CORE RESPONSE (WEEK 6)

Andrejevic makes very clear his critique of corporate exploitation of fan labor by manipulating the illusive concept of “interactivity” through the case study of TWoP and he comes to an conclusion that culminates in almost an utter negation of the potentially subversive form of textual poaching as conceived by Henry Jenkins: “Far from ‘despoiling’ the television texts through their practices, TWoPpers enrich them, not just for themselves but for those who economically benefit from…the labor of viewers.” Although I feel it is crucial to debunk the illusion of shared control over media production, and also, to acknowledge the concerns of fan labor being exploited, Andrejevic seems too hasty in denying the fact practices of TWoP as part of the emerging system of Web 2.0 places greater power in the hands of the fans and audience when compared to the older broadcast paradigm. Weakness of his argument can be considered at least in the following two aspects.

I find most problematic his lack of understanding of pleasure for fans and their community as fandom. This becomes most obvious when he ascribes “ensuring he or she is seen to not be a dupe” of tv content to the only defensive pleasure for an active viewer who posts on fan websites. By enforcing his conceptualization of fans to fit into Zizek’s diagnosis of pathologies in this postmodern society, he oversimplifies a complex of motives for fans to engage themselves in writing posts, commenting, and other cultural practices. Fandom can be viewed as both parallel to the real world and an extension of it, and therefore, it has its own hierarchy on the basis of cultural resources, which are contingent upon, for instance, a savvy of behind-the-scenes knowledge and an insightful piece of comment. In this light, the author overlooks  recognition or reputation, status, satisfaction, and, above all, the pride of fans in accomplishment of fan work.  

Likewise, when the author refers to Terranova’s concept of “free labor” to theorize those contributors’ effort, I think he too easily reduces audience labor to a kind of alienated labor. He also lacks an understanding of fan work within fandom’s gift economy where a process of gift exchange is ongoing and reiterative. The author places too much weight on the relationship between active posters and media producers of tv shows while overlooking how fans interact with each other in fandom. Indeed, the vibrancy of such a fan website is embedded in an internal mechanism of gift economy rather than an imagined reciprocal relations with producers on the side of active viewers.