A dedicated Star Wars fan myself, I have been active in the Star Wars Universe offered by the intricate connectivity of the World Wide Web. However, it is interesting to look at this Star Wars community before the onset of such global interaction. During my third semester at LSU I wrote a term paper on Star Wars fans as a discourse community; and discourse community they are! They have their own vocabulary composed of words defined from the movies, novels, video games, comics, and dictionaries. Yes that’s correct -dictionaries. There are at least, to my knowledge, three volumes of Star Wars encyclopedia/dictionaries that in roughly 300-400 pages define for you every alien species, language, dialect, planet, weaponry, space craft, character, war, battle, and major character present in some Star Wars medium. To be unversed in such vocabulary is to be excluded from the community, thus defining for themselves the actual boundaries between community members and mere observers. I, myself can only claim a high level of observer status on account of my very basic knowledge of the universe as a whole. Before the internet, this community established their own common meeting place famously known (and to many infamously known) as Star Wars conventions. Though these events never quite reached the extreme popularity and high attendance as its rival the Star Trek conventions, Star Wars community members across the globe have been attending Star Wars conventions in impressive numbers at multiple locations in many different countries and cultures annually, biannually, and even quarterly since the first movie release in 1977. Having been to only one such convention myself I cannot give much testament to the experience entirely, but I can say that just as people criticize those who attend such events, members of this community are rather critical of those on the outside of the community. For example, at the convention I attended in Dallas, Texas, I was responded to as an obvious outsider being that I left my Princess Leah hair-buns and Darth Vader mask at home and being that I did not have the type of knowledge to interact in the ongoing role-playing. The internet has of course expanded both the number of community members and the amount of knowledge to be shared and acquired. However, the internet has not taken the place of the actual physical interaction that conventions offer. In fact, the internet has only increased awareness of convention schedules, locations, and agendas so that community members can be ready and informed to take their active role in the Star Wars Universe. Below is a link if you are interested in these conventions. And as always - May the force be with you!
http://www.starwars.com/community/event/con/archive.html
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3 comments:
I find it interesting that even in a discourse community designed to set themselves apart, these members seem to be acting an awful lot like everyone else.
People fear what they don't understand.
Non-fans are cautious and slightly freaked out by what we deem to be "over-zealous" Star Wars fans, while hard-core SW fans seem perplexed if not annoyed by those of us who don't find the show that mind-blowingly interesting.
It just amuses me to see continuous examples of subsets of society pointedly separating themselves, only to behave exactly like the rest of society.
I find that with everything we talk about, the internet plays a vital role in expanding a discourse community that either develops outside of a digital space or within it. With the Star Wars fans, the internet played the role of informer. In Chapter 6 the internet had the same role. Howard Dean got most of his support from internet sites. He was basically an unheard of candidate until he had a blog online where supporters could go.
So whether a group begins with the internet or comes to the internet after they have already been defined as a discourse community, we can not escape the importance of cyberspace to discourse communities.
I missed your contributions on the day this chapter was assigned. We didn't take it up. Do you have any suggestions for what we can do to make it up--other than referring people to your blog? Dr. L
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