What role does Hills (2004) suggest the fans play in the construction of cult TV? How is new media central to this?
Hills (2004) Suggests that "cult status arises, ultimately, through an audience's passion for a TV show. This type of argument positions cult TV as a 'grassroots' phenomenon, assuming that it is created by fans rather than media producers." and that "This definition leads to research questions such as ' What activities do fans of cult TV engage in?', and 'How do fan activities produce cult status?'." With this in mind we can see through a cult series like Buffy that the makers of the show have clearly asked the question 'What do fans of cult TV engage in?' I think it is fair to assume that a large group of there followers are adolescent viewers and as such are the type of viewers that are likely to be living at home with their parents sitting in their rooms watching TV. In the episode we watched in class an acknowledgement of this type of viewer was reflected in the character 'Zander" who lived in his parents basement. His room was decked out with rubber, inflatable furniture and trimmings of a room you would expect to be inhabited by a young person, or teenager. The characters in the basement were watching cartoons in bed, also a behavior you would expect from a young person and teenager. This to me suggests that the makers of this cult TV program have not only asked the question 'What do fans of cult TV engage in?' but have gone further to offer characters to the fans that reflect their own lives and situation. I also believe that placing the characters initially in a high school situation was a stroke of genius, as it gave high school students something to relate to and high school being the social breeding ground that it is had these young fans at high school talking to friends and class mates about this "cool show Buffy' which was a great to spread the series to cult status by peer pressure and word of mouth.
A great response Trevor supported by an interesting reference to the primary materal. Saying this - I'm not so sure you fully answered the question which really referrred to 'new media' - perhaps by discussing the potential role of new media in the way the "peer pressure and word of mouth" was spread would be useful. Don't forget page numbers when referencing direct quotes.
ReplyDeleteYes it does seem like I overlooked the second part of the question. I guess my answer to that would be although un referenced or anything would be that, with older media the shows were spat out for the viewer and even though they were not particulary representative of their audience that was the only choice. I mean in New Zealand in particular we watched Coronation street for years without questioning the fact that we wern't actually british, even the news readers read with british accents, but now days the new forms of shows are more representative of the audience it is speaking to. We have shortland street and Nz accents on our news. (Hope that makes sense cheers for the responses.)
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