Star Trek, Fan Film, and the Internet: Possibilities and Constraints of Fan-Based Vernacular Cultures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kris M Markman

This paper explores the distinctions between mass and vernacular popular culture as manifestedin the fan productions of Star Trek fans. Fan-produced video represents an opportunity forordinary people to take the means of cultural production into their own hands. However, becauseof its roots in an already-existing, culture industry-produced world, there may exist limits to theamount of resistance this form of vernacular culture can provide. To explore these tensions, Icompare two fan film productions based on the popular Star Trek television and movie franchise.These two productions, both of which are distributed through the Internet, illustrate the differentlevels of attachment to and freedom from the main text that characterize much of fan film.

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-51
Author(s):  
Driss Faddouli

In this paper, I argue that the creation and circulation of the visual narratives within Facebook groups by Moroccan Facebookers largely entail and substantiate a stronger process of cultural production that has its own logic and praxis. I argue that this process of cultural production has two major facets: an aestheticization of everyday life and promulgation of specific modes of consciousness. Through the aestheticization of everyday life, I posit that Moroccan youth’s acts of cultural production increasingly blur the formal boundaries between the Internet, art, and popular culture; an aspect which fundamentally empowers their creative online input. Through the promulgation of specific modes of consciousness, I argue that the visual narratives attempt to develop and enhance the cultural sensibilities which better champion their perceptions and stances. Taken together, I claim that these major manifestations of the process of cultural production, while being deeply wedded to the Gramscian and Foucauldian perception of power dynamics, set the tone for an underlying struggle over power and meaning-making in the Moroccan society, thus seeking to intervene and exploit the gaps and contradictions in these power dynamics in society.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nete Nørgaard Kristensen ◽  
Heikki Hellman ◽  
Kristina Riegert

Based on theories about the role of cultural mediators in cultural production and using the TV series Mad Men as a case, this article investigates how cultural journalists in the Nordic countries have contributed to legitimizing “quality TV series” as a worthy field of aesthetic consumption. Key analytical points are as follows: (1) cultural journalists legitimize Mad Men’s quality by addressing aspects internal (aesthetic markers) and aspects external (culture industry markers) to the series, as well as the series’ broader social and historical anchoring; (2) Nordic cultural journalists position themselves positively toward the TV series based on their professional expertise and their personal taste preferences and predilections; (3) these legitimation processes take place across journalistic genres, pointing to the importance not only of TV criticism, epitomized by the review, but of cultural journalism more broadly in constructing affirmative attitudes toward popular culture phenomena such as TV series.


Author(s):  
Tamara Vázquez-Barrio ◽  
Teresa Torrecillas-Lacave ◽  
Rebeca Suárez-Álvarez

Traditional television coexists with formats that originated on the internet, as well as on-demand consumption, paid television, and other audio-visual content distribution platforms. Audience data reveal a steady decline in television viewership, and digital technologies now allow any citizen to produce audio-visual content and distribute it for mass consumption through the internet. Given this new audio-visual ecosystem, the aim of this research is to ascertain whether there are any signs of a crisis regarding the dominance of television as a means of disseminating the products of the culture industry. Disinterest or indifference toward conventional programming by users would reveal a danger to the broadcast industry. In contrast, the consumption of television products through other channels would imply the retention of television audiences through the internet. This study analyzes perceptions regarding television through five online discussion groups. Three conclusions can be drawn: Firstly, television holds a prominent place in the daily lives of those who use it, including the youngest participants, despite the fact that audiences have declined in recent years. The second conclusion states that the perception of television is positive and associated with disengagement, relaxation, and family gatherings, which can be combined with individual consumption at other times of the day. As a third conclusion, this study reveals the high degree of compatibility between the internet and television screens, as new forms of consumption are emerging, yet there is still a predominant interest in content on television and from the mass culture industry. Resumen La televisión tradicional convive con formatos originados en internet, con el consumo bajo demanda, con la televisión de pago y con otras plataformas de distribución de contenido audiovisual. Los datos de audiencias muestran un descenso continuado de telespectadores y las tecnologías digitales permiten a cualquier ciudadano producir contenidos audiovisuales y distribuirlos para el consumo masivo a través de la Red. Ante este nuevo ecosistema audiovisual, el objetivo de esta investigación es comprobar si se pueden advertir signos de una crisis de la supremacía del televisor como medio de difusión de industria cultural. El desapego o indiferencia de los usuarios hacia la programación convencional evidenciaría un peligro para la televisión. Al contrario, el consumo de productos televisivos a través de otras pantallas implicaría el mantenimiento de las audiencias televisivas a través de internet. La investigación analiza las percepciones sobre la televisión mediante cinco grupos de discusión online. Se extraen tres conclusiones. La primera, que la televisión ocupa una posición relevante en la cotidianeidad de los participantes, incluidos los más jóvenes, a pesar de que las audiencias han descendido en los últimos años. La segunda, que la percepción sobre la televisión es positiva y se asocia a la desconexión, el relax y a un momento de reunión familiar compaginable con consumos individualizados en otros momentos del día. Tercera, el estudio demuestra el alto grado de compatibilidad entre internet y la pantalla del televisor porque surgen nuevas formas de consumo, pero se mantiene un interés predominante por los contenidos televisivos y de la gran industria cultural.


