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 ANTISOCIAL
MEDIA
Crime-watching in
the Internet Age

Mark Wood

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN CRIME, MEDIA AND CULTURE

Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture

Series editors
Michelle Brown
Department of Sociology
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN, USA

Eamonn Carrabine
Department of Sociology
University of Essex
Colchester, UK
This series aims to publish high quality interdisciplinary scholarship for
research into crime, media and culture. As images of crime, harm and
punishment proliferate across new and old media there is a growing rec-
ognition that criminology needs to rethink its relations with the ascen-
dant power of spectacle. This international book series aims to break
down the often rigid and increasingly hardened boundaries of main-
stream criminology, media and communication studies, and cultural
studies. In a late modern world where reality TV takes viewers into cop
cars and carceral spaces, game shows routinely feature shame and suffer-
ing, teenagers post ‘happy slapping’ videos on YouTube, both cyber bul-
lying and ‘justice for’ campaigns are mainstays of social media, and
insurrectionist groups compile footage of suicide bomb attacks for circu-
lation on the Internet, it is clear that images of crime and control play a
powerful role in shaping social practices. It is vital then that we become
versed in the diverse ways that crime and punishment are represented in
an era of global interconnectedness, not least since the very reach of
global media networks is now unparalleled.
Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture emerges from a call to
rethink the manner in which images are reshaping the world and crimi-
nology as a project. The mobility, malleability, banality, speed, and scale
of images and their distribution demand that we engage both old and
new theories and methods and pursue a refinement of concepts and tools,
as well as innovative new ones, to tackle questions of crime, harm, cul-
ture, and control. Keywords like image, iconography, information flows,
the counter-visual, and ‘social’ media, as well as the continuing relevance
of the markers, signs, and inscriptions of gender, race, sexuality, and class
in cultural contests mark the contours of the crime, media and culture
nexus.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/series/15057
 Mark A. Wood

Antisocial Media
Crime-watching in the Internet Age
Mark A. Wood
Criminology
University of Melbourne
Parkville, VIC, Australia

Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture

ISBN 978-3-319-63984-0    ISBN 978-3-319-63985-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63985-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947195

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgements

Throughout writing the doctoral thesis that formed the basis of this book,
I was lucky enough to be supported by a range of incredible friends, men-
tors and colleagues. Though many friends and mentors left an indelible
mark on this book, I’d like to single out several in particular. Like the
dissertation before it, this book wouldn’t have been completed without
their support, guidance and friendship. Firstly, my PhD supervisors
Alison Young and Natalia Hanley, thank you for continually supporting
my research, and for your patience and insight. I really couldn’t have
wished for two better supervisors, and as I’ve began supervising my own
Honours and PhD students, I often find myself asking, ‘what would
Natalia and Alison do?’
Whilst completing this book, I was hired at my old alma mater, the
University of Melbourne, as a lecturer. Though my old teachers became
my colleagues, their continuing mentorship remained vital in navigating
my entry into academia. In particular, I’d like to thank Fiona Haines,
Dave McDonald, Nesam McMillan, Julie Evans, Diana Johns, Jennifer
Balint, and Stuart Ross, for helping me learn the ropes and for their excel-
lent advice on juggling teaching with writing, and keeping a healthy work–
life balance. You are the people that kindled my passion for criminology,
and I feel supremely lucky to now count you among my colleagues.

v
vi Acknowledgements

Some sections of certain chapters in this book are revised versions of

articles that have been previously published. Chapter 4 expands on ­several
of the ideas advanced in ‘Antisocial media and algorithmic deviancy
amplification: Analysing the id of Facebook’s technological unconscious,’
published in Theoretical Criminology (2017). Similarly, Chap. 5 is a much
expanded version of ‘“I just wanna see someone get knocked the fuck
out”: Spectating affray on Facebook fight pages,’ an article published in
Crime, Media, Culture (2017). I am extremely grateful to the anonymous
reviewers of these two articles, whose recommendations helped shore up
several of my then nascent ideas and pointed me towards several neglected
bodies of research.
To my parents, Linda and Robert, sister Amanda, and second family,
Leisha, Ian, and Adam—thank you for your ongoing support and love.
To my partner, collaborator, fellow bird enthusiast and best friend Chrissy
Thompson—you’re a good sort.
 Contents

