lifeinthedigitalworld-blog

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Fandom

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The concept of fandom is multifaceted as it involves lot of different, yet detailed characters, from different backgrounds accompanied with diverse interpretations when it comes to the digital media. This blog post will deal with the cultural life theme, by looking specifically at fandom (both male and female) and illustrating how and why digital media influences people’s ideas about it.

The term ‘fan’ is derived from the word fanatic, which Jenkins (1996) refers to as “people of or belonging to a temple, or a temple servant or a devotee” (Jenkins, 1996: 12). In more simpler terms, the word ‘fan’ may be used to describe an admirer of a specific popular culture feature, which may be a soccer team(soccer fans) a particular music genre(music fans) or a precise icon (Beyoncé fans).

Fandom is derived from the idea of a shared interest, or rather a common interest, consequently it is defined as “a shared identity performance” by Mediartexthack (2013) Accessed: 28 October 2017. It involves the creation of social groups, which may result in a group of people that share a similar interested and may seem as a ‘family’. An example of Fandom may be a common interest in a popular television serious such as Empire of Game of Thrones or a soccer team such as Real Madrid or Kaizer Chiefs. In this case the identity is shared among individuals who love watching the series or soccer matches and they may show this by purchasing item such as key holders or t shirts to keep as souvenirs (as observed in soccer matches, where people sell scarves, hats or t-shirts of the teams that are playing) purchasing these items shows some kind of ‘loyalty’ – which is what the concept of fandom about, some sort of devotion shared towards the team which they support.

So how does the digital media fit in with all of this? Firstly, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram have fan pages which are usually created by fans. An example which I discovered on Facebook is a fan page for car lovers called ‘Audi Lovers’’ which from my observation was predominantly filled with males. The page alone has around 1 million ‘likes’ and can be accessed on this link : https://www.facebook.com/AudiFanPage/ It is interesting to note that a confined space such as Facebook is able to bring together  such a large number of people, who have a common interest, being a car.

Digital platforms have also allowed for fans to communicate with each other, most often sharing information such as when the next meeting or event will be, what the dress code will be and what time the event is going to happen. Fandom can be viewed from two perspectives, one being masculine, a manly way of looking at fandom. This may include points such as that fandom is obsessive, dangerous and violent. While the second one is more of a feminine perspective, where there is a sense of being over emotional, sentimental and uncritical. Overall fandom strongly links to the idea of the female audiences, which is very bias and stereotypical as females are not the only audience that can be fans. Males are also fans, for example the majority of soccer supporters are males. There is a “conception of the fan as emotionally unstable, socially maladjusted, and dangerously out of sync with reality” (Jenkins, 1996 :13).

The digital space has also brought with it websites and blogs where fans can keep up with what or who they admire. For example there is a website specially created for Nicki Minaj fans called ‘MyPinkFriday’ and can be accessed on this link:  https://www.mypinkfriday.com/. The webisite provides information about events, news, charity, store and media about Nicki Minaj. This is proof that fandom is a complex arena which is typically underestimated.

Let’s look at Star Wars, which has a large fandom globally. It is a mainstream popular culture product , however the way it has been received  is oppositional due to the fact that the fans “find themselves arguing from a position of weakness in attempting to defend their fascination to the programme” (Jenkins, 1996: 21). Some characters in star wars are useful in some people’s identity, this identity may involve crossplay (that is dressing up in the costumes of fictional characters from television shows, movies or games.

With the help of digital media platforms, tournaments such as the ‘Cosplay Championship’ can be streamed live on YouTube from the official Star Wars page. Engaging in cross play also has some stereotypes when it comes to gender because males who indulge in it are seen as weird and geeky while females are seen as cool and interesting. This appeals to the way in which the patriarchy system views how women and men should dress and behave in society. 

There is actually an official website https://www.501st.com/ which basically promotes the interest of Star wars and to ‘facilitate costumes’. Fandoms are generally associated with low culture because they are associated with things that are not taken seriously or are not imagined to be that important and valuable in the society. The internet has elevated the status of fandom as more and more people are joining these communities online. More blogs are blogging about it, individuals are tweeting about specific fandom such as this Twitter user: @YamzInTheTrap : https://twitter.com/YamzInTheTrap/status/924418483697475585

Digital platforms have offered those who are considered to be fans of a specific celebrity, team or show just to name a few, the opportunity to express their views online. They are given the power to have cultural relations in class dynamic since they can somehow express the difference between high and low culture. A recent example can be drawn from the Migos Culture tour which happened at the TicketPro dome. Migos fans took videos at the concert and posted them on Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag #MigosSACultureTour with the hopes of creating the Fear Of Missing Out (‘FOMO’) among those who did not attend the concert. It goes to show that although the overall concert had a lot of downs, the ‘loyal fans’ remained true to their idols and cheered them on, causing them to trend on twitter.

