Lesson 6 Fandom Media

1. Fandom
In an Online Age

2. What is Fandom?
• Unlike the individual fan, whose
peer group or colleagues may
coincidentally include like-
minded film lovers, organized
fandom involves fans
specifically seeking out those
who share their tastes, thereby
becoming involved in a range of
social, cultural, and media
activities that take this shared
fandom as their starting point.

3. Fandom
• Film fandom can involve participating in online discussion and posting
to sites such as the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), joining film
clubs or groups, or producing one's own fan magazine or "fanzine.“
• Being part of organized fandom—whether for a certain film or star—
is, first and foremost, linked to values of participation and production.
• Fandom's participatory culture is always shaped through input from
other fans and motivated, at least partially, by a desire for further
interaction with a larger social and cultural community.

4. Henry Jenkins: Participatory Culture
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgZ4ph3dSmY

5. How can we relate Jenkins' ideas
about a participatory culture to
film, music or games?

6. John Fiske: 3 types of Fan
1. Semiotic Productivity - analysing the text
2. Enunciative Productivity - Fans communicating with one another
about a text e.g. Online review sites, fan forums, hash tags on twitter
etc.
3. Textual Productivity - we could link David Gauntlett in here as this is
about fans creating "stuff" e.g. posters, sweded material, mash ups,
fanzines etc.

7. Activity
• Create a case study of fandom for either film, music or games. Find
examples of John Fiskes’ categories.
• Try to apply some of Henry Jenkins’ ideas to your findings.
• What could be the benefits and disadvantages of fandom in your
chosen media area?