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Publications by Rhiannon Bury
Participations, Jun 2013
The advent of social networking sites has made communication faster and easier than ever, and per... more The advent of social networking sites has made communication faster and easier than ever, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in fan communities. argues that media fans have always been early adopters of new information and communication technologies, suggesting that from Usenet to LiveJournal, fans have established a variety of innovative practices to engage with their favourite media texts and each other. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, however, fans are not only able to engage with one another; they can have a direct impact on how some of their favourite fannish objects are made and marketed .
Papers by Rhiannon Bury
The Information Society, 2007
Fandom, fan fiction, and "slash." 1 Some see these as harmless pastimes, others as the democratiz... more Fandom, fan fiction, and "slash." 1 Some see these as harmless pastimes, others as the democratization of mass-mediated messages, and still others as frivolous-if not dangerously obsessive-behaviour. But regardless of one's opinion, it is impossible to ignore that the intersection of fan culture, fan writing, and Internet technology has produced a new communication phenomenon: the near-instantaneous reception of media texts, organized through virtual interactions that create a set of additional texts, clustered around the main texts and contributing to their impact. These new forums of interaction form rich and textured objects in which many communicative processes can be isolated and observed. Treating such online environments as spaces-as places where things happen-in Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online, Rhiannon Bury explores the politics of space, community, and identity in "female fandoms," with a special focus on the community-forming and-maintaining strategies of two groups of women. 2 This book, a development and extension of Bury's 2000 dissertation "Performing Gender On (the) Line: A Case Study of the Process of Community Making Among Members of a Women-Only Electronic Mailing List," explores these ideas using a participant-observer positioning that allows her access to the dynamics of the communities involved and the subtleties that one could only observe by being that close to the media texts and practices involved. I mention the title of her dissertation because the keywords of "performing gender" and "community making" are significant clues to the content and focus of her work. For this book is, more than anything, about the process of making and maintaining the communities of women's online fan spaces and how issues such as gender, class, and sexuality are articulated within those spaces. Bury draws on a sprawling theoretical literature that spans authors treating cyberculture generally; feminist and poststructuralist engagements with identity, community, space, and texts (including a Foucauldian engagement with the heterotopic); queer engagements with pornography and romance; sociological work on politeness and face-maintenance; and finally scholarship on textual modifica
AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research
This paper broadly focuses on the sharing of male pornographic self-representation (PSR) on the R... more This paper broadly focuses on the sharing of male pornographic self-representation (PSR) on the Reddit forum, Massive Cock. Our previous study examined how gay-straight relations are recoded on the forum. Drawing on new data currently being collected, we focus on the operation and intersection of racialized masculinities as afforded by hybrid networked technologies, platforms, and screens. Based on preliminary data collection and analysis, we argue that Massive is a space of unmarked whiteness, with a paucity of racialized dick pics. We discuss the ways in which the less than 10 percent of posters of colour mark out their racialized identities, including through the mobilization of the problematic trope of the BBC (“big black cock”), with its roots in interracial pornography. We also examine the ways in which a much smaller number of racialized men, who are not black, mark out their racial/ethnic identity. Finally we look at the few white men who draw attention to their race through...
Participations, Jun 2013
The advent of social networking sites has made communication faster and easier than ever, and per... more The advent of social networking sites has made communication faster and easier than ever, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in fan communities. argues that media fans have always been early adopters of new information and communication technologies, suggesting that from Usenet to LiveJournal, fans have established a variety of innovative practices to engage with their favourite media texts and each other. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, however, fans are not only able to engage with one another; they can have a direct impact on how some of their favourite fannish objects are made and marketed .
The Information Society, 2007
Fandom, fan fiction, and "slash." 1 Some see these as harmless pastimes, others as the democratiz... more Fandom, fan fiction, and "slash." 1 Some see these as harmless pastimes, others as the democratization of mass-mediated messages, and still others as frivolous-if not dangerously obsessive-behaviour. But regardless of one's opinion, it is impossible to ignore that the intersection of fan culture, fan writing, and Internet technology has produced a new communication phenomenon: the near-instantaneous reception of media texts, organized through virtual interactions that create a set of additional texts, clustered around the main texts and contributing to their impact. These new forums of interaction form rich and textured objects in which many communicative processes can be isolated and observed. Treating such online environments as spaces-as places where things happen-in Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online, Rhiannon Bury explores the politics of space, community, and identity in "female fandoms," with a special focus on the community-forming and-maintaining strategies of two groups of women. 2 This book, a development and extension of Bury's 2000 dissertation "Performing Gender On (the) Line: A Case Study of the Process of Community Making Among Members of a Women-Only Electronic Mailing List," explores these ideas using a participant-observer positioning that allows her access to the dynamics of the communities involved and the subtleties that one could only observe by being that close to the media texts and practices involved. I mention the title of her dissertation because the keywords of "performing gender" and "community making" are significant clues to the content and focus of her work. For this book is, more than anything, about the process of making and maintaining the communities of women's online fan spaces and how issues such as gender, class, and sexuality are articulated within those spaces. Bury draws on a sprawling theoretical literature that spans authors treating cyberculture generally; feminist and poststructuralist engagements with identity, community, space, and texts (including a Foucauldian engagement with the heterotopic); queer engagements with pornography and romance; sociological work on politeness and face-maintenance; and finally scholarship on textual modifica
AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research
This paper broadly focuses on the sharing of male pornographic self-representation (PSR) on the R... more This paper broadly focuses on the sharing of male pornographic self-representation (PSR) on the Reddit forum, Massive Cock. Our previous study examined how gay-straight relations are recoded on the forum. Drawing on new data currently being collected, we focus on the operation and intersection of racialized masculinities as afforded by hybrid networked technologies, platforms, and screens. Based on preliminary data collection and analysis, we argue that Massive is a space of unmarked whiteness, with a paucity of racialized dick pics. We discuss the ways in which the less than 10 percent of posters of colour mark out their racialized identities, including through the mobilization of the problematic trope of the BBC (“big black cock”), with its roots in interracial pornography. We also examine the ways in which a much smaller number of racialized men, who are not black, mark out their racial/ethnic identity. Finally we look at the few white men who draw attention to their race through...