New Audiences, New Textualities

TLDR

Audience research often equates fans with all viewers, overlooking anti‑fans and non‑fans, yet televisual anti‑fandom and non‑fandom exhibit distinct viewing practices and textualities, making the text a mysterious figure whose role in media and cultural studies remains underexplored. The article argues for more research into anti‑fans and non‑fans to illuminate televisual textuality and the influence of media talk and intertextuality. The authors discuss fan research assumptions, introduce an atomic model of textuality that includes fans, anti‑fans, and non‑fans, and propose a method for studying these new audiences and textualities.

Abstract

Intentionally or not, audience research often equals fan research, as anti-fans and non-fans are ignored or assumed. However, televisual anti-fandom and non-fandom involve different viewing practices, different proximities from the text and, thus, different textualities. This article therefore argues for the necessity of more research into anti-fans and non-fans, proposing that such research will shed further light on the nature of televisual textuality and on the role of media talk and intertextuality in forming it. The text remains a mysterious figure in media and cultural studies, and this article aims to bring us closer to understanding it. First, fan research and its own implicit assumptions of relations between text and audience are discussed; then, an `atomic' model of textuality is presented, accounting for fans, anti-fans and non-fans; and, finally, a method for studying new audiences and textualities is offered.