Scanning Star Trek: The Next Generation

Michael Wegerer

Locating the research
A brief history of Star Trek
Research methods
The survey
The 'interviews'
The letters
The social context of the research
'You will be assimilated': How active are viewers?
I Borg: A closed text?
Little girls need role models too
The glorious power of warp drive
Concluding remarks
References
Key Links

Locating the research

Mass communications research, with its emphasis on investigating hypotheses about the negative influences of various mass media, especially that of television, remains a powerful tradition for researchers of media audiences, particularly in the USA. The vast body of research that has accumulated under this banner has to some extent been informed by survey work and laboratory experiments. Here, behaviourist models and conservative ideologies of audiences have led to the conceptualisation of audiences as passive victims, whose moral, social and behavioural development is conditioned by what they watch (Buckingham et al. 1992: 126). Two other traditions are also worth noting, both of which come under the broad heading of cultural studies. The first is often referred to as screen theory which characteristically draws on semiotics, psychoanalysis, structuralism and Marxism to argue the powerful influence of the text over viewers, who may accept, adapt or reject its contents (Hall 1980), and considers the textual strategies that are employed to persuade viewers to accept dominant ideologies (Fiske 1987: 267). The other, although inspired by many of the same notions, is also informed by ethnography and is an approach that gives greater recognition to the diversity in audiences, who are seen not only as 'products' of television but also as tending towards the polysemic interpretation of television texts, some of which may not necessarily correspond to the 'preferred reading' of their producers. In other words, audiences are regarded as active users of television, who make many meanings of programme texts which are relevant and useful to themselves and their social contexts (Buckingham 1993: 16f; Fiske 1987: 267; Morley 1981).

To a large extent this approach relies on qualitative and naturalistic methods of investigation which tend to focus on detailed description and analysis of small audience samples, from which few generalisations can be made (Anderson & Meyer 1988: 246-259; Buckingham et al. 1992: 127). In addition, the methodology very often avoids prolonged contact with informants (a feature of true ethnography), preferring to limit contact with informants to extremely brief periods, usually an hour or so, in order to make the most of limited research time (hence the term ethnographic). This approach continues to hold much promise, especially with its potential to make and keep interpretations sensitive to specific examples, the unexpected and to history (Ang 1989: 110). But ethnographic inquiry suffers a number of difficulties, not least of which are the absence of good exemplars for research procedures, the obtrusive nature of the investigation, and the crucial and unavoidable reliance on the observational, inferential and writing skills of researchers - the latter being influenced, to some extent, by the nature of their intended journals, which seldom favour the lengthy treatments needed for ethnographic accounts. Given these limitations it is perhaps hardly surprising that this type of study is under-represented in communication research literature (Anderson & Meyer 1988: 254, 259).

Although the distinction between screen theory and the ethnographic branch of cultural studies is more likely to be one of emphasis, it is within the tradition of naturalistic inquiry, especially that centred on the popular research area of soap operas (e.g. Ang 1985, Hobson 1987), that this project is broadly situated. In addition, the project is one that has provided me with an interesting vehicle to get to grips with a number of media concepts and controversies, in particular the hoary passive versus active viewer debate. Although this issue has been treated extensively in much of the literature (e.g. Buckingham 1993; Livingstone 1990; Harris 1994; Morley 1989), it is nonetheless around this polemic that the project's guiding framework was erected. In particular, attention has been focused on the patterns and diversity in the responses and comments of a small sample of people, who described themselves as regular viewers of the US series Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG). What is presented here are some preliminary notes of a study conducted during the summer of 1994. It takes the form of a tentative interpretive narrative, and one which sees ST:TNG's audience as 'active' readers, who, although they make some reference to the preferred readings of the texts, draw more heavily on their own preferred inter-textual history. In particular, it is argued that while viewers do play an active role in interpreting the narrative events they watch, they do so in relation to (1) a social and historical context that guides their relative access to different discourses and generic models for interpreting the episodes; (2) the institutional power of producers to fashion textual events; and (3) the texts themselves which may facilitate or hinder viewers' attempts to make sense of the programmes (Tulloch & Jenkins 1995: 140).

A Brief History of Star Trek

Star Trek, that is, the original series (TOS), created by Gene Roddenberry, was first premiered in the USA in 1966 on NBC and ran until 1969. Its 'cult status', however, only really developed after the 78 or so episodes were syndicated, a process which brought TOS to much of the world's television networks, where it has been translated into 47 languages (Marsalek 1992: 53). In the three decades since its premiere, a number of other television series, films and books have followed, all of which have been set in the science fiction universe defined by TOS. These include the animated series of the early 1970s, 7 feature length films, ST:TNG (from 1987 to 1993), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) which began showing in 1993, and most recently Star Trek: Voyager.

Set in the 23rd and 24th centuries, TOS and ST:TNG series revolved around the adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise, whose mission was, according to the pre-credit sequence: 'to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go [sic] where no man [amended to 'no one' for ST:TNG] has gone before' (Gross & Altman 1993). Earth is a member of the United Federation of Planets, which espouses cultural pluralism and avoids narrow divisions founded on nationality, creed, race or religion. Star Trek proffers an humanist ideology which includes egalitarianism, freedom and self-determination as well as affirming that sentient beings have the intellectual capacity to develop moral principles (ibid.). What is unusual about this example of television science fiction is that over the last 30 years it has developed into a recognisable and powerful genre of its own.

Although ST:TNG and its antecedent Star Trek have attracted considerably less research interest than soap operas, they nonetheless have several features that lend themselves to an investigation of television and its audiences, not least because it has found its way into North American and British cultural mythology alike. In this sense ST:TNG can be regarded as a symbol of US cultural imperialism in much the same way as Dallas and Dynasty, albeit in a different way and to a different extent. Gross and Altman (1993: 5) suggest, perhaps with some justification, that Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the principal characters of TOS and the films, are as familiar to most North Americans as Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and that Star Trek has become so rooted in US popular culture that the first Space Shuttle had to be renamed Enterprise after NASA was 'pressured' into so doing by the requests of a sizable section of the US public. In Britain, Holderness (1994: 15) has observed that the British broadsheet newspapers during the last 10 years Star Trek had been cited 1,299 times, while the Star Trek catch-phrase 'beam me up' was used 126 times and Capt. Kirk garnered 239 mentions. Furthermore, the Internet has played host to a number of very active newsgroups dedicated to the discussion of a great many aspects germane to the Star Trek phenomenon, for example, in April 1994 9,390 messages were posted on the Internet (ibid.).