1 Introduction   1

2 Breaking the First Two Rules of Fight Club  23

3 Unpacking a Punch  53

4 Feeding Violence?  79

5 The Digital Arena 113

6 Conclusion: Breaking Up and Breaking Down the Fight 155

Appendix A: Logging in—A Brief Note on Methodology 177

Appendix B: Additional Tables 191

Bibliography 197

Index 233
vii
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 A web of violence and hypermasculinity: the hyperlink

network of fight pages and other male interest pages within
two degrees of separation from Only Street Fighting37
Fig. 5.1 Frequency of comment types on Only Street Fighting,
Crazy Street Fights, The Craziest Fights Ever,
Just Fights Videos and Real Crazy Fights, May to
December 2014 (see Table A.12). 122

ix
 List of Tables

Table A.1 Like counts of the 99 encountered fight pages that

remained online in March 2016 191
Table A.2 Survey participants’ motivations for viewing clips of
bare-knuckle street violence on Facebook, 2014 192
Table A.3 Subcategories of the 104 fight pages I encountered
during this study, 2014 192
Table A.4 Survey participants’ motivations for viewing clips of
bare-knuckle street violence on Facebook, 2014 192
Table A.5 Survey participants’ demographics, 2014 193
Table A.6 Survey participants’ frequency of viewing clips of
bare-knuckle street violence on Facebook, 2014 193
Table A.7 Survey participants’ time spent viewing clips of
bare-knuckle street violence on Facebook, 2014 194
Table A.8 Survey participants’ pathways to online clips of
bare-knuckle street violence, 2014 194
Table A.9 Survey participants’ viewing of comments left on fight
clips, 2014 194
Table A.10 Survey participants’ preferred fight clip content, 2014 195
Table A.11 Survey participants’ views on when violence is
acceptable, 2014 195
Table A.12 Frequency of comment types on Only Street Fighting,
Crazy Street Fights, The Craziest Fights Ever, Just Fights
Videos and Real Crazy Fights, May–December 2014 196

xi
 1
Introduction

An affray assails the urban streetscape: a violent fissure in the familiar that
captures the gaze of neighbouring eyes. In this moment of commotion, a
score of spectators are created. And as the street is awakened from the
mundane, the discord is recorded. A solitary onlooker reaches for their
smartphone, aims its camera towards the melee and presses record, etch-
ing images of the event into archive. The brawl culminates and fades from
the streetscape. Yet its image is retained—preserved in witness recollec-
tions and digital files. Through this video memento, its audience expands.
The smartphone is repurposed into a miniature cinema, passed from
friend to friend as more eyes are invited to pry at the violent scene. The
recording is then sent to other smartphones, its audience expanding by
the day. Finally, the recording migrates online. It is uploaded into social
media. From the uploader’s profile, the video is shared by others and
dispersed even further. Eventually, a copy comes to sit alongside other
scenes of violence as the footage finds its way into Facebook. Occupying
the screen with a variety of links to similar scenes of public disorder, the
event’s audience reaches its apogee. On this user-generated page, dedi-
cated to hosting footage of street fights and public bare-knuckle violence,
individuals dissect every minutiae of the event—denigrating, glorifying
and debating in the wake of their online spectatorship. The spectator is

© The Author(s) 2018 1

M.A. Wood, Antisocial Media, Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-63985-7_1
2 1 Introduction

recast as commentator and adjudicator, their rulings and commentary

typed out and posted beneath the footage to be subsumed by future view-
ers into the event’s mise-en-scène. Veneration, glorification and diatribe
coincide in the collection of spectator responses to the video as individu-
als map their attitudes to violence. When the affray has played out, the
viewer browses the site’s content, wanders their cursor across the screen
and selects a second fight to view, construe and respond to.
In the early twenty-first century, the street fight met the information
superhighway. Driven by two vehicles, the camera phone and the Internet,
footage of street fights and public hand-to-hand violence entered a fresh
phase of production and distribution. Through the lens of the increas-
ingly ubiquitous camera phone, the spectacle of public violence has been
witnessed and captured at an unprecedented rate. Where spectatorship of
public violence was once confined to the immediate bystander, and then
later to the national audiences of televisual programming, now the street
fight has been opened to the transnational free-for-all of the Internet, and
with it, a legion of social media users. For in this era of increasing media
convergence, all roads lead to Facebook, and many bear traffic in search
of new avenues for viewing transgression. In an age of social media,
Facebook stands as not only one of the world’s most popular and well-­
frequented web domains, but also one of its foremost sites of violence,
home to a multitude of user-uploaded fight clips, re-shared videos of
transgression, and the primary subject of this book: fight pages. Emerging
out of Facebook’s ‘fan’ pages feature, which enables users to follow and
connect around a shared interest, cause or brand, fight pages are user-­
generated pages that aggregate, narrowcast and archive amateur record-
ings of street fights and other forms of public violence. If, to reinvent a
worn-out phrase, the Internet can be thought to play host to a web of
violence, with each hyperlink a thread connecting users to footage of
violent events, then fight pages are where this web is at its most dense.
They offer to their users, who subscribe through ‘liking’ the page, a repos-
itory of transgression that far surpasses any other that has preceded them
in the sheer quantity of content they make available.
This book is about the impact social media have had on the way we
consume, view, distribute and curate footage of crime and violence. In
it, I argue that fight pages represent an example of an emergent online
 1 Introduction 3

