What role does Hills (2004) suggest the fans play in the construction of cult TV? How is new media central to this?
Cult TV is a very modern genre because of how it becomes popular. It is a genre that is made popular by ‘word of mouth’ and by what is considered ‘in fashion’ at the time. For example, the ‘vampire’ theme is very popular at the present influencing the cult TV program True Blood, which was most probably influenced by the very successful Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
These successful programs became so successful because of the way they are perceived by the media. New media is so important in the construction of cult TV because new media such as television and the internet, is what is used to promote it. For example nowadays, you can go online and watch and episode of a popular TV program that you missed, which makes the viewers more attached to their desired program. Also advertising and merchandising makes the relationship people have with their desired program more intimate and gives it more of a cult following.
In Hills (2004), John Fiske says, "Television's pervasiveness in our culture is not due simply to the fact that so much of it is broadcast... but because it pervades so much of the rest of our cultural life - new-papers, magazines..."
Hills, M. (2004). Defining Cult TV; Texts,
Inter-texts and Fan Audiences, The
Television Studies Reader, in R. C. Allen
& A. Hill. London and New York:
Routledge.
For this response it would have been good to actually investigate what True Blood websites/fansites are available and discuss these and how they might have contributed to the development of True Blood as cult TV / thus supporting Fiskes' quote. Don't forget page numbers for direct quotes!
ReplyDeleteWell written, but I think it is very general to say that something is 'in fashion'? In fashion to whom?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think it would have been cool to have a more in-depth look at new media.
:)