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What characterizes the Lost-TV community and its members? / Why did the community develop? / What is its purpose?

 

The development of the community

 

The Lost-TV forum was created by its founding members in 2004 to serve as a fan site and discussion board for Lost.� How did the forum develop into a full-fledged community, with 31,287 members, 54,154 threads, and 3,039,939 posts (as of 12/7/10)?

 

As mentioned, the mysterious nature of the show encourages fans to take an active role in piecing the show�s clues together.� The mysteries are intriguing enough to prompt viewers to participate in the challenge, and complex enough that viewers often turn to others to propose and debate ideas.

 

There are a few reasons, however, that Lost fans participate in online communities in particular.� The first reason lies in the configuration of the Lost community overall.� Lost is a fairly popular show, but the most devoted fans are few and far between.� They are scattered around the world and separated by great distances.� Message boards such as the Lost-TV forum provide a means for these Lost fans to overcome this physical distance and find each other.� When asked why they contribute to the LostTV forum, for example, members responded:

 

Noav Sigless : �My friends and family don�t share my interest in the show.�

 

moon47: �I like talking to others about the show.� No one else I know watches it.�

 

XxZamxX: ��This is really the only place I can come talk about the show and how much I enjoy it.� Everyone else I know doesn�t watch the show or are (sic) too busy to sit down through an episode.�

 

6toedjewel � �[The forum provides me with] someplace to go to talk to others about my favorite show.� None of my friends or co-workers watch LOST.�

 

Many Lost fans feel isolated offline, but on the online message boards they find the discussion and companionship they desire.� The Lost-TV forum thus enables the relatively small group of Lost fans to meet up over the internet and discuss matters of personal importance.

 

The medium of the online forum also allows fans to discuss the show at their own convenience.� Fans do not all have to inhabit a certain physical or virtual place at the same time.� Instead, through the website, they can post and respond to other fans� posts whenever their schedule allows.� In this way, the online forum provides its users with significant flexibility.

 

Finally, the medium of the forum serves to both preserve and disseminate fans� theories.� By recording fans� ideas and sharing these ideas with large audiences, the medium of the forum serves the interests of its users in ways that face-to-face discussion cannot.

 

The development of the Lost-TV forum is not an isolated phenomenon, but instead part of a trend towards increased media interactivity.� Media interactivity has been described as the ways in which television viewers �can talk back to the TV�and actually be heard� (Andrejevic 24).� In today�s society, TV viewers �are increasingly encouraged to climb out of the couch and embrace a more �active� approach to their viewing experience� (Andrejevic 25).� The Lost online community strongly fits with this trend.� However, while for most television shows described by Andrejevic, interactivity involves fans critiquing the show and offering suggestions to producers, the Lost online community has a more unique purpose.� The Lost-TV forum and other Lost communities do critically evaluate the show, but their primary purpose relates more to problem solving.� Other characteristics, some unique to the Lost-TV community, are described below.

 

Characteristics of the community

 

In order to understand the characteristics of the Lost-TV community and attain a feel for how the online discussions play out, I spent many hours perusing the Lost-TV message boards.� I also examined one thread in particular: a thread with responses to interview questions asked by janine21, a researcher engaged in a project concerning similar questions of community.� Janine21 asked users of the site to answer questions about their experience with the site and the show; she collected data on the forum by using the medium of the forum itself.� Because all threads on the LostTV forum are public, I was able to read through the responses to her interview.

 

�Speaking� with Lost fans in this way revealed several key characteristics of the LostTV online community.� First, there is no standard demographic profile of members of the site.� The race, religion, and age of members is typically not disclosed, and members only know each other by their chosen usernames.� However, members clearly perceive of the site as multicultural.� In explaining what they get from belonging to the site, some respondents to Janine21�s interview chose to focus on this multiculturalism:�

 

Noav Sigless : �[I get] a chance to discuss a shared interest with people of very different backgrounds, education, regions, cultures, religions and all the other things that tend to separate us.�� The many different perspectives keep us from missing anything and the writers on their toes.� �

 

Lost In His Eyes: �I get to �meet� many cool people from all over the world and I get to talk with them about Lost and other things.�

 

These members do not only describe the site as multicultural; they also place great value on this aspect of the site.� As explained above by Noav Sigless, the multiculturalism of the boards is an asset that aids in the community�s goal of solving the mysteries of Lost.� Lost is a very culturally diverse show, with characters from all parts of the globe and even two main characters who speak only Korean, and its mysteries encompass this cultural diversity.� The �many different perspectives� provided by the members of the site thus make the community better equipped to tackle Lost�s wide array of challenges.

 

Though members of the site are diverse, they share a bond due to their passion for a shared cultural artifact.� This bond manifests itself throughout the collaborative interactions on the Lost-TV forum.� Members of the site help each other out when possible, as shown by the following quote from member XxZamxX:

 

�[I contribute to the site] because it helps clear matter for others, just as others help clear matters for me.�

 

There is an emphasis on teamwork that is especially apparent in the way that members collaboratively develop theories.� In particular, members build off of each other�s theories by contributing their own unique backgrounds and experiences.� As member dagriff explains:

 

��[What I get from being a member is] different perspectives on identical information, [and] technical help/expertise on items that I have neither the time or skill to pursue on my own (i.e. screencaps, audio file separation on the whispers, audio file reversal on Walt�s speech, etc).�

 

The clues to the mysteries of Lost are often very subtle, and finding them requires both time and skill.� An example of such a clue occurs in the second season premiere, when one of the characters (Walt) quietly murmurs something inaudible.� Some Lost fans realized that his statement, when slowed down and played backwards, actually reveals a hidden message.�

At first, only a small subset of fans with the time and ability to reverse audio files could listen to this message.� However, because a few members posted edited audio clips on the Lost-TV forum, all members could listen to the message and engage in its discussion.

 

As this example shows, the medium of the forum allows for the accumulation of users� expertise and knowledge.� Members contribute their discoveries to the site so that other members do not have to uncover everything for themselves.� These members reduce the burden on others of the �intense intellectual labor� required by Lost, which enables the group as a whole to move closer to solving the mysteries of the show (Livelsberger 16).

 

The collective effort is described by another member, WayOffCourse, as �lots of eyes out there that often pick up stuff I miss.�� This quote paints an image of the LostTV forum as many eyes working in tandem as a single entity.� When members post ideas to the forum, they contribute their set of eyes, their other senses, and most importantly, their brains to the overall effort to solve the mysteries of Lost.� By contributing to the larger effort, members like ExaltedSin50 then get the �satisfaction of being part of the on-going LOST investigations. ;)�� This collaborative work toward a collective goal, developed to address the unique challenges presented by Lost, is what truly defines the Lost-TV forum community.