In the United Kingdom TOS and ST:TNG have been extensively shown on BBC 2, usually on Wednesdays at 6.00 pm.. During 1994 and 1995, ST:TNG typically attracted an estimated 3.5 million weekly viewers, although according to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board 2.72 million people watched ST:TNG on 7 September 1994 while 4.05 million tuned in on 1 March 1995 (cited by Radio Times 8-14 October 1994, and 1-7 April 1995 respectively).

Research methods

Data for the project was gathered in several ways, and were determined more by chance than by any specific preference on my part. Although the initial intention was to base the research on about 8 half-hour informal interviews or discussions with friends whom I knew to be regular viewers of ST:TNG, a more detailed formulation of the discussion method was not reached until much later. A major influence on the project design came from press articles by Holderness (1994) and Sawyer (1994) which suggested the possibility of using the Internet as a medium of research. Accordingly, a survey was devised and, so as not to appear too daunting to prospective respondents, a short questionnaire was posted to the rec.arts.startrek.misc newsgroup on July 13, 1994, with the following invitation as a preamble:

I am doing a dissertation on Star Trek: The Next Generation, its related universe and its audiences and should be grateful for help from any fans or regular viewers. If you are interested in helping, please will you respond via e-mail ... to the following questionnaire ...

To protect the confidences of each of my informants I have taken the liberty of renaming everyone of them, while at the same presenting their views as fairly as possible.

The Survey

The questionnaire which followed comprised 17 questions, 4 of which asked for details about the age, sex, occupation and how long respondents had been watching ST:TNG (see Figure 1 below for a summary of respondents' personal details), while one of the remaining 13 open-ended questions related to their general attitudes to ST:TNG and its universe. The others were intended to make explicit views of any respondents germane to the concerns of the inquiry, that is, portrayals of science and technology and the presentation of character, gender, race, and occupation. Two further subsets of questions concerned the nature of the textual features that gave rise to respondents' interest in ST:TNG and in what ways these features may have been 'accommodated' by the respondents. Full details of the questionnaire together with the replies of the 10 respondents are set out in the appendix that accompanies this paper, in order of receipt, in a standardized format and with obvious spelling errors corrected.

Figure 1: The Survey Group

Name Age Sex Occupation Location
Laurie 22 f student of resource management USA
Sung 21 f student USA
Cynthia 23 f graduate/music teacher USA
Kate 36 f solicitor/law lecturer UK
James 26 m computer aid USA
Conny 25 f student of chemical engineering USA
Matt 18 m works in bookstore USA
Steffi 24 f ? Germany
Thomas 22 m student of mathematics Germany
Johnny 23 m student of mechanical engineering USA

The 'Interviews'

To some extent the survey tacitly informed the general course of the later investigation, especially when it came to conducting the discussions, for example, whenever appropriate, interviewees were asked to elaborate upon comments they had made which seemed accordant to topics defined by the survey. In addition, whenever the discussions seemed in danger of stalling either a question derived from the survey or a question relating to points made by the interviewees themselves was asked. In all cases the discussions, lasting approximately half and hour, consisted of a dialogue between myself and the informant, were taped and followed immediately the showing of one of twelve ST:TNG episodes selected by the interviewees. These were on video and lasted about 44 minutes. The total time spent with these informants, whose personal details are summarised in Figure 2 below, was thus roughly one and a half hours. In addition, it should be noted that each one is known to me as a friend or relation, and with the exception of Tim, who was interviewed at his flat in Guernsey, everyone of the screenings and discussions took place at my parents' house in Guernsey or at my home in Aberystwyth. The settings were thus more or less familiar to the 7 who participated in this part of the project. During the screenings notes were taken by hand of all interlocutions made, not only by the subjects themselves but also by other individuals who happened to be present. Full transcriptions of the taped discussions and the manuscript notes are presented in the accompanying appendix, and again are arranged in chronological order.

Figure 2: The Discussion Group

Name Age Sex Occupation
Simon A 27 m actuary
John 29 m computer consultant
Roland 26 m musician/artist
Tim 27 m civil servant
Jane 27 f property surveyor
Brendon 21 m financial services administrator
Gail 33 f soil engineer

The Letters

Finally, with Ang's Watching Dallas (1985) partly in mind, I invited others to write on any aspects of ST:TNG that interested them, but only two actually supplied letters. These were also relations of mine and their personal details are given in Figure 3 below, where as the salient extracts of the letters are documented in the separate appendix.

Figure 3: The Letter Group

Name Age Sex Occupation
Simon J 33 m Latin teacher
Victoria 37 f Art teacher

The Social Context of the Research

One important problem in undertaking a project of this sort concerns the tendency to accept data at face value, that is, there is a bias towards interpreting what people say as being evidence of what they think. The awareness of the role and influence of the researcher, and the qualitative methodology on the normal course of social action for the people being studied has grown substantially in the last decade or so (Anderson & Meyer 1988: 257; Buckingham 1993: 42). In the case of the survey, interview and correspondence data presented here, there is some explicit evidence to suggest that the behaviour exhibited had been adapted to the research circumstances in a variety of ways. Some of these seem to represent a degree of guardedness (e.g. James and Laurie), attempts to meet the research (or my) expectations (e.g. Brendon, Tim, Steffi, and Laurie) and some consideration of the popular myths about the potential influences of television on viewers (e.g. Jane):

James

Laurie

Brendon

Tim

Steffi

Laurie

Nit-picker's Guide

Jane

As these examples indicate, the informants seemed to view the context as one in which some degree of veracity, objectivity and impartiality were at least appropriate. Jane's comment further suggests that the 'rules' of social milieus are extremely complex, and that discourse is an arena for struggle, that is, in the sense of establishing, maintaining or enhancing one's social status, usually politely, and as such, invisibly. Jane may have been attempting to establish possession of 'critical' knowledge, or to refute any perceived notion that I may have had regarding the influence of television on her. In this particular context at least such behaviour was likely to have been perceived as having had some social value.

