Page 114 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

Enthusing 105

This may happen very quickly and be marked by very little change or it may
involve a significant journey and the marking of an event as extra special.
Moreover, the increased power and salience of the extraordinary in a number
of ways are one of the key ways in which ordinary life is itself changing, as the
general processes that I have described facilitate a more spectacular and per-
formative society. It is important to recognize that this does not mean that
some of the typically thought of forms and aspects of fandom are necessarily
becoming more salient. Thus, I would want to argue that approaches to celeb-
rity (e.g. Rojek 2001), while they have much to offer in characterizing fame
and stardom and their roles in advanced capitalist societies tend still to
pathologize fandom, because of where they start (i.e. with the celebrity).
Moreover, studies of fans by their very focus have a tendency to separate fans
from the activities of others. By their research, attention to excess and, for
example, ‘cult media’ there is a danger than fandom becomes in one sense
theorized as part of ordinary life but in other ways bracketed from it. Thus,
I seek to mobilize neither celebrity studies nor fandom research in these
ways. However, I will seek to use relevant empirical and theoretical studies to
develop the characterization of enthusing in ordinary life.
In accord with some of the overall arguments of this book, I locate
this discussion within the points that I have already made concerning the
overall significance of performing and audiencing in ordinary life and how the
interrelation of belonging, distinguishing and individualizing processes run
through those of enthusing. Moreover, through this route, I seek to explore
three key aspects of the literature on audience and fan processes: the social, the
psychological and the spatial. I have already considered the interconnection of
these processes via concepts such as ‘elective belonging’ and scene, which
have the potential to bring these aspects together. This chapter takes that inte-
grating discussion forward. Specifically, I begin the discussion by offering an
overview of what is at stake in this discussion, drawing on two rather different
sources, one an overview of ‘reception studies’ (Staiger 2005) and the other a
study of contemporary football (Sandvoss 2003). This will be followed by an
examination of two of the most significant attempts to develop an overall
theory of fandom that have been produced to date (Hills 2002; Sandvoss
2005). This leads to discussions of media and society that have sought to theor-
ize ritual and space in new ways to show the particular powers of the media. In
this section, I consider the work of Couldry (2000b, 2003) in particular, having
drawn on some of his other work (Couldry 2000a) in my consideration of the
idea of the ordinary. This will lead in the final part of the chapter to some
consideration of the nature of reality TV, especially in connection to Couldry’s
(2005) idea of the extended audience, which is an argument that considers
further the concept of the diffused audience. Through this process, I seek
to further the analysis of ideas of audiencing, spectacle and the dynamic
between the ordinary and the extraordinary.

Processes of reception and sport
In her comprehensive overview of reception studies, Staiger (2005) clearly
shows that the field deploys psychological and sociological theories (which