Critical Contexts: Television Studies, Fandom Studies, and the Vid

Abstract

What can television scholars and historians learn from vids and vidding? This chapter considers the vid form and vidding practice in existing scholarship. The bulk of academic engagement with vids and vidding is in the loosely defined field of fan studies rather than in television studies. However, vids are possible because of the changing form and shape of television, from home videocassette recording through to digital video. Audience control over watching television, theorized as ways of controlling that flow, also provides the technological tools for making vids. The vid form is textual proof of fans using the tools at their disposal to intervene, respond, and create in a context wherein they have no official role.