A further source of interpretative difficulty arises from the way in which conversations are constructed. In particular, discussions can feature prolonged, persuasive and coherent arguments, which tend to build naturally on previous utterances more in accordance with social desirability than rational considerations in mind, and are at their most noticeable when their originators, for example, change the plan of their speech, as for instance appears to have happened in the following case:

Tim

Implicit so far is the notion that the source of the data, that is, the representations of the thought, perception and meanings of the informants, essentially arise from within the individuals themselves, that the social context only has an influence on what they 'really' think. However, Hodge and Tripp (1986: 143) have suggested that the fairly common act of talking about television constitutes a considerable force in society as it is an important site for the mediation and conflation of television meanings with other meanings 'into a new text to form a major interface with the world of action and belief'. In other words, discourse about television programmes like ST:TNG is instrumental in the construction and maintenance of our social relationships, our own social identities and the systems of ideas and beliefs that surround and permeate them. Indeed many of the informants indicated that they discussed TOS and ST:TNG with family and friends after watching an episode, a process which is likely to have produced collective constructions, for example:

Cynthia

It is also likely that the resulting varieties of collaborative readings, or syncretism of ideological positions through discourse, a feature common also to soap opera audiences (Seiter et al. 1989: 233), are represented in the data collected and presented here, especially those relating to the questionnaires and letters. Identification of these layers of 'hybrid' meanings, intermingled as they probably are with those of the individual's sole manufacture, is extremely hard and their prevalence cannot be known. However, there are several instances of this process of negotiating meanings to be found within the interview data, both during the viewing of the ST:TNG episodes themselves and the subsequent discussions, for example:

Brendon

Michael

Brendon

Katherine

Michael

Here, it appears that during Descent Brendon mistakenly attributes 'Beethoven' to the Isaac Newton character in the opening sequences of the episode, that is, he misses Katherine's emendation. Furthermore, in the discussion that followed Descent Brendon propagates this 'acquired label', only to be persuaded, again through negotiation, to accept what I and Katherine took to be the preferred reading for the character in question:

Brendon

Michael

Brendon

Michael

Brendon

Michael

Brendon

Michael

Brendon

This example also illustrates another problematic aspect of the obtrusive nature of the research methods, especially with respect to the interview subjects, that is, rather than uncovering evidence, the methodology has, to some extent at least, created it.

Responding to the survey can also be considered a performance of social action, and as such there is similarly no reason to assume that the respondents interpret the issues and questions as the researcher would, or that their answers will be properly interpreted by the researcher. In other words, the polysemic nature of meaning does not change because it is in a research context. Furthermore, although the informants may be responding honestly to the questions posed but in an unqualified way, the voluntary character of the questionnaire, letters and interviews results in an intractable and multidimensional bias, for example, towards the university educated, white, English-speaking, middle-classes, aged between 18 and 36 (Anderson & Meyer 1988: 240, 246).

'You Will Be Assimilated': how active are viewers?

Making sense of everyday phenomena, including the media, requires the use of people's interpretive capabilities. From this social, psychological and media studies perspective the process of interpretation involves the negotiation of a set of external structured potentialities and individuals' data processing strategies within their preexisting repertoire of knowledge and experience, that is, their knowledge schemata, and social and cultural scripts. The uses and gratifications approach to the media, among other traditions, has given rise to the notion of the active viewer. In making sense of television programmes, viewers draw on their own interests, experience and understanding of the world in a way that is, to some extent anyway, unconstrained by the structure of the text (Condry 1989: 44f; Harris 1994: 24ff; Livingstone 1990: 32f; Van Evra 1990: 173ff). Notwithstanding this, social constraints on polysemy may exist, that is, interpretation needs to be communicable, appear reasonable and perhaps to reinforce social bonds and ideologies of particular sub-groups of peers and fans. Furthermore, McQuail (1987: 73) has concluded that people's television viewing is influenced by a number of viewer motives, including the desire to keep in touch with local, national and world events, to escape the boredom of everyday life, to have something to talk about with others, and to compare people and events portrayed on television with their own experience. Although the origin of these needs may lie with the texts themselves rather than with the audiences (Hart 1991: 43), it is the last three motivational types which are tentatively implied by some of the informants' data.

The notion of activity in watching television has become a powerful and reassuring conceptualisation of the viewer, despite being poorly defined. In part the concept is a reaction to and a breaking away from the effects tradition of media studies where audiences are envisaged as passive consumers of television texts (Livingstone 1990: 36). However, it may be more useful and less artificial to see viewers as neither active nor passive, or as having true or false needs. Several positions may exist and shift between these extremes, rendering viewers as active and passive, receivers and producers of meanings as part of a dynamic and complex interaction between audiences and texts. Morley (1981: 3, 5ff) has been concerned with exploring a number of different variables responsible for polysemy, in particular those determinants of meaning resulting from the organisation of textual markers into a preferred text, which tries to limit the range of possible constructions to that of a 'dominant meaning'. The largely abstract notion of a preferred text in some ways represents a compromise between envisaging the text as imposing or containing only one immutable meaning, and, at the other end of the spectrum, seeing the text as unbounded or open to all manner of interpretations which have equal value. 'This formulation attempts to take up the stress in uses and gratifications theory on the activity of the reader but to insert that moment into its sociohistorical conditions of existence' (ibid.: 5). In other words, uses and gratification theory does not provide an adequate account of the media texts or of audience responses to them (Hart 1991: 43).