­ henomenon that might be termed antisocial media: participatory web-

p
sites dedicated to hosting and sympathetically curating footage of trans-
gression. In studies of media effects, the notion of antisocial media is
occasionally used to refer to content that is deemed antisocial (Dill
2009; Shaw et al. 2015), often by way of contrasting it with prosocial
media (see Fischer et al. 2011; Kundanis 2004; Greitemeyer 2010). The
term is also regularly used, albeit as no more than a punning title, by
journalists reporting on the potential for social media to promote unso-
ciability (see O’Connell 2014). It has been used to open articles cover-
ing topics as diverse as the use of Facebook for threatening and
intimidating others with violence (Birke 2010); the rate of racist mes-
sages posted on Twitter (Hoenig 2014); the Obama 2012 campaign’s
use of social media (Parker 2012); social media monitoring, data reten-
tion, and geotracking (Plant 2012); a filmed attack on a teenager
uploaded to social media (Times of Trenton Editorial Board 2015);
online responses to terrorism in the wake of the attacks on Paris and
Beirut (Adolphie 2015); the on-air murder of a news reporter and her
cameraman by a disgruntled former colleague (Spector 2015) and an
infamous YouTube channel dedicated to footage of horrifying caught
on camera pranks (Duncan 2015). Antisocial media, then, has been
used by journalists as something of a catchall for socially harmful or
destructive uses of social media.
My conceptualization of antisocial media is much narrower. It
departs both from the notion of antisocial media as media content that
promotes antisocial behaviour and the notion of antisocial media as anti-
social uses of social media. Instead, I conceptualize antisocial media as a
class of media, and specifically, a class of media that is intrinsically tied to
the rise of participatory social media. Through examining fight pages,
this book develops the notion of antisocial media beyond a clever play on
words to describe a class of media that has received little attention from
researchers. As I demonstrate through tracing the content, consumption
and media ecology of fight pages, the rise of antisocial media represents a
key shift in the conditions for distributing, encountering and spectating
footage of criminalized acts.
Antisocial media can, therefore, be distinguished from online deviance
undertaken either individually or by pre-established offline networks.
4 1 Introduction

Though social media provides a platform for individuals to engage in

antisocial behaviours such as cyberbullying, such individually undertaken
acts are not what I propose the term antisocial media to refer to. Rather, by
my definition the term refers solely to participatory pages dedicated to
promoting and/or undertaking antisocial behaviours. To qualify as anti-
social media there must, in short, be a clearly demarcated site of antiso-
cialism, rather than decentralized antisocial behaviour emanating from
an individual or collective. Further, whilst antisocial media are participa-
tory in providing their users affordances for responding to the footage
they view, they are frequently underpinned by a distributor–audience
structure, with a page administrator distributing transgressive material to
a page’s frequenters. This therefore distinguishes antisocial media from
online social networks that intermittently share footage of antisocial acts
online. It also marks perhaps the main commonality between antisocial
media and broadcast media: their shared one-to-many model of
distribution.
Antisocial media can also be distinguished from online domains inhab-
iting the so-called netherworld or underground of the Internet. Much
has been written on transgressive material within the so-called digital
underground: the vast assortment of unsearchable deep web pages, and
peer-to-peer dark net communities that afford users anonym-
ity (see Bartlett 2015).1 Antisocial media can, however, be distinguished
from these dark net peer-to-peer communities and deep web domains in
two significant ways. First, they differ in their levels of visibility. Whereas
dark net and deep web sites are mostly invisible, hidden in the unsearch-
able recesses of the Internet or in anonymous peer-to-peer Tor networks,
antisocial media are located in the surface web and are consequently
highly visible, searchable and traceable. Further, whilst many antisocial
media allow users to employ pseudonyms, and therefore allow their users
to be anonymous to one another, they remain unencrypted domains.
Consequently, their users can be traced, as can their creators, administra-
tors and moderators. Antisocial media can be understood as the ‘clearnet’
or ‘surface web’2 counterpart of transgressive dark web domains, where
anonymity is optional. Owing to these, and other factors that will be
examined in this book, antisocial media support very different forms of
sociability to dark net and deep web domains.
 1 Introduction 5