Author(s):  
Laurence Maslon

A generational change at the beginning of the twenty-first century intersected with the technological advance of the Internet to provide a renaissance of Broadway music in popular culture. Downloading playlists allowed the home listener to become, in essence, his/her own record producer; length, narrative, performer were now all in the hands of the consumer’s personal preference. Following in the footsteps of Rent (as a favorite of a younger demographic), Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton emerged as the greatest pop culture/Broadway musical phenomenon of the twenty-first century; its cast album and cover recording shot up near the top of music’s pop charts. A rediscovery of the power of Broadway’s music to transform listening and consumer habits seems imminent with the addition of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen to a devoted fan base—and beyond.


Author(s):  
Adrian Deveau

Popular media is a series of appropriations and citations of cultural productions, refurbishing past ideas to fit the mold of the present. Representation of art works and cultural products influence the visibility of the groups who produce for popular culture. While social media and contemporary art allow for the rapid spread of ideas through the internet and advertisements, too often are ideas stolen for profit for large companies by exploiting the artistic integrity of uninitiated groups. Queer culture often appropriates historical methodologies for a reclamation of the past to create representation for the future. Queer artists produce landmark aesthetics in visual culture, shaping contemporary fashion trends and artistic movements in the 21st Century. While appropriation as a methodology is not inherently problematic, exploitation develops when artists are neglected credit for works which are exploited for capitalist gain.The research paper The Golden Age of Stealing: An Analysis of Queer Appropriation and Exploitation in 21st Century Popular Culture analyzes the relationship between the appropriation and exploitation of Queer art, using the 1980’s and 90’s club kids as a platform for queer aesthetic production. The paper outlines the dichotomy between representation of queer peoples in the 1990’s and the aesthetics produced to question popular representations and roles within a western consumer society. Using queer performative theories including utopianism, performativity, and disidentification, the paper distinguishes why the stealing of queer art for profit is inherently dangerous and regressive for the queer community, silencing queer voices and perpetrating a heteronormative narrative of cultural production.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellita Permata Widjayanti ◽  
Chaerul Anwar

In 4.0 era, in which popular culture is flourishing, fanfiction is experiencing rapid growth. Many fans write about their idols, characters in movies, anime, games, and TV series. They make simulations, create simulacra, and hyperreality. Unfortunately, there are many fan-fiction productions which have pornographic content that is not in accordance with Indonesian cultural norms and moral ethics. This then becomes a moral challenge for the nation, especially for the youth, as they have free access to the internet. This research aims to look the challenges of morality within fanfiction, explaining it through the theory of hyperreality by using data taken from popular fanfiction platforms. The results show that pornography contained in fanfiction poses a threat to the moral codes of teenage readers, and renders pornographic practices more common. Besides, the hyperreality fosters sexual fantasies, which may lead to sexual harassment, free sex, and deviant sex. Keywords: fanfiction, simulation, simulacra, hyperreality, pornography, morality


2012 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Allen

This article explore how, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, the internet became historicised, meaning that its public existence is now explicitly framed through a narrative that locates the current internet in relation to a past internet. Up until this time, in popular culture, the internet had been understood mainly as the future-in-the-present, as if it had no past. The internet might have had a history, but it had no historicity. That has changed because of Web 2.0, and the effects of Tim O'Reilly's creative marketing of that label. Web 2.0, in this sense not a technology or practice but the marker of a discourse of historical interpretation dependent on versions, created for us a second version of the web, different from (and yet connected to) that of the 1990s. This historicising moment aligned the past and future in ways suitable to those who might control or manage the present. And while Web 3.0, implied or real, suggests the ‘future’, it also marks out a loss of other times, or the possibility of alterity understood through temporality.


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