This paper will center on the representation of three subsidiary characters in The X-Files, Melvin Frohike, John Fitzgerald Byers, and Ringo Langly, the Lone Gunmen, conspiracy consultants. I will look at how narrative structures dramatize or create epistemological problems and I'll discuss the role of The Lone Gunmen in relation to the interpretive fan communities of the Internet. 

The phenomenon of interactive narrative on websites devoted to celebrities is very widespread. The Internet is enabling fans from all over the world to form cultic comunities around celebrities such as Antoio Banderas, Arnold Scwarzenegger, and Salma Hayek, and around such television shows such as Xena, Warrior Princess, "Days of Our Lives, and Buffy, Vampire Slayer. This paper will explore the implications of collaborative fan fiction being written on fansites, especially those devoted to communal erotic fantasies. How does the permissiveness of cyberspace enable women to express desire toward their cultic figure, and in what way does this differ from non-electronic uses of celebrity? In what way does the "privacy" of cyberspace enable electronic "behaviors" that would not otherwise be possible without the paradox of distance and intmacy that cyberspace provides? 

Television fandom can be described as a phenomenon whose specific conditions and rules aren't as established in Europe as they are in the United States. There may be cultural aspects involved in the difference, but there are institutional and organizational reasons too. In Europe -- and especially in the German-speaking countries -- the specific characteristics of "fans" as a highly competent, highly self-conscious audience forming a (virtual) community, are only emerging now, thanks to new series-oriented channels and distributing strategies - and thanks to the Internet. Of course, it's Star Trek that started it all, and it's The X-Files, which is currently establishing itself as one of the most discussed television series in German fan discourse (apart from those Usenet groups devoted to an immensely successful homegrown soap opera called "indenstrasse).

When I started to compare American and German Usenet fan discourse, it occurred to me that fans debate in different manners and linguistic styles. Men seemed to argue in a slightly different manner from women, and Germans definitely chose a different style for their arguments than Americans. I started to ask myself questions such as:

• What are the main communicative aims in fan discourse?
• What are the main politics in the exchange (or transfer) of fan-oriented knowledge?
• With regards to content and style, are there differences to be found between "traditional" media discourse and fan discourse in newer media?
• How is knowledge transfer organized in different language and media cultures -- with specific emphasis on the German / the American model?