So is fandom a good or bad thing? The good outweighs the bad when it comes to this. It is good as it intimidates power, hegemony and intersexuality. It is bad mainly because some people might view you as a lunatic for posting about your love for someone you have never met (Rihanna) or a fictional character (SpongeBob) or even worse! An item (coca cola cans, you know the ones that have names on them) But who cares? Life is too short anyway!

Sources

Jenkins, H. 1992. “Get A Life!” Fans, poachers, nomads. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York & London: Routledge.

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#FeesMustFall: A revolutionary movement.

October 2015 saw the birth of a revolution among institutions of higher learning. Students were overwhelmed by the 10,5% fee increase that the University had introduced for the following academic year(2016). Under the hashtag FeesMustFall, the movement brought attention to the fact that our public university system, ostensibly paid for by the government, is slowly being privatised. This blog post will focus on the political sphere of digital media and by looking at #FeesMustFall movement. It will further illustrate the influence which the digital media had in portraying the movement as whole. Several examples will be taken from a YouTube channel called Media for Justice, Twitter(Looking at the Daily Vox, EWN, Wits Vuvuzela and ANN7) accounts just to name a few. The concepts of citizen journalism will also be discussed.

Living in a world where fees and accommodation in institutions of higher learning are crises, where students not only have to crack their heads when it comes to their grades, but they also have to worry about where they are going to sleep or how they are going to pay for their fees. The #FeesMustFall movement was seen and still is considered as a glimmer of hope for many disadvantaged students as it broadened to other issues such as student debt and loan system and further fought to undo the privatising moves such as outsourcing. Several universities around the country were shut down by students during the months of October and November 2015. “The student protests had elevated the issue of access to universities and government support of education into the national discourse, which resulted in many popular writings and analyses of the possibility and probability of an increase in government support for free, quality higher education” (Naidoo, 2016).

Digital media has had a huge impact in the way that the FeesMustFall campaign was covered and presented to the public, Afterall the protest was initiated by students who are all mostly surrounded by technology. It the light of the national protest, it is evident that without the help of digital platform such as Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp, some of the information would have not circulated. I remember when this protest started I was doing my first year, fresh out of high school and overwhelmed by the workload which varsity brought with it. When the then SRC president Nompendulo Mkhatshwa announced that there is a university shutdown I could not comprehend exactly what she meant.

Emails from ‘Wits.no.reply’ and from other modules kept on flooding in, all talking about either the cancellation, postponement or continuation of classes, tests or submissions. While the university management was saying one thing, the students used the digital media to communicate another, leaving students, like myself, confused as to who they should listen to. 

During the 2015 protest, one would log on to twitter, to find that the hashtag #FeesMustFall is number one on trending. It was lit, as “Individuals with mobile phones and other media tools are able to capture ‘news’ in real or close-to-real time­ – much more immediately and rapidly than professional journalists” (Hyde- Clarke, 2010: 15).

The above introduces the notion of citizen journalism, which is defined as “when the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another” (Lewis, Kaufhold, Lasorsa, 2009: 6). 

For example, on twitter, ordinary students posted pictures or videos of either themselves at the protest or of other students protesting using the hashtags #FeesMustFall, #UCTShutdown or #WitsFees depending on the institution they were based in. but the common one is #FeesMustFall as it includes university institutions nationally.  A recent video posted by the user @Saul_Asiphe is evidence of citizen journalism. Watch the video here: https://twitter.com/Saul_Asiphe/status/922800525124489217 

Digital platforms played a role in facilitating communication among students as people, myself included would go onto twitter to find out the latest about the protest using the hashtags mentioned above. “The rapid rise in the use of mobile telephones and internet- enabled gadgets has resulted in social media becoming an important locus of social and political transformation in Africa” (Omanga, 2015: 1). 

It’s not a new phenomenon that the media as a whole is biased. It only portrays one side of the story, and this is true when it comes to the FeesMustFall protest. For instance, in the 2016 protest when one of the student leaders, Mcebo Dlamini got into an altercation with one of the police front of the great hall.

The national broadcaster, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) alongside eNews Channel Africa (eNCA) did not show the moments that lead up to the arrest (as in how it started), this made it seem as if the student leader is the one who provoked the policeman. But in the digital media, a YouTube channel called Media For Justice, covered the moments that led up to the arrest. This can be viewed on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K02nn4wexiM

Unfortunately not everyone has access to digital media platforms due to the digital divide, which states that not everyone has access to technology and the internet as a whole and that has had an impact in how people view the protest. While some people support it, some are against it. Online news platforms like the Daily Vox provided on- the- minute accounts of what was happening during the protest regardless of the time.

