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Popular Culture Review
The messages and stories those access producers create are acts of expression
to draw the attention of their audience. These “performances” can heighten
awareness of the story and give special license to any audience who identifies with
that message (Bauman 1983). I found that producers’ stories are loosely constructed
around the concept of “gathering common elements,” i.e., those cultural elements
of time, space, and social milieu within which folklore appears (McQuail 36).
Access producers do realize that a potential audience exists (either access viewers
or other producers) and they plan to provide them with a completed story in advance.
The access channel serves as a direct mode of communication where the story can
be told and as a public gathering place (medium) that individual audience members
can voluntarily use. Audience members watch because they expect to receive some
emotional benefit from the story. Together, they create a new folklore genre using
public access televi