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| Grassroots Fan Culture and Textual Poaching A recent article in Reason Magazine details a fairly recent wave of crackdowns by corporate media companies against the grassroots fan sites devoted to certain TV shows and movies. These fan sites are an interesting phenomenon in and of themselves. I've always been an avid science fiction geek, and couldn't avoid coming into occasional contact with the world of "SF Fandom". Science Fiction has had a small but organized cadre of obsessive fans ever since the 70's. Fan fiction, fan conventions, even fan folksongs (filk!) all preexisted the internet - with the most obvious example being the "Trekkies". Henry Jenkins, an MIT media theorist, wrote a great book about the significance of this fan culture in his book Textual Poachers where he argues that these fans were appropriating these pop culture narratives and using them for their own purposes of self-expression. Since Jenkins wrote his book, the Internet has enabled an explosion in these fan sites, as well as access to fan materials. Episodes of most TV shows are now transcribed, abstracted, and endlessly discussed by a legion of devoted online fans. Attentive fans often point out the potential significance of every minor detail, or can offer an analysis of show themes and character arcs. Broadcast episodes are placed and interpreted within and enriched context that fills in the gaps of missed episodes and highlights significant details from past episodes. Beyond the confines of the broadcast episodes, fan fiction takes the characters in new directions (Scully and Mulder finally do it!) or even in rather odd directions (Mulder and the Lone Gunmen in hot 5-way male-male action!). Copyright Infringement vs. Attention Economics Of course, this grassroots poaching of characters runs up against the current copyright laws. Although corporate media interests sometimes seem willing to tolerate the free publicity of a fan site, from time to time they will crack down on these sites and strictly enforce their copyrights. This even seems fairly sensible from the corporate perspective: these sites can cannibalize the sales of printed episode guides, draw traffic away from the official series web site, and dilute the public image of characters they have spent millions promoting. In the digital age, there seem to be compelling reasons to keep fan enthusiasm from getting out of line. On the other hand, cracking down on these expressions of fandom seem incredibly shortsighted. With one stroke the corporate media barons manage to alienate their most devoted fans and silence an ongoing source of free publicity for a corporate product. These sites have fans spending impressive quantities of time creating content that generates considerable attention for the media franchise. This conflict seems to be a front line in the battle between the conventional economy and the attention economy. From these preliminary skirmishes, it seems that the economics of attention has a good chance of eventually prevailing in this. One reason is that as the number of media channels multiplies, the number of shows will multiply as well. With only so many hours in the day available, the competition for viewers will only get more intense. But with more channels available, it becomes possible for moderately popular shows to migrate to niche channels if ratings sag. Shows with a strong and well-organized fan base seem to manage these inter-networks transitions better than shows with an atomized fanbase. Eventually some of the corporate suits may come to realize this, and would help support their fans in order to help boost the long-term chances of the franchise. But it's the textual poaching by fans that may really hammer home the lessons of attention economics for these media franchises. For many viewers, these modern media franchises are the very fabric of the myths and narratives that that shape the public imagination. Themes of utopian fellowship continue to keep the Star Trek franchise going it's 4th television iteration. In the late 80's Bart Simpson was the archetypal icon of GenX sarcasm and sass - an icon subverted by some enterprising T-shirt vendors into "Rastafarian Bart", "Hip-Hop Bart" and even "Chicano Bart". I'll save the cultural analysis for the semioticians, but it's clear that from this kind of fan behavior that a character like Bart Simpson can resonate with the public in surprising and unconventional ways. This sort of behavior is a violation of copyright, but the harm seems minimal when compared against the attention-gaining benefits. A fad pop icon like Bart Simpson - even with the bootlegged modifications and subversions - constantly advertises "The Simpsons" to the public. The more prevalent the icon, the more likely it is that people will feel compelled to tune in for no other reason than to see what all the fuss is about. Fan sites, fan fiction, and other fan manipulation of the show content deepen fan involvement with the show, and can even turn them into zealots willing to gratuitously promote the viewing of the show. (Note: watch Farscape on the SciFi channel Fridays at 8pm or 11pm !!!!). Viral Marketing through Fan Communities The Blair Witch Project has been touted as one of the first movies to successfully use the web in the promotion of a movie, but there has not yet been a similar success story for a television show. Eventually the online fan base will be credited with the success of a particular tv program, which could lead to a change in the way such shows are marketed. If shows with certain characteristics - like evolving character relationships - manage to generate a fanbase, then writers and producers may begin to place greater emphasis on these show elements. Fans are a great un-exploited resource for entertainment. Some shows have even tried to develop good relationships with the fanbase, yet there are legal barriers to interaction between creators and fans. Several years ago, the creator of Babylon 5 was a regular participant in the Babylon 5 usenet newsgroup, but great pains had to be taken to avoid the posting of story ideas. If ideas were posted were the creator would be likely to read them, and later episodes were similar to ideas posted online, the poster of the idea would have a legal basis to sue the production company for compensation for the use of his idea. Even if a contributor explicitly gave away the idea, there would still be a legal cloud hanging over the idea. (One poster did get some ideas through the screening process, ideas that were very similar to upcoming episodes of Babylon 5. To avoid an ambiguous legal situation, the plotlines were scrapped and the scripts were re-written). In this case, the intellectual property laws are too constrictive, making it difficult for individuals to put a plot idea fully in the public domain in the hopes that creators of the show would use some of them. The Open Source Software movement faces this problem as well - new breakthroughs in open source software do not preclude crooked software designers from modifying the break-though and them filing for a patent - essentially privatizing what was previously a community resource. There is some talk in the open source community to fund a non-profit group that would patent open source innovations, and insure open access to the innovations. Other ideas have included an online database of innovation that would be evidence of "prior art" that would invalidate future patents. Others have pointed to an obscure form of patenting where for a nominal sum the inventor can explicitly place his innovation in the public domain. Written by Mark Justman Copyright 2000 Posted 3/20/2000 http://go.to/futureplex |
