a concept that is interesting, yet confusing and will definitely be a topic that I bring up in my Mediated Sexualities class. 

On a side note, I was thinking about the idea of fanatics taking their "original" material too far. While the fan erotica is more about creating new plots for exisitng characters to satisfy one's own desires, some fans try to pick up where the authors left off, infringing on the authors rights.

Earlier this year, J.K. Rowling sued librarian, Steven Jan Vander Ark in order to stop the publication of a ready reference book for Harry Potter fans. Rowling claims this would interfere with her existing plans to release a dictionary of sorts in the future. 

Mr. Vander Ark testified that he was a former "Star Trek" fan for whom reading the first Harry Potter Book in 1998 was love at first sight. Ironic that he is a Trekkie, right?

Rowling claimed that Vander Ark's books copied material from her own books while adding little or no new information and insight. She was quoted with saying "A fan's affectionate enthusiasm should not obscure acts of plagiarism."

What do the creators of Star Trek think about slash. I would assume they are not pleased by the extreme changes of the characters that viewer create. 

Jennifer's Response-Textual Poachers

In Textual Poachers Henry Jenkins points out the complexity of media subcultures. Fans of these subcultures are obsessive and fanatic. They religiously follow every plot line and find aspects of a show or character that will give them meaning to their lives. For my response I have created a collage that depicts the crazy culture that surrounds these fanatics. I have included images that are associated with different cult subcultures. Surrounding these images are speech bubbles that have quotes from the book and the bubbles also include stereotypes about fanatics.



Fanatics

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Textual Poachers Response - Mary DelGrande

Textual Poachers Response -Jason Andrews

Henry Jenkins, the author of Textual Poachers, a book about the significance of fan culture in media. He argues that fans—primarily Trekkers—were appropriating various pop culture narratives and using them for their own purposes of self-expression. Based off of Michael de Certeau expression of poaching—“an impertinent raid on literary preserve that takes away only those things that are useful or pleasurable to the reader”—Jenkins examines the role in which textual context plays in the creation and devotion of fans and fanatics (24). Since Jenkins wrote his book, the Internet has enabled an explosion of fandom, now a “permanent culture”, as well as access to fan materials. Episodes of most TV shows are now imbedded, transcribed, abstracted, and tirelessly discussed by a plethora of online fans. For Jenkins fandom is created in the adaptation of context and the expansion of media which fans create based off the initial subject. His theories and observations have transcended the last 30 plus years and in our current media driven society have become an even larger cultural phenomena. Through out this response I will analyze key points of Henry Jenkins and attempt to relate and expand on them occasionally through the use of the television show LOST.

Within his book Jenkins chooses to focus on three central aspects of “a fans’ characteristic mode of reception”, first he relates how lived experiences of a fan drive their interest in texts (53). Jenkins believes that the transition from a viewer of a program to a fan depends on the intensity and emotional involvement with which they watch their program. As is the case now as then, committed viewers will make time for their favorite series blocking out time to sit and watch an episode as it airs. Jenkins soon analyzes the way in which these series are viewed arguing the modern viewer is “able to hold the text at a greater distance and to gain mastery over its meaning” (62). This reading against the grain and analyzing a series plot twists, props, costume, and dialogue while almost seemingly trivial to a writers initial purpose when Jenkins published his book, now has become a goal in modern fan series such as LOST. Small visual clues—book titles, visions, and quotes, beat sticks— all become revisited as the series grows and expands. The intention of the writers and producers is to play into the fandom encompassing the show. Luckily modern technology lends a significant hand to what Jenkins addresses as his second central aspect of fans reception.

“The role played by rereading within fan culture” (53). Jenkins seems to attribute the growth of fandom to a growing culture of VCR recordings and reruns that allow the viewer to replay episodes and develop almost obsessions with dialogue and character development. He would surely be astounded with the aide developments in modern technology have lent to this process. Tivo online video’s—both on the networks websites and video sites such as You Tube— torrent downloader and DVD box sets, have made the process of analyzing a past season or scouring an episode frame by frame a piece of cake. I imagine countless LOST fans along with myself watching seasons 1-3 on DVD before the airing of the fourth season so the continuous plot was fresh on my mind. Even searching through past episodes to find that small mystery that was exposed and developed two seasons later to better understand the relevance to the series as a whole. However as Jenkins examines in his third aspect what good is knowledge of mystery and clues if they cannot be shared with others who hold the series close if not closer to their heart.

