Dial Me Up, Scotty

FANDOMS AS PLATFORMS FOR WOMEN'S ONLINE IDENTITY

Ideas of what constitutes community continue to change as technological innovations mold the ways individuals choose to communicate, build and destroy networks, and find points of resonance and affinity along differential lines of interests and identities. Broadly, however, theorists have argued that when a group forms around a common symbolic structure, it comes to constitute a culture area of its own, which is not limited by anything other than the limits of communication (Strauss 1986; Sahlins 1976; Weber 1947; Lacan 1977; Derrida 1978). Influential cyberfeminist theorist Allucquére Rosanne Stone (1996) draws on Anslem Strauss's formulation of group membership as "a symbolic, not a physical matter," deeming it to apply particularly well to virtual systems (Strauss quoted in Stone 1996, 87). Stone extends and underlines the significance of this argument when characterizing cyberspace as a structure of community that could "validly be based upon symbolic exchanges of which proximity is merely a secondary effect" (87).

Media fandom has been seen as an example of a cybercultural community based around symbolic exchange, as members are bound by a certain central interest but adopt different signifiers to concentrate their creative and fannish energies around. This is not to say that it does not encompass off-line elements of interaction; however, the primary enabling mechanism remains cybercultural. It is also important to pay attention to the points of disjuncture and difference in such communities. Although the histories of media fandom remain largely anecdotal, it is vital to make their frameworks as broad and inclusive as possible. As I note in the Introduction, to elevate one particular narrative about the establishment and development of these communities is to make invisible the experiences of participants who have taken varying entry pathways but have nonetheless contributed to their present forms. It is often maintained that media fandom is nothing but the stories that fans tell each other, but as these communities continue to gain mainstream attention, it is necessary to supplement and interrupt well-established narratives of their activities so as not to promote a monochromatic view of these spaces. This is one such effort.

Fandom's move from off-line to online modes of interaction has been the subject of significant scholarship within the field, and this informs my own analysis. My aim is not to recap this scholarship but rather to interrogate the gaps and silences in these histories. Default assumptions about the makeup of early online media fandom communities have had specific effects that actively work to make invisible the role of racial identity in these spaces, rather than this being a matter of oversight. My rehistoricization of these narratives foregrounds the ways in which fandom communities also incorporate the overlapping identities and activities of nonwhite fans within them. This in turn leads me to position their contemporary forms as an example of postcolonial cyberspaces in Chapter 2, where I analyze the ramifications of that theorization in terms of global media fandom considering issues of media, demographics, and changes in platform use.

Tracking Online Media Fandom

Susan Clerc (1996) traces the beginnings of the phenomenon of fandom by charting its move from off-line activities — letterzines, newsletters, fanzines — to its current online form. Clerc also identifies this move as driven by the labor of women in particular: "Media fandom wouldn't exist without women because more women than men do the communication work necessary to forge and sustain community" (218). Clerc presents a snapshot of the transition from smaller communities, necessarily limited by issues of distance and logistics, concerning the exchange of physical materials like fanzines, to fandom's current form. Clerc points out:

Fan women, though mechanically proficient and technologically savvy compared to the mainstream population, suffer from the same societal attitudes about gender and technology as everyone else. Women are also at an economic disadvantage: with less disposable income, they are not as likely as men to experiment with modems and software they aren't familiar with. [For] Fan women there is very little benefit to Net access unless their friends have it. When that critical mass is reached and it becomes beneficial to go online, fan women will likely turn to other female fans as an informal support network. (219)

Clerc's analysis therefore points to an early gendering of media fandom spaces in particular, and the ways in which these community affiliations were crucial mediating factors in women using internet- enabled spaces. This presence has existed in various forms and is documented in studies such as Nancy Baym's (2000) influential exploration of the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.tv.soaps (abbreviated as r.a.t.s.), which records the activities of soap opera fans who are mostly women. Baym observes that this group is one of the oldest on the Usenet network and enjoys a high level of engagement. This is in opposition to more mainstream internet studies, which maintain that women are linguistically disadvantaged on forums like newsgroups (Wakeford 1997). Baym divides her respondents into heavy and light users, including lurkers (individuals who read posts but do not participate directly), but interestingly, those who participate structure their online identities with close correlation to their off-line ones. Again, this contrasts with other studies that stress the possibilities of identity play facilitated by anonymity. Baym speculates that this trend was due to both structural and communitarian reasons:

The use of real names in r.a.t.s. is partially attributable to the systems used by these participants to read and write to the group. Most people access r.a.t.s. through work-related accounts that identify them using their real names. The preference for real names is normative as well as structural. Participants on r.a.t.s. actively discourage anonymity. Although some take on nicknames, most who use nicknames also promulgate their real names within the same messages. ... In general, then, r.a.t.s. has an aversion to anonymity in identity construction, an aversion likely rooted in the demands of soap opera discussion. The use of real names helps to create a trusting environment in which the type of personal disclosure so important to collaborative soap interpretation can be voiced. (2000, 148)

This linkage of trust to personal disclosure is thought provoking, as it is evident in the context of the discussion of soap operas more generally being met with certain degree of scorn. Although the stigma of overinvestment in something perceived as trivial is common in most...