Review of "Audience" at M/C (forwarded)

Here's the "review" of the article, in an announcement of the
issue, that I tried to paste into my response to Matt.  What's
interesting to me is the perception that conlangers have been
historically "persecuted"--because, presumably, they are not
deferring to audience in an acceptable way?  General remarks
about audience at the beginning... scroll down to "HERE IT IS:"

[I hope my mailer doesn't attach the "uncut" version of this
forwarded post, like it did last time.   If it does, can someone
tell me how I adjust my Netscape Communicator so it won't
continue to do that?  I would like, eventually, to be able to
forward something and be able to cut out material from it.  How
embarrassing if it's put back in in an attachment.]

S.C.


> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - 16 Mar. 2000
>
>    The Media and Cultural Studies Centre at the University of Queensland
>     is proud to present issue one in volume three of the award-winning
>
>                   M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture
>                         http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/
>
>         'audience' - Issue Editors: Paul Attallah & Keith Hampson,
>                            with Catherine Howell
[Opening remarks about audience... kind of interesting, and an
extension,
perhaps, of Matt's remarks]

> An audience, as its name implies, is the act of listening.  As such, it
> requires at least two actors.  One who says something -- a request, a
> demand, a statement -- addressed to another who can lend or withhold
> consent, attention or understanding.  The desire of the first seeks out
> the desire of the second, perhaps even provoking or enticing it.
>
> The speaker seduces, the listener resists, with great imperfection all
> round.
>
> Modern audiences -- of movies, and television, and sporting events -- are
> still in the business of lending or withhold assent.  Audiences ask not
> that statements be true or false; they ask only that they be persuasive,
> that they carry with them the full illocutionary force that will create in
> the here and now the conditions which permit the willing suspension of
> disbelief.
>
> The means of seduction seem to have become infinitely more insistent with
> their transfer into industries and institutions.  Whereas the means of
> resistance seem to have remained fairly individual and familial, with the
> occasional boost from religion or education.
>
> Of course, an audience is not only an agonistic relationship.  It is also
> a repository of skills and knowledge.  The more we listen to the auditions
> of attention seekers, the cleverer we become.  We start to recognise
> strategies and stratagems.  We begin to suspect a story's ending before it
> is even told.  We recognise characters, tropes, and situations.
>
> These happy images of audience activity frequently animate theories of
> resistance as well as the current vogue in rhetoric studies, the bracing
> knowledge that regulatory structures will be overrun by technology, and
> the tired contempt for social reformers.
>
> Few phenomena pose the question of the relation between system and actor
> quite so clearly as the audience.  Who's speaking, who's listening, and
> how do we account for it?
>
> Many views of the audience are considered by the contributions in this
> issue of M/C, which is now available online. Here's what's included:
[Other reviews snipped...HERE IT IS:]

>   "Audience, Uglossia, and CONLANG: Inventing Languages on the Internet"
> We usually think of audiences as large and tumultuous. But what happens
> when they are small, and deliberately so? This is precisely what happens
> with CONLANGs or constructed languages, of which one of the better known is
> Klingon. Sarah L. Higley looks at the world of languages with an audience
> of one. Who would make such a thing and why? What does it tell us about our
> usual, and therefore invisible, presuppositions about audiences, the proper
> way to address them, the requisite level of clarity, and so on? Perhaps not
> surprisingly, conlangers have historically been persecuted and despised.
> The author provides some good links to hear what conlangs sound like and to
> construct your own audience of one.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Issue one in volume three of M/C is now online: <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/>.
> Previous issues of M/C on various topics are also still available online.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> M/C Reviews is now available at <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/>.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> All M/C contributors are available for media contacts: mc@mailbox.uq.edu.au
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> end
>
>                                                      Axel Bruns
>
> --
>  M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture               mc@mailbox.uq.edu.au
>  The University of Queensland                   http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/