Like radical and alternative media, fight pages and other forms of anti-
social media distribute content that is rarely, if ever, published by main-
stream media outlets. Yet whilst radical and alternative media are
politically motivated and have transformative aims (see Downing 2000),
antisocial media are not. Unlike these overtly political forms of media,
antisocial media narrowcast footage of transgression primarily for the
purposes of entertainment. They must therefore be contrasted with blogs,
YouTube channels and Facebook pages that, whilst promoting the com-
missioning of illicit acts, do so in the service of a political goal, which
may include the act in question’s decriminalization.
Given their transnational nature, defining antisocial media through a
legalistic definition invites problems. Crime is socially and historically
contingent. Acts that are criminalized in one state or jurisdiction are
often entirely legal in others, and, consequently, websites that might be
classified as antisocial media within one state would not be within
another. At least three approaches might be taken to address this issue: a
realist harm-based approach, a social constructivist approach or a critical
realist synthesis of the two. In the realist approach, antisocial media are
conceptualized as a real class of media defined not by their sympathetic
curation of criminalized acts but by their promotion of harmful acts.
That is, antisocial media are sites that not only curate footage of harm,
but author statements promoting similar acts of harm onto others. Such
an approach accords with other harm-focused criminological perspec-
tives, including Smith and Raymen’s (2016) deviant leisure perspective
and Hall and Winlow’s (2015) ultra-realist perspective. Arguably, it also
situates the concept of antisocial media not within criminology but zemi-
ology: the study of social harms (Hillyard et al. 2004). However, framing
antisocial media solely through the lens of such a harm-based approach
invites its own problems—if opened to include legal and culturally
accepted harms, where can we draw the line between antisocial media
and other online media? Whilst reserving use of the concept solely for
criminalized acts precludes its application to websites that promote harm-
ful acts that perhaps should be criminalized, it also stops the term becom-
ing too all-encompassing.
In the second, constructionist approach, antisocial media are not con-
ceptualized as a ‘real’ class of media that exist independent of the social
6 1 Introduction

responses they engender. Instead, antisocial media are conceptualized as

any content aggregator that has been accused of eliciting illicit or antiso-
cial behaviour in its users. Viewed through a constructionist lens, antiso-
cial media are websites that have generated significant societal disapproval
for the oppositional values and law-breaking behaviours they are thought
to encourage. Put simply, whilst a realist reading of antisocial media cen-
tres around questions of harm, a constructivist reading hinges on ques-
tions of (formal) deviance.
A third approach synthesizes aspects of these two approaches, and
treats antisocial media as the point where formal deviance and social
harm overlap. Antisocial media, in other words, are conceptualized as
aggregators and sympathetic curators of harmful criminalized acts. This
approach has several benefits over the other two. Firstly, it doesn’t assume
outright that antisocial media generate widespread censure. It doesn’t
assume that the acts curated on antisocial media are widely deemed ‘devi-
ant.’ Indeed, some of the acts curated on antisocial media may be the
subject of widespread praise, despite their illicit nature. Secondly, it
doesn’t encompass websites dedicated to curating footage of acts that are
harmless albeit criminalized in one or more jurisdictions. As such, it
views crime and criminalization through a critical rather than orthodox
criminological framework. Unlike orthodox criminology, it doesn’t
uncritically accept state definitions of crime as a starting point for identi-
fying antisocial media. Instead, it builds upon critical criminology’s long-­
standing problematization of crime and concern with how laws are
created and enforced (see Taylor et al. 2013).
This feeds into a second issue with the term—its ostensible moralism.
In proposing any new concept, we have to be aware of the semantic bag-
gage carried by the terms we repurpose and reconfigure. The term ‘anti-
social’ has long been used by politicians, academics, journalists and other
moral entrepreneurs as a vehicle for criticizing for certain behaviours,
practices and acts. Similarly, when journalists speak of ‘antisocial media’,
they are usually making a value judgement and proclaiming a particular
behaviour, technology or practice associated with social media as objec-
tionable, offensive or otherwise harmful. Given its history, the notion of
antisocial media runs the risk of primarily remaining a moral rather than
analytical category. In conceptualizing antisocial media as online domains
 1 Introduction 7

dedicated to sympathetically curating and aggregating footage of harmful

criminalized acts, I hope to steer a middle course between realism and
constructivism that avoids moralism on the one hand, and moral relativ-
ism on the other. In doing so, I wish to suggest that antisocial media
aren’t just domains that run contrary to the laws of a society, but that they
are of vehicles of harm through the discourses their administrators pro-
mulgate. If we understand criminology as a discipline dedicated to reduc-
ing various forms of harm, then such a conceptualization of antisocial
media cannot avoid issuing a negative value judgement of such domains.
Yet criticism need not equate to censure, moralism or demonization, and
in exploring antisocial media it is important that we tease out the nuances
of these domains.
Beyond Facebook and other mainstream social media sites, antisocial
media include a variety of websites and forums dedicated to sharing
image-based sexual abuse (see Henry and Powell 2015), and footage of
street fights, and illegal animal fighting. Other online domains such as
4Chan’s now infamous /b/imageboard, which has been the site of several
‘naked celebrity’ image hacks (see Massanari 2015), are on the verge of
being antisocial media in their ‘no rules’ policy and acceptance of any
behaviour without strictly falling within the parameters of the concept.
For whilst the /b/imageboard and other such forums allow any behav-
iour, they are not dedicated specifically to aggregating footage of antiso-
cial acts. In running through this cursory list of antisocial media, it
quickly becomes apparent that they are often distinct in both content
and form, that is, their architecture, features and affordances as online
environments. Consequently, to understand their impact, we must be
attentive to both of these dimensions - the content they distribute and
their technological form. Further, we must treat the content and form of
antisocial media platforms as ultimately inextricable.
Rather than providing a survey of various different forms of antisocial
media then, in this book I focus specifically on the phenomenon of the
Facebook fight. Lack though they may, the tens of millions of likes celeb-
rity Facebook pages attract, fight pages are far from a minor phenomenon
on Facebook. The demand for footage of authentic street fights on
Facebook is evidenced by the considerable number of fight pages that
have accumulated hundreds of thousands, and occasionally millions, of
8 1 Introduction