The concept of a preferred reading, having been developed in the context of television news and current affairs programmes, is not without its problems. Firstly, it may not be readily transferred to so-called fictional texts like ST:TNG, where some, for example, Seiter (1991: 223f), suggest that the hierarchy of television's fictional texts are more ambiguous, preventing narrative closure on all levels of the text, and thus rendering the programme text more open to divergent meanings. This is partly because they lack the number of closure mechanisms believed to be present in closed texts. That is, programmes with a factual bias like Nationwide achieve a degree of closure through, among other mechanisms, the presenter's framing statements (Morley 1981: 6). Although clearly a series with a strong fictional basis, ST:TNG may achieve some form of closure through its obvious and widely recognised moral themes. As such this moral aspect along with regular viewers' knowledge of past stories and the show's 'philosophy', may be comparable to Morley's 'framing remarks' hypothesis, directing its audiences towards the construction of the preferred meanings. Certainly, many of my informants hold the view that ST:TNG has an important ethical dimension, for example, Jane sees ST:TNG a providing its audiences with 'a guideline to how people should live their lives'. Implicit here are the notions of agenda setting, spirals of silence and a relatively passive (or a subdued active) audience (Livingstone 1990: 49f).

Secondly, the preferred reading may be part of the text itself, or it may be produced by audiences with the necessary interpretative skills. Alternatively it may have nothing to do with the former or the latter, rather it may be merely the creation of analysts themselves (Morley 1981: 6). Thirdly, the preferred reading may be the result of a set of smaller, definable units each with its own properties, for example, 'directive closures' and 'framing'. Taken individually, image by image, word by word, or scene by scene, polysemy may be narrowed, but seen as one whole text diversity in meanings may be significantly greater (ibid.). Fourthly, the audience groups for this project were all chosen with reference to ST:TNG's actual audiences, and not simply as a convenient cue to ideological discourse (Tulloch & Jenkins 1995: 68f). Finally, unlike Morley, the methods I have used were designed to detect differences as well as similarities of meaning between individuals and, to a lesser extent, within and between audience, that is, I am trying to resist the tendency to reduce decoding to a single meaning.

As we have seen, open texts are envisaged as having a number of possible textual realisations or interpretations and are viewed as deliberately manipulating the interrelations between these varied readings to create, for example, irony, parody and allegory. On the other hand, the intention of closed texts is to produce a particular and specific reading, but can give rise to aberrant readings, that is, unlooked for interpretations, depending on the socioeconomic status of the actual readers as well as such things as the viewer's personality and situational role (Livingstone 1990: 41). To some extent ST:TNG represents a relatively closed set of texts whose essentially North American ideology should be working to oppose polysemy. However, although there may be some convergence, and we shall see some unanticipated ones in connection with I Borg, it is possible to think of long-running series like TOS and ST:TNG as producing texts that try to attract different groups of SF audiences at different times, or to attract a number at once (Tulloch & Jenkins 1995: 54, 59). Indeed, Jenkins (1992: 98) suggests that the most popular texts are those which offer something for everyone, and which provides sufficient resource to allow their easy appropriation by each of the diverse populations of followers and fans. And this point is not missed by some of ST:TNG's audiences, whom we should not underestimate, for instance, Simon J eloquently summaries his view of ST:TNG's appeal:

Moral value abounds in the series. The Prime Directive is very politically correct. Society on the starship has become utopian (from Vulcans, Russians, black female officers etc. being integrated into the scene without need for comment, to Klingons, reasonable Romulans and occasionally moderate Ferengi). Everybody's a friend, everyone's a professional. The values that ooze from this setting are high-minded, libertarian and as egalitarian as a chain of command can be. Science embraces computing (Data/Spock), engineering (Wesley), medicine of the body (McCoy and Gates McFadden (!!) [Dr. Beverly Crusher], medicine of the mind (Troi), common sense (Guinan). Art and humanities are set side by side with science. The net is cast so wide that so many can be ensnared in its mesh; few fans have been alienated by any unsubtleties.

But we cannot assume either a single science fiction audience or a homogeneous science fiction genre, rather both are fragmented into a host of subgroups. Ebert (1980) offers a threefold hierarchical typology of modern science fiction and strongly implies audience disunity, which, in parts, is refreshingly derisive. First (and for her, best) is meta-SF, which embodies 'a self-reflexive discourse acutely aware of its own aesthetic status and artificiality' (ibid.: 93, e.g. Dhalgren). Second is traditional SF, which utilises the 'mimetic conventions of the bourgeois novel with its preoccupations with sociopsychological realism and its commitment to a causal interpretation of the universe' (ibid.: 92, e.g. Stranger in a Strange Land). And in last place is para-SF, that is 'an adaptation and updating of the old-fashioned space-genre type of science fiction for the tastes of the middle-class consumers whose passion for gadgets is inexhaustible' (ibid., e.g. Star Trek). Jindra (1994: 32) takes a simpler view of science fiction genres, that is, it is either apocalyptic or utopian. ST:TNG falls firmly into the latter category and it is its positive attitude to the future which forms an attribute recognised by many fans. Jindra (1994: 36ff) also identifies a number of widespread and complex Star Trek fan networks which include feminists, families, the working class and academics and which can be highly organised, forming 'communities' which revolve around, for example, women writers and electronic bulletin boards. I have already given some indication of the latter's level of activity (e.g. Holderness 1994). Another feature of the Star Trek fandoms identified by Jindra (1994: 36) are their tendency to take on a pseudo-religious aspects. Many of the fan clubs include Starfleet chapters and chapters of the newer 'Klingon Assault Group' and both hierarchical organisations, in addition to holding and participating in conventions, stress community service projects, thus distinguishing them from a mere fan group and highlighting the seriousness with which they take their beliefs about creating a better world. Indeed, although those who contributed letters and took part in the discussions were regular viewers of TOS and ST:TNG, their enthusiasm appeared to pale somewhat in comparison to the zeal implied by some of the project's Internet respondents. The latter may fall into the categories of fans described by Jindra (and others, e.g. Tulloch & Jenkins 1995), for instance, Kate attends conventions, and Thomas and Johnny hint at the philosophical or religious dimension, as well as the tacit social value of learning the shows' 'catch phrases' and elements of the fictitious Klingon language:

Thomas

Johnny

To some extent, these examples remind us of the image of audiences as passive victims of what they watch on television, that is, the behavioural patterns of some of ST:TNG's audiences appears to have changed, perhaps as a consequence of watching the show. We can, I think, discount any apparent imitative/modelling tendencies as too simplistic an explanation for the complex and unexpected Star Trek related behaviours implied by, among others, Thomas, Kate and Johnny (Harris 1994: 188), not least because the construction of meanings have a significant social component. Furthermore, other interactive factors, such as desensitization, disinhibition, and vicarious reinforcement, may also be important. These have, in part, led to the development of various social-learning or social-cognitive theories, where emphasis is placed on the importance of vicarious learning through observation of and identification with models (Linz & Donnerstein 1989: 265). This view sees television conditioning and manipulating the spectators' thoughts and actions by providing them with cues, for example, on rewards, punishments and role models. Little attention, however, seems to be given to account for audience expectations, their interpretation or construing of dramatic messages, or their continued interaction with television. More importantly, no account seems to be taken of the fan cultures, both serious and not so serious, that surrounds programmes like ST:TNG, and which clearly have an important role to play in the lives of some of the project's informants.

In this respect, cultivation theory, which postulates that television viewers interact far more with media than presumed by the previous models so far discussed, may have a greater bearing on the interpretation of audience behaviour. The attitudes of the viewers are of principal concern here, and researchers, such as Gerbner et al. (1986), suggest that over time the viewer's attitudes and beliefs mirror those shown on television (Harris 1994: 20f, 38f). However, cultivation theory is best known for its research on the cultivation of attitudes concerned with violence, and may have less relevance to ST:TNG where a number of informants report its non-violence 'message' (see below). It is also possible that watching programmes like ST:TNG has other influences upon some viewers, for example, it may impact on the development of social and inter-personal skills as well as academic achievement and career choice. In this connection, Gail and John cite TOS as having had an influence on their choice of science rather than art subjects at school, and on the choice of their careers (i.e. soil engineer and computer consultant respectively). Notwithstanding this, certain sociodemographic and personality variables may reduce or eliminate cultivation influences (ibid.: 198). Furthermore, ST:TNG, may not be a significant source of information about the 'real' world per se, rather it may form part of the common ground between viewers around which complex social activities take place, especially the construction of various types of meaning.

As mentioned earlier, the viewing environment, although of significance in how people relate and interact with television should not be expected to give clear unambiguous and objective directions on how to, for instance, interpret ST:TNG conventions such as Warp Drive (see below)), not least because, despite other influential people having a considerable impact upon these processes, homogeneity of science fiction audiences is not attested to by the data collected here. Indeed, the audiences of TOS and ST:TNG can exhibit a certain degree of aloofness, for instance, Tim and Roland consider Babylon 5 to be a dismal imitation of ST:TNG lacking moral inspiration, although as James's statement below implies, even ST:TNG audiences are fragmented:

James

TNG

that

Notwithstanding this, all viewers are engaged in the business of decoding texts, which process may be as Morley (1981: 5) suggests: 'a set of processes - of attentiveness, recognition of relevance, of comprehension and response'.

I Borg - a closed text?

To some extent this complexity of decoding is more evident from the interlocutions which occurred during the screening of those ST:TNG episodes selected by the seven people who participated in the discussions. In particular, comparison of the comments made by the four who chose to watch I Borg not only implies considerable variety in the minutiae of 'activity' but also some degree of textual closure, especially in connection with the main themes. Interestingly, closure of sorts may also have occurred on narrative features that probably fall outside the scope of any intended preferred meaning. To give some flavour of the diversity of interlocutions made, I have extracted and presented below those made by Tim during I Borg, who is somewhat unusual in his garrulity. However, Tim seems in other respects typical of this group of informants, especially in the similarity of the pattern of utterances, which tended to be most dense and perhaps more significant in the first seven or so minutes of an episode (i.e. up to the end of the opening credits), with a smaller cluster of utterances occurring over the end credits. Some, for example, Brendon, made no comments between the opening and end credits. For those unfamiliar with this episode, the central character of I Borg is an injured adolescent Borg (a member of a cybernetic super-race whose sole purpose is to physically assimilate all sentient beings into their 'collective'), who is rescued by the crew of the Enterprise. He is affectionately renamed Hugh (instead of his Borg designation of '3 of 5') by the crew and taught human values (Gross & Altman 1993: 246):

Tim

Star Trek

very

Tim's comments demonstrate a high degree of activity and involvement in the interpretation of the I Borg text, incorporating a host of social and cognitive tools, including gender schemata (e.g. 'Is it female? It's got such long eyelashes!' and 'I say, he's being very friendly!'), humour (e.g. 'They should have called him Bjorn - Bjorn Borg!'), and historical knowledge of narrative events in ST:TNG (e.g. 'That's where they had Jean-Luc when he was a Borg' and 'Is this something we don't know about Guinan?'). Although only four of the project's sample watched and commented upon this episode (i.e. Roland, Jane, Tim, and Gail), it was surprising to find that certain, otherwise insignificant and somewhat unlikely, details seemed to yield convergent interpretations. In particular: a) Tim and Gail noted Worf's blonde hair, or at least a variation in hair colour (although it is possible that this is a product of mechanical variations in the televisions and videos used); b) Jane, Tim and Roland (the latter during the following discussions) remarked upon Troi's unusually aggressive interaction with Picard early in the episode; c) Roland, Tim and Gail made some kind of reference to Guinan's rotund physique and recognised her despite her wearing a fencing mask; and d) Roland and Tim pointed out Hugh's shortness. A tendency for narrative closure is also suggested by the predictions of textual events, and other interactions of audience with the text, made by the viewer whilst watching ST:TNG, for instance, Gail correctly anticipated the sentiments of Dr. Crushers' line 'I think what you're trying to say is you're lonely' as well as an important theme of the Borg sequel, Descent. And Tim correctly identified the unknown space-vessel as belonging to the Borg. With the possible exception of the last two examples, these seem to represent aberrant readings. Certainly, it is hard to imagine the writers and producers of this episode wanting to elicit this type of response.

