scifi tv and its audiences - telotte

Audiences

&

SFTV

Early, “small” audiences

Viewers invested in :

ideas

speculation

science and technology

(implications)

Seeking alternatives to

existence as is engages

Audiences on a different

Level than most entertain-

ment

Science Fiction Ideals now

“permeate” our culture.

Questioning The World

Science Fiction (and Fantasy Books)often end up on banned book lists fortheir content.Estrangement+ Cognition= Subversion

Permeating Culture• Cultural Turn

– Industrial revolution/A-bomb/moon landing etc. are “real” steps in advancing sciences and technologies

– They in turn show new possibilities and spark ideas for Sci-Fi content as discussing cultural development

– Human Potential: a) explore b) create c) destroy

– Science-Fiction is SELF-SEEDING

Permeating Culture• Established Viewership -> Existing Audience

– Perceives itself as “different” (built-in group identification)– Originated in educated/professional middle-class oft generating (originally)

utopian ideals for s + t– Group shifted in its interpretation towards a more dystopian analysis in last

50 – 60 years– Subject of genre inspires discussion among the (early on) small audience

debating: how applicable, feasible, functional etc. the seen would be– Generates first Fan-Club and Meetings (Cons) which early on are serious

discussion sites• Today’s Cons excel in diversity of offerings

– Social Media and Production Output, as well as shifting practices fragment the audience and the genre, blur genre boundaries and make content more mainstream

World Science Fiction Fair 2016:

KANSAS CITY!!!!

Permeating Culture

• Media

– joining cultural interests and existing audiences with potential for growth through product lines (main streaming)

1. Provide entertainment SFTV sense of wonder

2. Furnish education feasibility of fictional programming elements

3. Offer inspiration (classic staple of SF TTZ and ST)

Poaching Media

• Fans may appropriate, reinvent, reinterpret, recreate with, based on, and from existing material.

• Level of engagement further fragments audiences

• Now often aid the industry (sometimes without their knowledge)

• Transformative Fandom• Appropriation• Interpretation• Dialogue w/text and industry

• Affirmational Fandom• Understanding/close reading• Authorial power/ rules regulate meaning• Monologue by text/industry

• Fanfiction = writing

• Podfic = audio of fanfiction

• Fanvids = videos

• Fan art = illustrations & comics

• Filk = music

• Fan mixes = music playlists

• Cosplay = costumes

• Crafts = handmade, needlework, jewelry, etc.

• Meta = analysis & criticism

• Canon

• Fanon

• AU (alternate universe)

• Crossovers

• PWP (plot what plot?)

• RPF (real people fiction)

• Pairing

• OTP (one true pairing)

• Ship (short for relationship)

• Gen (no romance)

• Het/Slash/Femslash (m/f,

m/m, f/f romance included)

Affirmational Fandom• Often regulated and provided by industry• Connects to audiences

• Providing gap-filling content during breaks• Provides authorial guidance for interpretation• Offers promotional opportunities for

program/star/network in question• Offers ancilliary financial opportunities• Guides back to and protects integrity of the “Mothership”

Podcasts / Director’s Commentary / Limited availability of material for viewers providing answers, limiting creative options, providing narrative justification

Discouraging interpretation (cease and desist)

Intensifying consumption

Reinforcing dominant readings of texts

MAINTAINING AUTHORIAL POWER