likes. During this study, I encountered 104 fight pages that remained
online in March, 2016. Of these pages, 13 had between 250,000 and
499,999 likes, 7 had between 500,000 and 999,999 likes, and 4 had over
1 million likes (see Table A.1).
To investigate these domains, over the course of several years between
2013 and 2016, I followed five popular of them using my personal
Facebook profile: Crazy Street Fights, The Craziest Fights Ever, Just Fights
Videos, Real Crazy Fights and Only Street Fighting. Further, taking an
approach in line with reception studies, I surveyed 205 fight page users to
gain deeper insights into why they viewed bare-knuckle street violence,
how they experieced and read this violent footage, and how they under-
stood and/or enacted violence in their own lives. Drawing inspiration
from reception studies, digital sociology and digital anthropology, this
mixed methods approach to investigating these pages—which I detail in
Appendix A—enabled me to investigate not only fight page users beliefs
but also their behaviour in practice.

Crime-watching and Spectatorship

As a book about antisocial media this is also a book about crime-­
watching: the act of viewing footage of criminalized acts, whether
through television, cinema or social media. Of the numerous issues
associated with crime-watching, the issue of media effects has received
the most sustained attention by academics, policy makers and the gen-
eral public. Much research into new media, including, most notably,
video games, has concerned the behavioural and cognitive effects of
viewing violent content through these platforms (see Greenfield 2014;
Shaw et al. 2015). Yet of no less importance than the effects of viewing
media content are reasons why an individual consumes it.
Understanding a spectator’s reasons for viewing a violent event is
essential to understanding how they will be affected by it. Consequently,
this book treats the issues of media effects and media uses as insepa-
rable and mutually co-constructing: inseparable because the effects of
violent media content are, in part, tethered to the viewer’s reasons for
engaging with it, and co-constructing because an individual’s uses for
 Crime-watching and Spectatorship 9

violent content are, in part, determined by the effects registered by

their previous encounters with such content.
Rather than restricting its investigative scope to examining whether
viewing online violence begets offline violence, this chapter instead asks
a broader question: what does spectatorship to fight page hosted violence
do? The potential answers to this are legion: it may generate, sustain or
abate particular imaginings of violence, coordinate behaviours, perform
identities, compose emotions, affect bodies or afford the spectator a
cathartic release or other gratification; all is dependent on the particular
mode of spectatorship that an individual engages in.
Central to my line of inquiry is the guiding presupposition that spec-
tatorship performs various actions both on and for the spectator. It is for
these reasons that this research substitutes a narrow concern with media
effects for a broader interest in what can be termed modes of spectatorship:
particular configurations of viewing, interpreting and responding to con-
tent. Here, I employ an expanded definition of spectatorship that under-
stands the term to include not only the action and effects of viewing a
(typically mediated) spectacle nor the type of association this relational
act entails, but also the practices generated from this association and
enmeshed in the act of viewing itself. In this way, spectatorship can
simultaneously be understood as an association, a practice, and a catalyst:
a relationship that engenders effects wholly contingent on the concatena-
tion of factors involved. Such a definition is diametrically opposed to
understanding spectatorship as a passive and motionless act, devoid of
movement or communication. Rather, to spectate is to watch and respond:
to perform in our response to a performance. This definition therefore
invites an investigation of not just the association between the spectator
and the spectacle, but also the association between spectators. Though
the association between the spectator and the spectacle must be accorded
primacy as the sine qua non of spectatorship, the relationships and
co-­
­ presence between spectators contributes in shaping individuals’
responses to the spectacle.
The notion of modes of spectatorship has a long history within cinema
studies (Hansen 1993; Rose and Friedman 1994; Tait 2008; Oddey and
White 2009; Rushton 2009), but also literature studies (Bernstein 2004),
cultural anthropology (Friedman 2006) and digital sociology (see
10 1 Introduction