Gross and Altman (1993: 246), reporting the comments of the producer, Berman, the director, Lederman, and the uncredited co-writer, Taylor, identify two main themes of I Borg: 1) Picard and Guinan, who have suffered at the hands of the Borg collective are forced to confront their own, and by implication the audiences', prejudices against the Borg; and 2) the crew's attempt to deal with a member of the communal Borg as an individual. Tempting though it might be to take these themes as general indications of the preferred readings (i.e. we have no explicit statement that these themes were the actual objectives of the writers, rather we cannot discount the possibility that they evolved as a result of the writing process itself), it is, nonetheless, quite clear that both featured heavily in the discussions, with perhaps a slight bias towards the 'individuality' theme. However, each interpreted these basic themes idiosyncratically and in ways that suggest a complex interaction between the narrative event and, among other factors, the viewers' 'reading' skills, affective involvement with the programme, interests, and their ability to articulate their thoughts. We can see some of this complexity in relation to I Borg's 'individuality' theme. At one level, Jane succinctly notes that Hugh 'never had to think for himself as an individual'. On the other hand, Roland and Tim framed and developed their arguments according to, at least, two distinct bodies of knowledge. Roland, who made frequent reference to astrological and 'new age spiritual' iconography and symbolism (e.g. 'the Saturn quality of structure doesn't work unless you can break it'), emphasised the collective verses individual paradox (i.e. 'we all want to be part of the collective as much as we want to be individuals'), and the birth of the individual within the group in his interpretation of I Borg. However, Tim, seemingly drawing on the belief that Star Trek portrays a North American dystopia, concluded that 'the Federation was actually assimilating Hugh. So they're just as bad as the Borg ... they shouldn't have tried to convert him because that was like a breach of the Prime Directive'. Furthermore, Tim appeared more inclined than the others to interpret the episode explicitly in terms of intrinsic features of the episode as it related to other Star Trek themes and historical details. For example, Tim noted the 'human is superior to thinking machine' theme as attested to in I Borg, The Ultimate Computer and The Return of the Archons.

What this seems to suggest is that viewers are able to discern or adopt a number of reading positions in relation to the preferred meanings, but, as we have seen and shall see again, not necessarily at the expense of their own preferred textual history, which may have established some common ground for their particular interpretive communities (Tulloch & Jenkins 1995: 139f). Similarly, Jenkins (1992: 97) identifies several reading positions in TOS, for example, 'the final Frontier' style of science fiction, the 'buddy' (e.g. Kirk-Spock-McCoy) or 'family' aspect (e.g. the whole crew), the military chain of command' readings common to Internet fans, each with its own 'institutional base of support within fan culture'. They are undoubtedly helped towards reaching these positions within the preferred readings by, among other mechanisms, a belief that ST:TNG has some ethical or moral point to make and that textual cues have been placed in the narrative. The latter may intrigue viewers, for example, Gail and Tim commented upon the episode's title being I Borg and not We Borg, and interestingly neither commented upon the oblique reference to Asimov's I Robot as being significant.

Little girls need role models too

Gender differences and stereotyping which appear to favour men at the expense of women are the cause of much concern and research. The anxiety may be justifiable if, for example, what is watched on television is perceived as 'reality' by the viewer (Harris 1994: 40f; Van Evra 1990: 113f). Although television genres, specific programmes and commercials vary in the proportions, occupations and behaviours of the two sexes represented, significantly greater numbers of men than women appear on television. Certainly, in the 1970s and early 1980s the average was three or four times as many men to women during prime-time television (ibid.). This imbalance may be changing, however, at least in general terms, perhaps as a consequence of more female lead roles in recent programmes such as Absolutely Fabulous, Roseanne, Birds of a Feather, Watchdog and Prime Suspect. However, despite setting out to portray an egalitarian and utopian society in the 24th century (Jindra 1994: 32), ST:TNG nonetheless regularly presents its audiences with more masculine than feminine roles, that is, about 7 main male characters (e.g. Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, O'Brien, La Forge, & Wesley Crusher - less frequent masculine characters include Q, Alexander and Lore) against typically 2 or 3 female ones. The latter, who include Counsellor Troi, Dr. Crusher, Dr. Pulaski, Tasha Yar, Ensign Ro, Keiko, and Lwaxana Troi, have been subject to a greater 'turnover', with Counsellor Troi being the one regular character. At least a section of the project's informants have some idea of inherent producer biases in the construction of ST:TNG episodes, and use such notions to reconcile apparent contradictions between what they see in the programmes and their knowledge of, among other things, the history of the Star Trek universe, its underlying philosophy and current social issues like racism and gender:

Cynthia

Laurie

Sung

Q-pid

Thomas

TNG

Notwithstanding these fierce gender portrayal criticisms and this noticeable demographic misrepresentation, many of those who answered the questions relating explicitly to how men and women were presented on ST:TNG seemed largely unconcerned with or unaware of the way gender was portrayed (e.g. James, Matt, Kate, Tim and Johnny), or were comfortable with it (e.g. Cynthia and Jane, and possibly Steffi and Sung). However, when responses to questions about their favourite or least favourite characters where also considered several attitudes to gender were apparent. It seems that the attention of some focused either on the way gender roles themselves were portrayed or how gender helped to define the characters, the 'realism' and the dramatic tension of ST:TNG. Curiously, although much has been written about the way women are shown on television and other media, that is, usually with the presupposition that television somehow propagates or maintains socially undesirable sexists ideologies (e.g. Meehan 1983), it was the portrayals of the men in ST:TNG which drew the most and varied consideration. This may, of course, be a consequence of ST:TNG's strong masculine bias. Nevertheless and in general terms, the men on ST:TNG were perceived by those who voiced an opinion as falling into one or more of the following categories:

In many ways these perceptions of men are stereotypical, a view which seems to be implied by Sung's observation that 'a few more wimps would make it [ST:TNG] more interesting'. Indeed, they confirm Harris' (1994: 44) view that men are more likely to be seen on television as cool, calm, self-confident, decisive and emotionless, and continue to be presented as high achievers, successful and dominating women, and Condry's (1989) perception that men appear as ambitious, intelligent and violent.

