Science Fiction Audiences (Watching “Star Trek” and “Doctor Who”)

Title: Science Fiction Audiences (Watching "Star Trek" and "Doctor Who")
Author: Tulloch, John
Price: $49.99

Why are Star Trek and Doctor Who so popular? These two science fiction series have both survived cancellation and continue to attract a huge community of fans and followers. Doctor Who has appeared in eight different TV and film guises and Star Trek is now approaching its fourth television incarnation. Science Fiction Audiences examines the continuing popularity of two television institutions' of our time.

Through dialogue with fans and followers of Star Trek and Doctor Who in the US, Britain and Australia, John Tulloch and Henry Jenkins ask what it is about the two series that elicits such strong and active responses from their audiences. Is it their particular intervention into the SF genre? Their expression of peculiarly American' and British' national cultures? Their ideologies and visions of the future, or their conceptions of science and technology?

None of these works in isolation, because, as the plentiful interviews with fans and followers illustrate, audiences actively play with their entertainment according to complex and shifting categories of recognition, competence and pleasure. Science Fiction Audiences responds to a rich fan culture which encompasses debates about fan asthetics, teenage attitudes to science fiction, queers and Star Trek, and ideology and pleasure in Doctor Who.

It is a book both for fans of the two series, who will be able to continue their debates in its pages, and for students of media and cultural studies, offering a historical overview of audience theory in a fascinating synthesis of text, context and audience study.

Review: ...\"as Spock would say: fascinating'.\"
Nicholas J. Cull \"University of Birmingham ...recommended to those interested in fandom, audience studies and genre television

CONTENTS
Part 1:
* beyond the \"Star Trek\" phenomenon - reconceptualizing the science fiction audience;
* positioning the SF audience - \"Star Trek\", \"Doctor Who\" and the texts of science fiction;
* the changing audiences of science fiction.

Part 2:
* \"throwing a little bit of poison into future generations\" - \"Doctor Who\" audiences and ideology;
* \"it's meant to be fantasy\" - teenage audiences and genre;
* \"but why is \"Doctor Who\" so attractive\" - negotiating ideology and pleasure;
* \"but he's a Time Lord! he's a Time Lord!\" - reading formations, followers and fans;
* \"we're only a speck in the ocean\" - the fans as powerless elite.

Part 3:
* \"infinite diversity in infinite combinations\" - genre and authorship in \"Star Trek\".

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publication date: 13/04/1995
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780415061414
Publishing status: AU Print-on-demand