Pattanaik and Chatterjee 2008). What is most notable about the use of
the term in these studies is its polysemy and inexactness. Not only is there
no agreed upon definition of the term that these studies accord to, but
most do not provide their own definition, lending it a nebulous quality.
Notably, most uses of the term concern only one dimension of axis of
spectatorship relevant to the study at hand: for Hansen (1993) it relates
to historically constituted modes of spectating cinema, for Rose and
Friedman (1994) it relates specifically to gendered modes of spectator-
ship, for Friedman (2006) it relates to the contrast between active and
passive modes of spectating content, and for Oddey and White (2009),
the different mediums through which spectatorship occurs (theatre, tele-
vision, Internet, film, mobile phone, etc.).
Contrary to these studies, I want to suggest that all of these dimen-
sions are integral to spectatorship, and consequently, to unpacking the
nature and implications of fight page spectatorship. This project therefore
advances a polyvalent conceptualization of modalities of spectatorship: a
conceptualization that addresses not just a single dimension of spectator-
ship, but the intersection and interplay between every dimension of spec-
tatorship. The researcher who comes closest to adopting such a
multidimensional approach is Higson (2002). Crucially, Higson, who is
worth quoting here in full, states that a study of film culture must address,

The range of sociologically specific audiences for different types of film,

and how these audiences use these films in particular exhibition circum-
stances; that is to say, we need to take into account not only the historically
constituted reading practices and modes of spectatorship and subjectivity, the
mental machinery and relative cultural power or readerly competences of differ-
ent audiences—but also the experience of cinema(s) in a more general cul-
tural sense: the role of marketing and audience expectation, the reasons
why particular audiences go to the cinema, the pleasures they derive from
this activity, the specific nature of the shared social and communal experi-
ence of cinema going … [and] the different experiences offered by the vari-
ous types of theatrical exhibition spaces. (2002, 64, my italics)

Like Higson, I agree that addressing each of these phenomena is para-

mount to generating a holistic account of spectatorship. However, my
conceptualization of modes of spectatorship is broader still than Higson’s.
Another random document with
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 Sabine
I’ve noticed you never even come yourself.

Randolph
I like to think of young genius being left alone.

Sabine
(Mock seriously)
And out of harm’s way?

Randolph
Exactly—at night. (Half to himself.) Another month will about finish
it.

Sabine
(Significantly)
Mr. Randolph, you are paying rather high for——

Randolph
(Eyeing him quickly)
For what?

Sabine
(Turning the pages casually)
Unremunerative work.

Randolph
One never pays too high for what one wants.
 Sabine
Not at the time.
(They look at each other: Sabine slowly gathers the
papers together and glances towards Randolph who is
coolly staring before him. There is a quiet pause. Then
Sabine opens the library door and casually steps back.)
Your daughter. (Calmly to Paula) Your father is here, Miss
Randolph.
(Paula enters with a book in hand. She is twenty-three
and charming, with a sweet innocent air which suggests a
hedged-in life. She is dressed in a simple tea-gown and
her manner throughout is calm and unsophisticated.)

Paula
Good evening, Mr. Sabine.

Randolph
Where have you been, Paula?

Paula
Getting a book.

Randolph
You mustn’t read so much.

Sabine
Anything further, Mr. Randolph, before you go out?

Randolph
No. But—but I don’t remember mentioning that I was going out.
 Sabine
I thought you did. Good evening.

Paula
(Good-naturedly)
Is Mrs. Sabine well?

Sabine
Not exactly.

Randolph
Indeed?

Sabine
(Smiling)
My wife seems upset about something.

Randolph
(Casually)
Why, she seemed well when she was here last, didn’t she, Paula?

Paula
Yes, and so happy.

Randolph
What’s the trouble?

Sabine
I’m not quite sure—yet.
 Randolph
Perhaps she needs a change.

Sabine
I’ll tell her you asked after her, Mr. Randolph.

Randolph
Certainly. Do. But it was Miss Randolph who inquired.

Sabine
I thought it was you. (He smiles.) The air in the library has affected
me. (He smiles.) Good evening.
(He leaves the room, slowly closing the door. There is a
pause as Paula looks curiously before her, while
Randolph, somewhat puzzled, goes up to door and sees
that Sabine has gone into the library beyond.)

Paula
I hope it’s nothing serious.

Randolph
What?

Paula
Mrs. Sabine.

Randolph
Nothing, of course.

Paula
 Hasn’t she told you?

Randolph
Me?

Paula
You’re such good friends.

Randolph
My dear, women with attractive husbands never confide in
outsiders.

Paula
(Innocently)
Don’t they?

Randolph
(Laughing)
You know so little of life. (Paula sighs in agreement.) And I wish
you to keep your sweetness until you are married.

Paula
Doesn’t one need it then?

Randolph
You’ll understand when the time comes, child.

Paula
(Enigmatically)
And one mustn’t before!
 Randolph
Children don’t realize how they unconsciously hold parents to
higher things: it’s because of you, for instance, more than anything
else since your dear mother died, that I’ve tried to keep my life an
example.

Paula
I’ve always had it before me, father. (Coming closer.) I’m deeply
grateful for showing me what I, too, should be.

Randolph
Yes, yes. (Patting her.) Now, dear, run along to bed: your eyes are
tired.

Paula
(Glancing at book)
I’m fond of reading.

Randolph
(Humoring her throughout)
What do you like best?

Paula
(Cheerfully)
Adventure.

Randolph
With real heroes?

