Edgework, Media Practices, and the Elongation of Meaning:

Abstract

Edgework experiences have been subject to some discussion in recent literature. A form that finds a nexus between licit and illicit activities—BASE jumping—provides a fertile field for ethnographic and theoretical research. In criminology it provides insights into the sensual motivations and experiential frameworks for illicit social action in conjunction with moments of marginality and resistance. BASE jumping—the activity of illegally parachuting from bridges, buildings, antennas, and cliffs—increasingly incorporates a host of mediated practices. Our ethnographic research with the BASE-jumping subculture reveals that BASE jumpers regularly document their jumps through the use of helmet-mounted and body-mounted video cameras, or otherwise videotape one another in the act of jumping. These video documents in turn become a form of subculturally situated media as BASE jumpers utilize them to negotiate individual and collective status, to earn money and exposure, and to legitimate the subculture as sport. Moreover, mass media producers regularly create and disseminate their own images of BASE-jumping activities, and re-present subculturally generated images within television programs and films. The media saturation of BASE jumping thus serves to elongate and expand the meaning of an ephemeral event; to construct a multi-faceted audience for a seemingly secretive endeavor; and, ultimately, to render BASE jumping indistinguishable from the mediated representation of it.