The presentation of women, on the other hand, attracted fewer comments and this paucity may account, at least in part, the narrower stereotypical range. While masculinity on ST:TNG was hardly challenged, the images of women and their roles were more strongly criticised, mostly by women themselves, for being antiquated, traditional and highly stereotypical. Strong female roles were considered lamentably under-represented, for example, Laurie reminds us of 'Troi's brief stint on that Romulan ship' and 'Tasha Yar as security chief was killed pretty early' as rare incidences of female potency. Several informants appeared to agree with the following, who thought that the portrayals of women were simply:

Kate

In addition, femininity on ST:TNG was perceived in any number of the following ways:

Although, stereotypes appear to be an integral, if not central, part of ST:TNG, providing the series with a foundation for its texts and ST:TNG's appeal, the attributes of each stereotype can be complex, varying with importance from audience to audience. To illustrate this point I have drawn together a number of different views on ST:TNG's most talked about character, Captain Jean-Luc Picard:

Cynthia

Kate

James

Thomas

Johnny

John

Jane

Roland

These comments, together with the other examples in this section, suggest that gender distinctions may form a fundamental schema for most, if not all, people, and it may function as a lens shaping and colouring our interpretations of the ambient social world. It is unlikely that ST:TNG presents viewers with a ready made stereotype/personality, although its producers may seek to present North American archetypes. Rather viewers construct an image from the fragmented incidents which litter the host of episodes watched over a number of years, that is, audience, its previous interpretations and the text interact to produce a dynamic set of images. As we have seen in the illustrations, this leads to a diverse range of continually evolving gender (and personality) constructs. The case presented above in connection with I Borg also reminds us that each scattered incident probably gives rise to many interpretations (Livingstone 1990: 99f). Furthermore, since the female informants seemed more vocal on gender issues than the male ones it may be that the gender of viewers themselves is a determining variable in the construction of meaning. Hodge and Tripp (1986: 93-5) have suggested that whereas some boys develop an exaggerated impressions of masculine roles at the expense of feminine ones, some girls appear to resist this. If this can be applied to adult viewers, then it tentatively suggests that these women's comments suggest a possible resistance to the male:female bias of 7:3 on ST:TNG, which may come from their allegiance to female roles, despite their limited range. That many of the male respondents seem comfortable with the portrayals of masculinity may also suggest allegiance to the male characters. If this is the case, which intuitively seems likely, then other variables such as race, religion, age, socioeconomic status, personality, and geography may play a part, albeit in varying and indeterminate measures (Morley 1981: 8f). However, gender itself is complex and the data informing this project is not large enough to warrant a polarisation of its subjects into men, who view ST:TNG one way, and women who see it another. This would be too artificial. Clearly, the evidence presented here suggests considerable overlap in gender differences (Livingstone 1990: 107f). Furthermore, the approximate 1:1 male:female ratio of the informants suggest that, perhaps against initial expectations of the science fiction genre, ST:TNG is not a gendered text, appealing to men only.

The Glorious Power of Warp Drive

To some extent, viewers build up an understanding of television themes and conventions over a wide range of programmes and length of time viewing rather than through the process of watching individual or separate items or even genres (Hobson 1982: 107). In this connection we can note that in talking about ST:TNG other programmes were referred to, for example, Tomorrow's World, Horizon, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Lost in Space, Babylon 5, Space 1999, Robin of Sherwood, as well as other media such as books (e.g. I.D.I.C.) and films (e.g. Aliens). In particular, Gail noted that science documentaries provided her with background information to interpret some of the science fiction presented in ST:TNG, although, as we shall see later, TOS and ST:TNG themselves provide sufficient textual clues to allow the construction of quite complex sets of meanings pertinent to the 'science' and 'technology' of the Star Trek universe.

Without doubt the comments and discussions that flowed from the questions about the representation of science and technology on ST:TNG were kaleidoscopic. Every member of the project's sample had something to say on the topic, and as such, defining, mapping and interpreting what they had to talk about was difficult, not least because the tacit yet potent determinants on meaning seemed unrelated to the project's scant clues about its informants' gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, educational/occupational background or age. This underlines some of the study's methodological limitations, which are not surprising considering the exploratory nature of the project. One basic distinction that Tulloch and Jenkins (1995: 213ff) were able to draw seemed to be informed by the type of education received by some Star Trek fans. In particular, those with a humanist education appeared to pose classic liberal critiques of the technological utopia depicted in TOS, ST:TNG and DS9, especially its appeal to hierarchy, mass conformity and its faith in benign technological progress. In other words, a social rather than a technological perspective was taken by this type of fan. On the other hand, scepticism about the human costs of living within Star Trek's technologically based utopia was largely absent from those with a predominantly science background. For these fans, ST:TNG allowed them to exercise their growing expertise and to reaffirm their belief in the authority of science. In some respects, this is a cultural competency which is corroborated by Star Trek's apparent ethos that technological progress is the road to human betterment. In both cases, 'expertise' in their respective domains of knowledge enabled them to spot inconsistencies in the narrative event, both inter-textually, and between the text and the 'real' world. Furthermore, it appears they were able to use the programme as a point of reference for exploring their own shifting relationships and attitudes to society and science.

Certainly, we have already seen how some ST:TNG viewers use the programme to define areas of discourse, for instance, Johnny incorporated ST:TNG's ideals into his attitudes, watched and discussed episodes with others, and applied the resulting meanings to his current circumstances. Although Tulloch and Jenkins' analysis has some relevance to this section of the paper, cognitive styles, shaped in part by differing educational curricula, only form one determinant to the construction of meaning. Nevertheless, it is possible that people with an interest in science (and science fiction), and with a good understanding of basic scientific principles may have the necessary skills to read the 'science' shown on ST:TNG. For example, some like John (a computer consultant), whom Ebert (1980: 92f) would probably describe as has having an inexhaustible passion for gadgets, not only implicitly sees technology as propitious to society but also sees Star Trek's depiction of it as being able to influence the course of technological development, that is:

John

Star Trek

Furthermore, those with an 'arts' or a 'soft' science background seemed to focus on the social rather than technological dimensions to ST:TNG, for example, the student of resource management comments:

Laurie: I don't like the technobabble fixes as ways to solve moral/ethical/intellectual dilemmas.