Paula
 (Referring to book)
I love those who keep cool in times of danger.

Randolph
You’re only a child, after all, eh? (He pats her tenderly as she
notices him glancing at his watch.)

Paula
(Casually)
You are going out?

Randolph
Yes: some business.

Paula
Will you be late?

Randolph
Do I disturb you?

Paula
I can generally hear the machine from my room, before you turn
up the path.

Randolph
It’s easy nowadays to go fast in the dark.

Paula
You will always toot the horn? (Reprovingly) Think of the danger to
others.
 Randolph
Foolish girl! There’s no danger about here.

Paula
No; of course not. (Goes to him.) Good night.

Randolph
Dear, dear girl. (Looking at her.) It’s good to have such a daughter.

Paula
And such a father. (They kiss; the telephone rings.) Oh, let me.
(She goes to phone.) Good evening, Mrs. Sabine. (Randolph starts
a bit, unnoticed.) I thought you were ill. Mr. Sabine was telling father.
I believe he’s in the library. Father will take the message: he’s here.
Do take care of yourself: just think what Mr. Sabine would do if you
were ill. Good night.
(She hands receiver to father, who half pauses, thinking
she will leave the room; but she lingers over her book.)

Randolph
Good evening. (Half pointedly) Yes, my daughter is here. Anything
I can do? Do you want my advice? Oh, whatever is wisest. Of course
I’ll tell Mr. Sabine. I hope it’s nothing serious. (He hangs up receiver,
concealing from Paula his displeasure.)

Paula
She seemed excited.

Randolph
Woman’s nerves.
 Paula
Funny I never have them.

Randolph
You’re not married.

Paula
You’re going to see her?

Randolph
She’s on her way here.

Paula
Here? Then you will tell Mr. Sabine she’s coming?

Randolph
Yes. But you’re tired, dear.

Paula
I’ll feel better with my things off. Good night. (She pauses at her
door.) Father; she and Mr. Sabine are happily married, aren’t they?

Randolph
Of course, of course.

Paula
I’m glad to hear so.

Randolph
Why?
 Paula
(Glancing at him)
Then it couldn’t be about that.
(She closes the door softly. Randolph looks after her
puzzled, then walks up and down alone very much
irritated. He takes out his check book, glancing through
the stubs cynically. Then he throws it back into the table
drawer. Finally he picks up the phone, obviously switching
it.)

Randolph
Is that you, Sabine? You’ve found what you want? You won’t need
me any more? Well, stick close to it. I just wished to see. Good night.
(He switches it off again and impatiently waits.) Is that you, Brooks?
Tell Toder to have the car ready. I may need it later. No, the closed
car—it’s chilly. Oh, by the way, (trying to be casual), in case I should
be out, Mr. Sabine is expecting Mrs. Sabine. Let her come right up to
the library. What’s that? Better see who it is. (Showing displeasure.)
I’ll tell Mr. Sabine myself. Yes; if you’re sure it’s Mrs. Sabine, better
let her come up here. That’ll be all for to-night.
(He hangs up the receiver, walks up and down again and
finally opens the hall door. There is quite a pause as he
stands, smoking a cigarette, awaiting her. Finally, Mrs.
Sabine enters, leaving the door open.
She is in her late twenties, of rather restless beauty,
which under her shifting expression becomes hard and
cynical. She apparently has little resistance and suggests
a love of excitement and sensation. Her manner is flighty
though worldly. She is handsomely dressed, with beautiful
furs upon her sensuous shoulders.)

Randolph
(Abruptly)
What the devil does this mean?

Mrs. Sabine
We’re alone?

Randolph
Naturally.

Mrs. Sabine
(Half flippantly)
I had to see you.

Randolph
Why here?

Mrs. Sabine
I couldn’t wait till you came to me.

Randolph
(With strained jocularity)
Feather brain; what’s the trouble?

Mrs. Sabine
Nothing—only my husband knows.

Randolph
(Quickly)
About us?
 Mrs. Sabine
He’s known for some time.

Randolph
And he only spoke——?

Mrs. Sabine
To-day.

Randolph
The devil! (Slowly) What’s the reason?

Mrs. Sabine
Why he kept silent? (Shrugging shoulders) You men always have
reasons.

Randolph
What did he say?

Mrs. Sabine
(Laughing cynically)
He smiled. It was so funny and so unexpected.

Randolph
(Incredulously)
He didn’t make a scene?

Mrs. Sabine
No. And I’d been rehearsing for weeks what I should say.
 Randolph
But didn’t he——?

Mrs. Sabine
(Bitterly)
I tell you he didn’t even insult me!

Randolph
Sh!
(He looks towards his daughter’s room and then crosses
and closes the door through which Mrs. Sabine has
entered.)

Mrs. Sabine
(After she has watched him)
Hasn’t he spoken to you?

Randolph
Not yet.

Mrs. Sabine
That’s like him. He said he’d wait till I broke the news to you.