“The process by which program information gets inserted into ongoing social interaction” (53). This one is easy for me, because similar to the story Jenkins’ recounts of a first time viewer exposed by a veteran to Beauty and the Beast, my interest with LOST was developed on a road trip down to Florida, when my best friend played me the first season in its entirety on his laptop. Almost instantly I was hooked (yes, his enthusiasm did help spark an initial interest). Interaction like this and on a much more massive scale I believe is the driving force of Jenkins argument. Fandom survives on its ability to gossip and share. Jenkins momentarily mentions the web when he states, “the computer net only intensified this process, letting fans compare notes, allowing theories to become progressively more elaborate…. (and so on)” (79). Today the internet is ground zero for fans of any and all texts. Fan newsletters have become fan pages (http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page), and gossip and conversation once locally isolated can spread across the world with blog sites and twitters. Fans can post artwork and mash-ups on a variety of host sites and share theories and questions with anyone willing to listen. The internet has revolutionized the fan and the juxtaposition of media that is “poaching” has indeed become a culture of its own. The accuracy and detail in which Henry Jenkins explores the culture of fans was astonishing and even more so was its continued relevance in today’s society. As he predicted media fandom has established itself as a permanent culture, and its Mecca is San Diego’s own Comic Con.

Meg Luby's TP response

  Meaghan Luby

            Fans and fanatics are the big discussion within the book “Textual Poachers” and it is still a very large issue within our decade. While Trekkies almost trade marked the phenomenon in the 80’s of stereotypical freaked out fans, the focus of this trend setting fan base was collectibles and conventions. Now a days, the modern spin on things is perhaps even more consuming though, more often then not, less tangible as a good amount of being a fan exists on the web.

            Oddly relevant, this week is the premier of “Twilight” the movie which is sure to be a big thrill for a majority of girls ages 11 and up. The popular tween book is essentially Harry Potter for the female populace and the vampire movie is a guaranteed smash. However, the way in which these girls and fans have blurred the line between reality and the Twilight universe is slightly worrisome.  Actor Rob Patterson plays Edward, the tragic vampire hero in the romantic plot line, and the way he has been treated since filming has been overwhelming to the English actor. He described it “almost like The Beatles in the level of ridiculous”. Females ripping at his clothing, screaming his name and yelling so loudly during interviews and conventions that he simply could not get a word in. He asked “Would you like me to answer questions or just sit here while you yell?” at a latest convention (mirroring the Will S comment of “Get a life” in terms of fan etiquette) and had no response when a woman yelled back “We’re fine just looking at you!”.

            His most scary fan moment though was when a small girl around age 7 asked him to bite her, forcing the actor to get more then slightly squeamish at the new role of his life as vampire Edward Cullen. “She had no idea what she was saying, it’s just wrong”.

            The web has been buzzing about this movie for months. The books themselves created a stir in blogging sites, fan sites, even spilling into general sites such as Facebook with bumper stickers, flair, and quizzes or Youtube with fan made movies portraying the book and piano songs performed and written as fan’s imagined Edward Cullen’s love songs would sound. When the movie began filming and the fans had more concrete love to fixiate on, things got ridiculous.

            “If the Jonas Brothers ever had roles in a Twilight moive, Facebook would literally explode” joked one bumper sticker on the common FB application. The recently popular Disney tween pop/rock band has it’s own share of obsessed fans but, Twilight obsession overwhelms these days. Fan clips, pictures, and newer web sites seem to follow a step by step day in the life of filming and moments since then. Stalker entries such as having discarded items from the trailer of Rob or other actors in the Twilight cast crop up with alarming regularity. Fan’s use youtube to splice images to songs, post bootleg clips of the movie, remix trailers in order to “better highlight Edward”.  The internet has become a safe haven for unhealthy obsessions, linking the communities of people who have blurred the lines of fact and fiction at alarming rates.

            For example, the website Fanpop.com. You can set up an account and then you simply add yourself into groups of “what you’re a fan of”. I admit to being a member of the website and, while I consider myself a solid fan, some of the material one comes across is veering off into the strange levels of appreciation people have formed for a particular television show, movie, or piece of culture. Within each category of what you’re a fan of, there are several sub groupings in which members contribute to the home page. For example, the popular television show “The Office” fanpop profile page has 6,146 fans in the main group alone (with several subgroups such as “Jim Halpert Makes my life worth living” or “JAM 4 Ever”). The page has tabs at the top of the profile reading “Home, Video, Images, Links, Articles, News, Forum, Picks, Quiz” and under each tag is are more sub categories such as under images, Fan Art, Icons, Photo Shoots, Fan pics, and Pics from the show.

            Fan addictions are simply fueled and supported on the web these days rather then looked down upon or even displayed as predominantly as Trekkies. Rather then having to done vampire teeth to prove how commited you are to Edward Cullen, you can simply join 40 groups and splice together a youtube video with your stalkerish pics of Rob’s trailer.