The growth of the digital media and its technological advancements which have enabled the sharing of information and knowledge. A lot of global activities are facilitated using technology, for example #FeesMustFall protest which has now become a global sensation due to the ability to access information online. The global audience showed solidarity with the movement, and I would argue it is due to the phenomenon of globalisation which is defined as “the intensification of world-wide social relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (Giddens, 1990: 64). The concept of globalisation is a multifaceted as it integrates the social, political, cultural and technological aspects of the world we live in which is evident in the protest.

“Internet platforms such as Facebook act as aggregators of collective dissent” (Aouragh & Alexander, 2011: 53). This was illustrated by the mushrooming of not only Facebook pages but also WhatsApp groups created to support the call for mass meetings or the plan of action for the next day. It is also important to note that some voice notes were also circulating on WhatsApp, for instance one voicenote was basically an update about a meeting that took place in the evening at Solomon Mahlangu house. Other voice notes were basically ‘warning’ students not to come on campus or go to class.

“It is valid to ask how the current revolutions could have spread and organized if internet tools had not been available” (Aouragh & Alexander, 2011: 52). How would the FeesMustFall? Would it have gained much more or less momentum if the digital and social media platforms had not played a role? Would it have made as much impact as it did? A million dollar question that still remains in the minds of academics and scholars. It is without doubt that majority of people consume media via technology and digital media is at the fore front of covering events and is a successful tool in empowering people.

Sources

Aouragh, M., & Alexander, A. (2011). The Egyptian experience: Sense and nonsense of the Internet revolution. International Journal of Communication, 5, 15.

Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford University Press, 60-70.

Hyde- Clarke, N. (2010). The citizen in communication: re visiting traditional, new and community media practices in South Africa. Pp 11-26.

Lewis, S.C., Kaufhold, K. & Lasorsa, D.L (2009). ‘Thinking about Citizen Journalism: Perspectives on Participatory News Production at Community Newspapers’, paper presented to the International Symposium on Online Journalism, Texas, 18 April.

Naidoo, L. (2016). FeesMustFall

Omanga, D. M. (2015). ‘Chieftaincy’ in the Social Media Space: Community Policing in a Twitter Convened Baaraza. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 4 (1), Art- 1.

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Digital Dating: Catfshing gone wrong

Indeed “a digital revolution is under way with regard to dating, courtship and modern romance” (Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L: 2016, 272). Online platforms have not only facilitated easy communication among individuals, but they have also paved a way for how one might meet their significant other, and live to tell the tale as to how the digital space unknowingly laid the foundation of their happily ever after. In order to show how and why digital media influences the personal sphere of modern life, this blog post will look at digital dating using by Catfish: The TV Show as the central reference. This which will show the impact and some consequences that online dating might have. Concepts such as moral panic will be discussed alongside other examples from dating sites such as Tinder and Plenty of Fish. 

In a world dominated by social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, people are bound to try their luck in finding the one as they are tired of cupid who always sends the wrong person or wrong match. Although online dating does not work for everyone, sometimes it does work and provide long-term relations for some people. There are several online dating sites which stand out, Tinder being one of them. This app helps facilitate communication between mutually interested users, allowing matched users to chat. The same concept applies to Plenty of Fish (PoF), which is also an online dating service, popular primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Brazil, and the United States. Tinder is quite a useful and interesting case study when one thinks about how popular culture has changed the way in which individuals who are classified as ‘middle class’ date. 

The incorporation of direct messages on the social networks mentioned above also plays a role in how people get to meet and potentially date. However, scholars argue that although people are able to find ‘the one’ it can be deemed as ‘liquid love’ which is defined as when “romance and courtship is turned into a type of entertainment where users can date secure in the knowledge they can always return to the marketplace for another bout of shopping” (Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L: 2016, 272).

It is significant to note that with the emergence of the idea of dating online, or rather meeting your partner online, there was a lot of public responses the main one being that of moral panic. This phenomenon is defined by the Oxford Dictionary (2015) as “an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society”. With the alarming increase of mobile dating apps, there is an ongoing and low-level moral panic about what these apps will do to the society as time goes on. This moral panic is mostly influenced by parents, who are overwhelmed by how the youth is ‘addicted’ to their phones, religious leaders and some academics. As new pieces of technology arise, they bring with them moments of anxiety among the society as everyone is sceptical.

The emergence of online dating apps, has brought with it the culture of ‘hooking up’, where people link up not for a solid romantic relationship but rather for sex. “Some individuals are using the technology to engage in casual sexual encounters” (Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L: 2016, 277).The thought of talking to a stranger online is actually deemed evil or dangerous, thus people raise a lot of concerns when it comes to dating apps as people may use fake pictures or fake names, which is basically what the crew from MTV’s Catfish: The TV show try and portray in their reality show. 

