Page 213 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

STEPHEN HINERMAN

consequences in cultural life. Harvey argues, ‘we have been experiencing [since
the 1960s] an intense phase of time-space compression that has had a disorient-
ing and disruptive impact upon political-economic practices, the balance of
class power, as well as upon cultural and social life’ (1989: 284)
The stretching of time and collapsing of space a ffects much more than the
global economy. It has also greatly altered understandings of fame. While the
scope of fame in premodernity was limited to a considerable degree by ‘real’
time and space, now the potential reach and depth of fame and celebrity have
expanded. At the same time, however, fame functions centrally as an engine
that drives economic realities linked to modern communications technologies.
Given that these technologies entail elaborate symbol systems, famous, repeti-
tive images become the perfect means to suture audience loyalty to communi-
cation media and to the economic system behind them. In an age where time
is stretched and space is collapsed, highly valued common images provide
individuals with shared communication experiences across geographical
boundaries. In the process, global stars are born.
Thompson notes that a specific form of social relationship which he calls
‘non-reciprocal intimacy’ has developed in late modernity. For our purposes
here, this suggests that fans can feel close to famous individuals, yet that close-
ness is not tied to any physical locale. The familiarity exists despite the fact that
the fan has never met the star; indeed, the star may never have set foot in the
fan’s home country. Still, the fan feels he or she knows the celebrity and
experiences an emotional intimacy made up of shared knowledge, understand-
ings, taste, and style. The relationship ‘grows’ despite the fact that only a one-
way flow of communication over vast geographic distance has taken place. As
Thompson notes:

Since mediated quasi-interaction is stretched across space and time, it
makes possible a form of intimacy with others who do not share one’s
own spatial-temporal locale; in other words, it makes possible what has
been aptly described as ‘intimacy at a distance’. Second, since mediated
quasi-interaction is non-dialogical, the form of intimacy established
through it is non-reciprocal in character.
(1995: 219)

This change has profound implications for fan psychology. Modernity has
loosened our sense of self. No longer do central institutions like Church or
government grant ready-made identities to citizens, making clear one’s place in
the universe, or one’s function in hierarchical society. Marx’s key insight that
the accumulation of capital loosens the bonds of society has proved to be
accurate in the symbolic realm as well. The dislocation which results from the
collapsing of space and the speeding up of time makes it difficult for individuals
to assimilate information coherently (Thompson 1995: 209). What is left is a
crisis of identity formation for the modern individual.

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