Textual Poachers (Megan Skelton)

Throughout the course of time, technology has affected the way that we interact with culture, people and places. The gap of time between Henry Jenkins’s Textual Poachers and now is no exception. Although, I couldn’t help but read the book as though it were written much more recently, I was still able to compare and contrast certain elements of his book and the way things are now. Fandom is an interesting concept to discuss especially in terms of television series because people are really relating to the characters and situations as opposed to the actors like in movies.

As Jenkins points out, those characters become real in the minds of the fans. They are able to predict the way that the character would react in a certain situation, or create their own scenarios for the character.

There are so many modern day examples of fan culture similar that of the Trekkies. There are online forums and fan sites for just about every show out there, but some shows tend to rake in more “fanatics” than others. The first thing that comes to my mind when conjuring up an example is “Sex & The City”. Although the show may not have gotten a glowing initial response when it aired on HBO, the show exploded when re-released on TBS with a little less racy version of the episodes. Women latched on the Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha’s characters relating every situation to a personal life experience or one that they hope never happens. After the show’s final season and a significant hiatus, the four women reappeared on the big screen for a final time. Anticipating the movie’s release date, there was talk among fans everywhere. I couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing callers taking a Sex & the City quiz to prove how knowledgeable they were about the show, or callers spilling the beans about how they had just as many sexual partners as Samantha. My roommate can relate every relationship problem to a specific episode and truly believes that we can all solve our problems by doing what one of the characters on the show did.

While I have many shows that I am a regular viewer of, I can’t consider myself a true fanatic or “poacher” of any. Jenkins talks about the type of people to have the television on for the sole purpose of having it on, not to scrutinize every detail. I fit myself more into that category of viewers. Jenkins also refers to the phenomenon of reruns or taped shows for the life of the fanatic. This really creates a whole other realm of viewing power. Today this power has been exponentially expanded with the introduction of Tivo and DVR. Fans can now record their favorite show and then skip over all of the commercials so as not to miss one detail. Then they can hop online and blog about the whole thing with others in the fan community. Right on their very own blog they can have an RSS feed to any and all sites related to their show. All rumors and spoilers can be revealed and all predictions can be shared within seconds. Many TV stations have now made it possible to catch the new episodes of all of their shows to be caught on their website just in case you missed the first 30 seconds after commercial when you were on your bathroom break. This way you can also replay your favorite moments over and over again

Social networking has existed for a long time, but now with Web 2.0, fans can network on such a broader level leading towards the whole idea of common knowledge. Just about anything you can think can be found with one keyword search on YouTube. And in case you didn’t get enough from an original video…there are also 5 remakes right along side it. Fans of particular shows can recreate their favorite moments in their own homes and then post it for the world to see. The emphasis has now shifted toward tailoring and customization.

From here, technology will only continue to advance, making it faster and easier and cheaper for fans to experience their favorite show, create their own spin-off, or form their own opinion.

Scott Turner's Textual Poachers Response

Henry Jenkins’ Textual Poachers was a fascinating read on the world and merits of fandom as they exist in the world today. Or more as in the day of 1992, when it was published—right around the same time that the first edition of George Gilder’s Life After Television was published. But while Gilder was looking ahead to the future, Jenkin’s ethnography of fandom was very much in the present—and even spent a significant amount of time looking to the past for examples of fandom, for example fans of Beauty and the Beast or Star Trek. In this response I will look at Jenkin’s thesis and see how fandom has changed with the advent of the internet and video games.

                Jenkin’s main argument—and inspiration for the title—centers around Michel de Certeau’s theories from 8 years prior, who argued that the active reading of text, as opposed to the strict memorization and regurgitation of material that is expected of grade school students, and the engagement with the themes and characters is similar to nomads who are “poaching their way across fields.” Through deconstructing Certeau’s assertions and using examples of modern fan culture, Jenkins makes a compelling case for the legitimacy of fandom as a complex subculture and one that “challenges producers’ attempts to regulate textual meaning.” But as he explains in the conclusion, ethnography cannot provide any new theories to help critique the media; Henry Jenkins can only challenge the notions of fans—especially those of them being antisocial, simple-minded, and obsessive—and I think he does a great job of it. But since there is no theory here to critique, I will try and add to his ethnography an account of fandom today.

