Abstract
This book is a culmination of the author’s interest in folklore disseminated online. Drawing on his background as both a professional journalist and an academic in folklore studies, he presents a wide range of materials that he terms ‘newslore’ – folklore of, and intertwined with, current events. To do this, he presents a rattle bag of jokes, comments, narratives, doctored images and contemporary legends covering eight topics, predominantly focused on political concerns in the United States, and provides a rationale for what may seem to be an odd juxtaposition of contemporary events with a discipline more associated with the study of fairy tales and myths.
His argument for the neologism, dating back to 2004, is that there is a need for a term for the circulating mass of cultural material that exists in relationship to ‘news’ broadly defined. He claims that unlike folklore, newslore does not exist in multiple forms, is not told orally or passed on from generation to generation. Like folklore, newslore is subversive and playful and exists in relationship to the mass media. In particular, he associates newslore solely with the Internet as a medium of communication.
The meat of the book is formed by the eight topics. The first two cover Hillary Clinton jokes and then jokes about US Democratic party politicians in general and Bill Clinton in particular. The other chapters cover responses to the ‘9/11’ attacks, Hurricane Katrina, the Bush presidencies, US corporations, Microsoft and then newslore about news itself.
As with collections of ‘urban legends’ by the likes of Brunvand (2001) and Smith (1983), most of the book is a presentation of material collected as much for its aesthetic interests as for any analytic purpose. Franks is aware of the charge that he has offered little beyond collectanea and open about the tendency in folklore collecting to focus on the artistic, clever and striking at the expense of the mundane. The central contention of his book though is that newslore is ‘revealing of widely held attitudes and widely shared preoccupations’ (p. 10). Through presenting a selection of material about the topics he chooses, he intends to illuminate these attitudes and preoccupations.
If there is a central theme about newslore, it is that it is subversive, giving voice to attitudes and opinions that would not be experienced in broadcast or print news. Thus, the jokes targeting Hillary Clinton are misogynistic in the extreme, while those targeting George W Bush were hyperbolically ludicrous. When it comes to newslore focusing on 9/11, though, Franks suggests that the patriotic and violent responses rather than being ‘anti-establishment’ subverted the more considered language adopted by the media.
Franks also grapples with understanding visual newslore, terming them ‘Photoshops’ after the software package of the same name. As with the textual examples, he largely contents himself with introducing the subject and tracing the development of various doctored images (such as ‘tourist guy’ on the World Trade Center) over time or a picture of George W Bush doctored to make it look like he was reading a book upside down at the time of the 9/11 attacks.
He does find room in an appendix to present a more detailed framework for collecting and analysing newslore. He argues in particular that the technology for altering documents and disseminating has to all intents and purposes allowed the creation of new forms of folklore on a scale previously impossible. Taking this forward, he attempts to analyse successfully transmitted doctored photographs as a form of contemporary legend.
The twist in the tale is that Franks believes that the golden age of newslore is now over (p. 191) and he is seeing a ‘decline in the quality of the newer material’ (p. 192). Like any good folklorist, he has situated his subject in the past. Ironically, despite being published in 2011, the material and channels he covers also feels dated. There is no mention of Facebook or Twitter, no consideration of blogging or of smartphones and tablets as new media. This situation of newslore in a specific time and medium means that book is best understood as a historical document. This gives the collection a strength in that it situates it at a historical moment. The weakness is that beyond the collection of the texts, there is little of substance on offer here from the author other than taking the role of a companionable guide to the subject.