In part this has to do with not knowing how accurate the presentation of science and technology was (e.g. Sung, Cynthia, and Kate). On the other hand, others like Conny (a student of chemical engineering) and Thomas (a student of mathematics), seem to take up a position not too dissimilar to Laurie's. They view ST:TNG's science and technology as 'bogus' and suggest that 'the actual 'science' of the show isn't as interesting as the human drama it generates'. Two other related positions were taken by the informants, namely those who saw technology as merely a dramatic device for rapidly drawing an episode to a close, that is, as a deus ex machina (e.g. James), or that technology needed to be believable as a perquisite for the suspension of disbelief (e.g. Matt and Johnny).

Complexity in the construction of meanings is further demonstrated for specific items or narrative events (e.g. Warp Drive) and, although knowledge seems to be an influential factor, as we have seen, in defining responses and positions of interpretation to ST:TNG's fictitious science, individual differences, among others, need to be considered if the amazing range and scope of meaning is to be explained. Most of my informants tried to indicate what they thought Warp Drive meant. While a good many saw Warp Drive simply as a means to achieve faster than light [FTL] travel, others perceived interesting variants, elaborating this basic theme. For example, that space was warped (e.g. Matt and Roland), or that the space-ship dropped out of 'normal' space (e.g. Kate) in order to achieve FTL travel. At the two extremes of the spectrum in interpreting Warp drive are Jane and Gail:

Jane: [Warp Drive] is a bit like gears on a bicycle ... only in a far more sophisticated way. But I like the way, when they do go to Warp, the stars are sort of suddenly lights streaming behind, because its just all a blur as you're moving so fast.
Gail: Warp 1 is equivalent to the speed of light. And it then goes in multiples of the speed of light, which enables them to travel such huge distances in a more manageable amount of time. The only thing then is that when they come back to Earth, theoretically they won't have any relatives left. So all their relatives must be going backwards and forwards at the same speed, according to present day theory, because if you're going away at the speed of light you stay the same age and [...] so ... everyone's doing exactly the same thing [...] so it all adds up in the end. But I always got the impression it's based on anti-matter and matter interaction, which has to be done very carefully, which is why Mr. Scott used to say; 'She canna take any more of this Captain. She's gonna blow' ... its the interaction of matter with anti-matter, although they've never really made clear what they mean by anti-matter ... its a kind of fusion rather than fission ... [and] you need dilithium crystals to form the bridge between the two forms of matter.

Curiously, the female element of the sample seem to exhibit more complex interpretations and a greater degree of divergent meanings than did the male section. Why this should be is unclear from the data. However, from Gail's case we can see the importance of the viewer's preferred inter-textual history for the active construction of meanings. Gail explains that her view of Warp Drive comes:

Gail: from other episodes scattered round, [which] you put together. But it's like a big jigsaw because you remember little bits from different programmes and you put it together to form your own idea about what's what in terms of why and how they get information and who's who.

As such we are reminded that the text is only one point of reference in the polysemic relationship between audience, ST:TNG, society and culture. Not only do the skills necessary to read the 'science' portrayed on ST:TNG vary between individuals, but so does the ability to use the text to provide a narrative history of ST:TNG. In addition, the text itself may facilitate or resist viewers' interpretive activities.

Concluding Remarks

One aim of the project presented here is to add a little to the growing body of 'knowledge' about audiences, albeit that the described encounters between ST:TNG audiences and television are historically specific and context bound (Ang 1989: 99). Although ST:TNG probably offers far more closed texts than other genres, for example, soap operas, it nonetheless appears multi-layered, subject to generic and conventional constraints, open and incomplete in its meanings, and provides diverse yet bounded paths for its readers (Livingstone 1990: 189). Yet despite this, ST:TNG audiences seem to draw more readily, in discussing the show, on their cultural competence in the history of Star Trek than on other broader histories. Furthermore, the notion of the preferred text (i.e. the institutional power of producers to shape texts) seems relevant only to the main dramatic themes of the programmes, and not to the construing of meanings about gender, science and technology, or Warp Drive, which probably fall outside the gamut of any intended meaning. However, fans vary greatly and make judgements on these and other issues within a social and historical context which shapes their relative access to different generic models and discourses for making sense of ST:TNG. Here, we can juxtapose the text itself which may help or hinder diverse groups of viewers in their interpretative endeavours. The influence of the researcher/interviewer may not be 'artificial', obscuring 'true' readings, but it needs to be taken into account as part of the definition of the reading situation. Somewhere between these determinants meaning lurks, but there is no neutral ground where we can get access to the 'real' interpretation of ST:TNG.

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UWA 1995

Name	Age	Sex	Occupation	Location
Laurie	22	f	student of resource management	USA
Sung	21	f	student	USA
Cynthia	23	f	graduate/music teacher	USA
Kate	36	f	solicitor/law lecturer	UK
James	26	m	computer aid	USA
Conny	25	f	student of chemical engineering	USA
Matt	18	m	works in bookstore	USA
Steffi	24	f	?	Germany
Thomas	22	m	student of mathematics	Germany
Johnny	23	m	student of mechanical engineering	USA

Name	Age	Sex	Occupation
Simon A	27	m	actuary
John	29	m	computer consultant
Roland	26	m	musician/artist
Tim	27	m	civil servant
Jane	27	f	property surveyor
Brendon	21	m	financial services administrator
Gail	33	f	soil engineer

Name	Age	Sex	Occupation
Simon J	33	m	Latin teacher
Victoria	37	f	Art teacher