For example, Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998) argue that because of the
growth and general pervasiveness of the media we now live in a performative world,
one which is predicated on the redefinition of what the audience is and what the
audience does, what they call a diffused audience; ‘in contemporary society every-
one becomes an audience all the time’ (Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998: 83).
So pervasive is performance that it has become both constitutive and a general
quality of everyday life, embedded in desires, daydreams, and fantasies.^16
So deeply infused into everyday life is performance that we are unaware of it
in ourselves or in others. Life is a constant performance; we are audience and
performer at the same time; everybody is an audience all the time. Performance
is not a discrete event.
(Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998: 7 3)The diffused audience arises from the interaction of two processes, both of which
are modern:
On the one hand, there is the construction of the world as spectacle and, on
the other, the construction of individuals as narcissistic. People simultaneously
feel members of an audience and that they are performers, they are simul-
taneously watchers and being watched. As Rubin (19 7 0) puts it in talking
about street political action ‘Life is theatre and we are the guerillas attacking
the shrines of authority. The street is the stage. You are the star of the show
and everything you were once taught is up for grabs’ (p. 250, quoted in
Schechner 1993: 6 4 ). Spectacle and narcissism feed off each other in a virtuous
cycle, a cycle fuelled largely by the media and mediated by the critical role of
performance. As with the other types of audience, performance is the key,
but, unlike the other types, performance is not so linked to events, but has,
so to speak, leaked out into everyday life.
(Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998: 7 5)In turn, audiences, using the media as a resource, have been able to create new
skills and knowledges of various kinds which allow them to both function in and
constitute this new kind of everyday life, technical, analytical, and referential skills
and knowledges modelled on fan-like and enthusiast-like practices, now made
general.
Contemporary cultural theory
The third usage of the metaphor of performance has been by contemporary
cultural theorists. Of these theorists, probably the best known is Judith Butler.
Butler’s work is important for a number of reasons. First, she questions embodiment
as a ground. Second, she is clearly attempting to go beyond simple constructionist
positions. Third, she questions the distinction between sign and referent, chiefly
128 Part II