                There is still the world of fandom Jenkins’ describes that stems from television, in the same way that Trekkies gather at conventions and have watching parties, create their own fiction and costumes, and I think shows today are potentially more likely to promote of this behavior. The internet has allowed massive groups of fans to get in touch with one another with the click of a mouse, and I would argue this has allowed fanatics to become even more fanatical by giving them a constant outlet for their productions of fan media—be it fanfiction or music videos—and discussion on such a wide range of topics. Internet forums, my first example, allow this type of discussion in such a fluid manner because so many topics to be conversed on at once. Also, advances in technology have allowed fans to even expand the ways the express fandom.

                The example I will use of this is that of Battlestar Galactica. Like Star Trek (in theme though not in sheer size), there has been a large amount of fans and fan material that spans across all mediums. But one way that this current iteration of sci-fi fandom extends beyond what Star Trek did before this technology came about is through the video game modding community. One video game that I play—Sins of a Solar Empire, a real time strategy game in space—has an active community that is seeking to represent the ships and create a new storyline of Battlestar Galactica to allow players to immerse themselves in this strategy universe with their familiar characters. So the ability to mod is the second example of a new way that the fandom has proliferated with the improvements of technology.

                The third example, which is more of a meta example because it sort of ties these other two examples together and is sort of my bigger point on how technology has changed fandom, relates back to Jenkins’ statement on page 40, that “The exclusion of those voices at the moment of reception simply mirrors their exclusion at the moment of production; their cultural interests are delegitimized in favor of the commercial interests of authorized authors.” My belief here is that the internet has fundamentally changed the way producers have to view the fans, and more than anything now they encourage fans to participate in their media by creating and hosting these discussion forums and creating the modding tools for fans to create their own content. To extend the example beyond video games, my favorite band, Coheed and Cambria, pays for their fansite—called Cobalt and Calcium—so that users can speculate, discuss, create and disseminate their own interpretations of the Coheed and Cambria storyline and foster discussion and involvement with the band.

                So whether it’s the networks of the shows who host internet forums related to the programs, or the video game company who releases modding programs, or the band who pays for the fansite and forums, technology has allowed fans to become even more engaged with the material and the producers now realize they have to encourage this engagement to keep consumers interested in their media, rather than trying to control so strictly their own message.

Lyndsay Ehrmann's Textual Poachers Response

Audience participation within the media in the form of “fans” has always been around; However, a lot has changed recently with how they express themselves. Technology has opened the door for countless new ways for them to express themselves-with the phenomenon of the world wide web-in ways much more open to the general public, and also a lot easier to participate in economically.
In Henry Jenkins’ “Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture,” he explores how the boundary between media and the viewer is broken down in the form of a fan culture. As this book was written in 1992, it is outdated-the internet has added a whole new angle to this idea of “fan culture.” One of the major changes is that many more people can now get involved, since the internet is accessible to almost everyone in our American culture one way or the other. It is no longer a hassle to get together with fellow fans and bond over your shared obsession with certain media forms, such as television series. The idea of “conventions” have decreased-one doesn’t have to make a trip to a certain location to meet others-they can do it right from their living room sofa. This makes it both more economically and practically feasible, leading to more people participating in the fan culture. Also, it is more public to everyone. Now it is not only available to the extremely dedicated fans, but also others as well. Overall, the internet has increased and changed the dynamic of fan culture, making it something much easier to participate in.
Fan web-sites for television shows, with the growing popularity of internet use in the past few years, have dramatically changed the way audiences can participate in the viewing of their favorite television shows. It is becoming more of an interactive experience, rather than strictly viewing the show. Usually, every popular television series at this time has it’s own web-site, where fans can go to catch the latest episodes with limited commercials, and absorb the serious in other various ways in between viewings-getting their “fix” until the new episode the following week. This is becoming increasingly more popular for shows aimed at our generation. The best example of this is what MTV is doing with their online web-site. Recently, John Murray (the creator and producer of popular reality shows such as Real World, The Challenges, etc.) visited Miami, and I got to go to a dinner with him with a few students to talk about his experience over the years in this line of work. He talked about how Real World has changed from it’s airing several years ago, and the growing fan base. The show has it’s own web site, and recently they started adding additions to it for fans that are only “web exclusive”-something MTV uses to gain fans to the web-sites. They will add never-seen footage from next week episodes daily to preview until the actual new episode is aired the following week, adding more and more daily. That way, fans can interact with their favorite show throughout the week using the internet medium until the new episode is aired. The feature is called “Real World Dailies,” and is a perfect expel of how the internet is changing how fans can interact with television shows beyond the actual weekly episodes.
Overall, the idea of media fans is nothing new, but participation in this culture has been completely uplifted and given a new face with the internet. It is now possible to fully interact with your favorite shows throughout the week, not having to wait until the next episode is aired. New generations are picking this up and running with it, and it will be interesting to see where certain fan cultures are ten years from now!