Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Lost
Paul Levinson’s book “New New Media” is a pleasure to read, as it takes you through the new media technology and gives you an insight to its functions, and explains the process of blogging, and social networking. Just like Jessica’s comment in class, I did not realize this (Cyberspace)blogging had been out there for some time now. Levinson referred to “Lost “the TV series that is now in its final season. I too am a fan of the show; I had no idea that there is a following on cyberspace, including private bloggers and social networking sites dedicated to the show, inclusive of giving you clues on the next episode. I must be stuck in the old culture of waiting around the water cooler waiting for the “Lost” fans to gather the day after the show’s episode for “face to face” communication,about the highlights of the show, with my coworkers. Just call me a realist.
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You'd be surprised just how large the online fan culture can truly be. Lost is a great example, and it's not just for that show. for example, Scrubs has its own version of Wikipedia that will give you everything you could possibly want to know about that show, complete with fan blogs, forums, episode recaps, character bios, etc etc etc. And that's just one of the many examples just for this show alone.
ReplyDeleteGranted, there is still the face to face water cooler discussion the next morning, but now you can do it instantly with the internet, which satisfies our culture's need for instant gratification. Something else I've noticed too is that the water cooler talk at my job at least seems to be restricted mostly to huge media events. In fact, last night one of my coworkers went around asking if anybody saw Lost the night before, to which nobody replied. And I could very likely ask the same question with a different show and get no responses either. There are so many options out there right now that there just doesn't seem to be that "one" show like there was even a few years ago. For example, a limited number of my friends saw the Office wedding episode, whereas over 12 years ago nearly everybody I know saw the Seinfeld finale. While there was a lot of great content on television back there, the rise of cable networks as legitimate sources of content has really been an interesting development, as people are just as likely to turn to an MTV or Comedy Central during primetime as their are to a major network. I know this is completely unrelated to your original post Lisa, but I definitely think it's pretty interesting.
Mike, you bring up a great point. There are so many more options out there right now that it isn't uncommon to be left all alone when you want to talk about what happened on 'Lost' last night. Such events like the Superbowl create face-to-face communication, but also at the same time think about this:
ReplyDeleteJersey Shore.
What is the obsession with shows like this? What happened to talking about a great episode of 20/20, Friends, or 24? Yet, something as mind blowingly stupid as the Jersey Shore captures a large part of societies attention, and integrates it. SNL, the news, and cable networks are obsessing over this show- and not to mention the online obsession with it. It's amazing (not in a good way).
I can't figure it out.
I still think I will be waiting at the water cooler .....
ReplyDeleteFan clubs, fan newsletters, and fan literature (fans making up stories about fictional characters and sharing them) were around long before the internet, but online communication facilitates this kind of activity, and brings fans together from many different locales. As Mike indicates, it is a major phenomenon on the internet, and one that has been the subject of much research.
ReplyDelete