Catfish: The TV Show is an American reality-based documentary television series airing on MTV about the truths and lies of online dating. The series is based on the 2010 film Catfish and is co-hosted by Nev Schulman and Max Joseph. (It has season one to season six) and each episode features an individual who has met ‘the one’ online, but it sceptical of who that person really is. As the MTV (2017) website states, “Catfish: The TV Show brings together couples who've interacted solely through LCD screens. Over the course of months they've supposedly fallen in love”. The million dollar question remains, but what will happen when they meet in real life for the first time? The moral panic also arises as there is a concern that people treat romance as a game.

In several episodes of Catfish, particularly from season six which can be found on this link: https://www.fmovies.io/watch/catfish-the-tv-show-season-6-episode-01.html . There are instances where people use other people’s pictures in order to find love. This is because the society has constructed the misconception that in order for one to get a partner they have to be ‘thin’ have nice hair or live a luxurious life.  People have an obsession, “the need to engage on self- branding activities to market themselves as desirable commodities in a crowded relationship marketplace” (Hobbs, M., Owen, S., & Gerber, L: 2016, 280).  The normative idea of what is attractive influences how people represent themselves online, for instance, Catfish had an episode about Yasmine and Lewis, who were chatting/ dating online but never met in person.

Yasmin has been talking to Lewis for over a year online,  But during those 12 months, Lewis changed his identity twice -- saying, first, that he was really named Meloe and then finally settling on Blue. And each time, he sent photos of a different guy. Yasmin’s argument as to why she has been talking to someone online for such a long time without meeting them in person is that she had endured bad relationships in the past and that she has family issues, so talking to someone who made it easy for her to distress. It is significant to note that in order to get help from the show, one has to send an email to them, so in this case Yasmin’s grandmother was the one who took the initiative to write into the show, as she was getting worried about her granddaughter. This is also evidence of a moral panic as there was fear that Yasmin might ultimately end up with someone who is totally different from what they claim to be.

Nev and Max are quite the team as they use the internet to find out the true identity of the ‘catfish’.

The internet is very powerful, “The volume, spread and availability of knowledge and information has increased to a level not known before in the history of humanity” (Fourie, 2001: 355). Anything can be traced, images can be searched using google images and phone numbers too. Social networks are big, research can be done online. More and more things and people conduct themselves online.

It was found that the name and pictures that the catfish used were not his, the name and surname and also the age were false. In some episodes, even the location where the person claims to be staying is false. The plot twist was that the catfish was actually a female who identified herself as a male. This proves that in the digital space, it’s very easy for one to fabricate information about themselves and about others.

As mentioned briefly before, people worry a lot about dating sites such as Tinder and PoF and this makes them more shallow as in the show it is evident that those who are searching for love become disappointed that the person they are ‘in love’ with is not the same person as the one they saw in the pictures they received from them. Sure, I mean I would also be disappointed, but this shows how our conceptions about love is now defined by looks more than personalities and in my opinion there should be a balance between the two. No one is perfect.

Catfish The TV show also exposes how women or men behave online. For example in an episode which featured Ari and Lanum which can be here: https://www.fmovies.io/watch/catfish-the-tv-show-season-6-episode-09-ari-lanum.html  Drama unfolded on the episode after Ari, a 21-year-old from Los Angeles, explained her tail of woe: After just four days of online romance, she'd fallen love with Lanum, a buff, tattooed 25-year-old from Texas. Ari was sending her nudes to Lanum, who’s real name actually turns out to be Marcus, a not-so-buff, not-so-tattooed 43-year-old who admitted he'd been duping females for the last three years. In this case one might argue that digital dating apps allow men to be predacious of women, while women are seen as vulnerable members of the society.

Max commented on the MTV(2017) website that “Since we've been making this show, every girl or guy that's ever been in Ari's place fears that they're talking to some mid-40-something-year-old man who's sad, sitting home in his crusty boxers, typing into the computer” another instance of moral panic which exists among not only victims of being catfished, but rather exists in the society at large.

The moral of the story is that, although digital dating apps have allowed easy communication among potential love birds, they have portrayed sex and love as very fluid. Sex and love have become a neo-liberal product as people join these apps because it is ‘easy’ and ‘convenient’  as media scholars, we need to remain critical and understand the positive and negatives without slipping into moral panic.

Sources

Debler, L. 2017.  'YOU'RE THAT GUY': MAX JUST VERBALLY ANNIHILATED A MAN FOR BEING THE CREEPIEST CATFISH EVER. Online, retrieved 27 October 2017. http://www.mtv.com/news/3001784/catfish-max-ari-lanum-marcus/ 

Fourie, P. J. (2001). Media Studies: Media History, Media & Society. Second Edition. Cape Town: Juta & Co. pp. 355- 369.

Hobbs,M., Owen, S & Gerber, L. (2016) ‘Liquid Love? Dating apps, sex, relationships and the digital transformation of intimacy’. Journal of Sociology 53. 2, pp. 271- 284.