Fans bloggers and gamers Jenkins 1 (original) (raw)

The Dynamics of Fandom: Exploring Fan Communities in Online Spaces

Studies of fan groups in recent years have increasingly focused on the internet as a locus of communal activity for participants. Certainly this is not an unexpected paradigm shift. Prior to the advent of the internet, and its subsequent adoption by fan communities, being a fan was largely a proposition that required participants to engage in physical encounters where culture was transmitted on a personal, often individual level. However, as the internet collapses barriers of time and space fandoms have become a well connected global village capable of coordinated and immediate worldwide participation. As involvement in these mediated cyber modes of community formation and maintenance increases one must wonder what is at stake for these newly minted online fandoms. In this work the author will take the position of arguing that these groups form not only as a means of expressing communal identity but also as a method of asserting their hegemonic control over a collective ‘base text.’ This essay explores the formation of online communities around specific cultural artifacts and seeks to define what is meant in describing these mediated cultures as a ‘group.’ Much of the argument will center on the power dispute over hegemonic control between fans of a cultural artifact and the original producers of that text, situating this conflict in the fan experience. This dispute between cultural producers and consumers will bring sharply into focus the capabilities of online media and expose one of the myriad reasons why fandoms create and function in virtual spaces.

Fan Studies: Researching Popular Audiences - Editor's Introduction

This volume brings together a variety of critical perspectives in the rapidly growing field of fan studies. We have engaged with multiple disciplines and theorists in order to explore the various methods of fan production and research. Whether fans engage in the real-world, online, or define themselves by their lack of engagement, the ability of fans to participate and share their enthusiasms with one another is one of the most striking and intriguing features of the fandom phenomena. Fan communities have directed their remarkable fervour towards charitable causes, bringing television shows and book characters back from the dead, and honing their creative skills before pursuing fandom-worthy material of their own. We explore fandom as a social space and constructed identity, fuelled by talented creators and enthusiastic consumers, and building on the global connectedness born from the digital age.

Fan Studies: Research Popular Audiences

This open-access volume brings together a variety of critical perspectives in the emerging field of fan studies. Fan Communities and Fandom. We have engaged with multiple disciplines and theorists in order to explore the various methods of fan production and research. Whether fans engage in the real-world, online, or define themselves by their lack of engagement, the ability of fans to participate and share their enthusiasms with one another is one of the most striking and intriguing features of the fandom phenomena. Fan communities have directed their remarkable fervour towards charitable causes, bringing television shows and book characters back from the dead, and honing their creative skills before persuing fandom-worthy material of their own. We explore fandom as a social space and constructed identity, fuelled by talented creators and enthusiastic consumers, and building on the global connectedness born from the digital age. Originally published at Inter-Disciplinary.net, this volume contains essays from different fan scholars on topics such as celebrity fandom, pop-culture tourism, cosplay, fan activism, and YouTube fandom.

The Intermedial Practises of Fandom

The article 1 discusses formations of fan cultures in terms of intermediality. It examines the construction and consumption of media in three different Finnish fan groups: the fans of Xena: The Warrior Princess (XWP), fans of Ally McBeal and the fans of Finnish TV-host Marco Bjurström. The construction of intermedial relations of each fan group interestingly reveals the institutional and technological spaces of shaping the pleasures of media.