Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: The "Average" Reader, and What Should Be Done to Them

From: mhall@berkeley.edu
Date: 15 Nov 2007


> But I find it very hard to accept that the average reader, even the
> average TV viewer is a passive consumer. For instance, Virginia
> Radway's studies of readers of romance novels proved they were very
> active in their reading, from their choices of what to read to their
> discussions with other fans, etc. And that was before the internet.
> Think of all of the fan sites and fan forums for any kind of
> entertainment, from sports to TV to comics to us here. Hardly seems
> passive to me.
>
> Mark

But sad to say, from what I've seen on a variety of boards and email lists dedicated to Edgar RIce Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Sword and Sorcery fiction, there are very vocal people out there who accept anything in the genre or any pastiche and believe its all good. For many of these peopl, anything is classic if its older than 10 years old, and it must really be classic if it went out of print in an earlier incarnation of DAW.

Maybe this is just a particular genre, or sub-genre, but if these folks are average readers, the planet is doomed...

Best, MEH



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