Some concluding thoughts on the media prankster

And here we are at Chapter 5, aka the final part of the paper, with some concluding thoughts about what has been examined and explored in these preceding chapters:

Chapter 1: Putting the prankster in context
Chapter 2: Carnival pleasures: The liminal, the ludic, the synthetic, and the spectacular

Chapter 3: Normalization & neutralization vs. rebellion & resistance

Chapter 4: Suffering The Fools

          

“Traditionalists are the endangered species and iconoclasm is orthodoxy.”

 Andrew Calcutt, in Blueprint, May 2000

                                        

In an era of widespread and arguably predictable iconoclasm, the media prankster’s concurrent habitation of the worlds of work and play locates him in an interesting paradox. His (Ed. Note: There were no female media pranksters known to the author at the time this paper was submitted, i.e. Fall 2000) popularity gives him sufficient power to impact significantly upon popular culture, while his reputation as a self-parodying clown makes him seem harmless to the status quo. In reality, however, what the prankster brings to media discourse is a new logic, a rationale of the reflexive and the ironic. If we conceptualise the conventional media model of decorum, curiousity, and logic as signifying the reasonable and the temperate, then the prankster-initiated model of unfettered inquisitiveness and dismissed boundaries should read as chaos and illogic. Increasingly this is not the case. 

The proliferation of niche groups, or microcultures, with a deep understanding of alternate approaches to cultural production and reproduction, has greatly enhanced the intelligibility of the media prankster. In addition, the mocking of both media personality and media protocol by the indisputably popular media prankster weakens the sovereignty of the conventional media. What we are left to ponder, then, is what is more genuine: the openly derisive media model presented by the prankster, or the rigidly self-conscious version put forward by the majority of conventional media? Additionally, popular acceptance of the prankster’s techniques and sensibilities indicate a move away from the stigmatisation usually accorded to rule-breakers and mavericks, and a move toward mainstream permeation. For a style of discourse rooted in such avant-garde and openly dissenting traditions as Dada, Situationism, and punk, this represents a remarkable achievement.

It also bears reiterating that such cultural incorporation positions the media prankster as something apart from the binary opposite of conventional media professionalism and protocol. He must therefore be considered as a manifestation of a larger cultural moment and a point on the curve of highly vernacular, (and after Goffman) ‘backstage’ and ‘informal’ strands of broadcast talk. The prankster’s modus operandi thus conducive to the production of a media metadiscourse, a constantly evolving language of broadcasting that references broadcast culture and repositions media personality and audience in the process. 

The media prankster, unlike previous figures of media authority and/or celebrity, is neither expert nor imagined companion to the viewer, but co-conspirator. By dislocating the power relations and boundaries of broadcast discourse, the entire media environment becomes destabilized. Information flow becomes a continuous loop rather than a one way transmission, notions of authenticity and authority are undermined, formulaic broadcast talk becomes a laughable, if not highly suspect, form of public discourse, and consequently the model for what constitutes broadcast talk, in both nature and actual utterance, expands.

As the hoax becomes a more commonplace activity in a culture that celebrates irreverence and heterodoxy, it also becomes a less deviant activity. The prankster figure is no longer relegated to the sidelines of society. By incorporating the prank into his grammar of broadcast discourse, he offers an antidote to soundbite culture and media-trained celebrities and spokespeople. Recent media developments such as the syndicated American radio program The Phil Hendrie Show, in which the host of the program cunningly plays the role of presenter, guest, and callers, suggest that the high moment of media prankstering is upon us. 

Such an extension of the synthetic into all aspects of the media experience, combined with the proliferation and popularity of the media prank discussed in this dissertation, indicate a need for further research into audience readings of pranksters and synthetic narratives as everyday components of broadcast discourse.

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(Ed. Note: And to tie things up with a nice Mobius strip of a bow may I refer back to the original post in this series, and its reference to a more recent crop of media pranksters, in particular Stephen Colbert's  'Stephen Colbert' of The Colbert Report. Here we find the either/or of satire is a lesson, and parody is a game may be too crisp a distinction. Much food for thought. 

And then there are the armies of YouTubers and Instagrammers and TikTokers and the like; gatekeeper-free environments that are open to anyone with a phone. Millions of daily uploads, billions of daily views, and, of course, a high rate of turnover in this world of influencers and microstars and 'ordinary celebrity'. (Turner, 2010)

Give me another 20 years?