Randolph
And then?

Mrs. Sabine
Then he said you would want to see him and (ominously) he’d do
some talking.
 Randolph
(Recalling)
So that’s why he smiled just now.—Didn’t he say anything?

Mrs. Sabine
He merely put his hands on your furs. I thought he’d believe I’d
saved enough to buy them myself. He stroked them once or twice
slowly—and smiled. But he said nothing. Then he led me to the
window and pointed to your car—the extra one you forced upon us—
when you began. He smiled; but he said nothing. He picked up a
book: the work in the library was interesting; it kept him safe in the
long winter evenings. I tell you he said it all in his smiles and never a
word. (Violently) He disappointed me so! I’d be sorry for him a little if
he’d only struck me. God! I hate men who only smile when they are
angry. (Randolph trying to quiet her.) Oh, I hate him with his penny
a year. I hate him for asking me to marry him, and then not even
striking me when he found out what I was!

Randolph
But didn’t you even try to deny it?

Mrs. Sabine
(Defiantly)
Why should I deny it?

Randolph
(Cynically)
Of course not. Sooner or later, a woman always confesses to
someone.

Mrs. Sabine
(Quickly)
 What did you want me to do? Think of you? I was sick of him.
When I saw he wasn’t going to make a fuss, I didn’t think your well-
known reputation would suffer; so I didn’t care about protecting
myself. What’s the difference, anyhow? He can’t give me what I
want: you can. If we can only keep it quiet, nobody need know—and
it wouldn’t even reach your daughter’s ears.

Randolph
(Angrily)
We’ll not discuss her.

Mrs. Sabine
No. She’s a good woman—with her lily hands and her thin
eyebrows. What does she know of life: the sordid soapy hours
ending with the snore of a husband you hate. Ugh! (He walks up and
down, irritated.) Well, then, what are we going to do to keep it from
her?

Randolph
That will depend on your husband and whether he’ll be sensible.
(He goes to phone, switching it.)

Mrs. Sabine
(Looking before her)
You did it beautifully, Randolph; with such knowledge of me and
my kind. But don’t take too much credit. I’d have done it with any
man who offered me what you did—if he’d come at the right time, as
you did, and found me at the end of a trolley line like this.

Randolph
(At phone)
 Step here a moment, Sabine. Yes: your wife is here. (Cynically)
She said you’d be expecting her. (He hangs up the receiver.) You
could almost hear him smile.

Mrs. Sabine
(Without self-delusion)
He couldn’t hold me: he was too poor.

Randolph
No: you’re the sort that needs a diamond-studded clasp to keep
her morals fastened on.

Mrs. Sabine
And they’re your specialty.

Randolph
I think Sabine and I can make some arrangement.

Mrs. Sabine
Let’s be comfortable, that’s all I say. I’m so tired of making my lies
fit. I’m willing to keep on with it. Why not? It’s all so easy with a
woman once she’s slipped. Lots of us would be what I am if they
could find a man to go through the marriage ceremony with them
first.
(A knock is heard at the door—it seems almost sarcastic,
as it waits for a reply.)

Randolph
Come in.
(The door opens softly and Sabine enters slowly and
comes down to them with the same smile. There is a
 pause. Mrs. Sabine remains tense and seated.)
Have a cigarette?

Sabine
(They eye each other as they light up)
Thanks.

Randolph
(Coming to the point)
You know.

Sabine
(Puffing throughout)
Yes.

Randolph
Well?

Sabine
I repeat the word—well?

Randolph
You will come to an understanding?

Sabine
Which means?

Randolph
You are—shall I say agreeable?
 Sabine
You love my wife?

Randolph
(Courteously)
Naturally.

Sabine
And you, Mary?

Mrs. Sabine
Would a woman do what I’ve done without love?

Sabine
Never.

Randolph
Well, say something.

Sabine
(Calmly)
It seems very simple.

Randolph
Which means?

Sabine
That I’d still like to complete the compilations in your library.
 Mrs. Sabine
(Rising, astonished)
You’re even willing to stay here?

Randolph
(Quickly)
And live ostensibly at home—with your wife?

Sabine
(Calmly)
Why not? I have no place else to go and she merely wishes to be
comfortable.

Randolph
(Relieved)
You will not make a fuss?

Sabine
I’m sorry to disappoint my wife.

Randolph
You will not let my daughter discover?

Sabine
No. I consider your position embarrassing enough.

Randolph
(Eyeing him)
So your wife is worth nothing to you?
 Sabine
(Quickly)
You’re mistaken there.

Mrs. Sabine
Thanks. But how?

Sabine
Protection.

Mrs. Sabine
Against what?

Sabine
Against Mr. Randolph.

Randolph
Me?

Sabine
Exactly.

Randolph
What the devil are you driving at?

Sabine
Perhaps if I take it kindly now, you will not blame me—in the
future.

Mrs. Sabine