Comic Con Communion

The present research explores gender, cosplay, and media fandom in a media fan convention context. Researchers for the present study surveyed 227 attendees at two media fan conventions. As expected, convention attendees found the words “nerd” and “geek” to be badges of honor. Contrary to research expectations, women rated themselves higher as fans than men. Women did, as expected, see fandom as an escapism opportunity more so than men. Male cosplayers thought they looked more like their costume character, but female cosplayers thought they shared their character's personality and were more likely to refer to themselves as “we.” Cosplayers were more likely to tie their fandoms to their friends' enjoyment of it and to tie their fandom to sharing it with large groups of people more so than non-cosplayers. Cosplayers also rated their fandom as being a good time more than non-cosplayers and their fandom as improving their self-esteem more than non-cosplayers. Implications are discussed.

Fan leaders' control on Xiao Zhan's Chinese fan community

Fans of Chinese media celebrity Xiao Zhan provide a case study of the existence of a highly centralized, well-trained fan community in Chinese media fandom, in which a majority of the fans are controlled and exploited by a faction of fan leaders. Fans have strong, exclusive feelings regarding their idol. Fan leaders make use of these feelings in order to organize the fans to routinize a wide range of data-manuipulation activities to ensure the success of their idols, and in so doing, these fans' actions exhibit conformity rather than autonomy. By controlling the dissemination of information within the community, fan leaders cultivate individual fans to ensure that they engage in a series of activities that support their idols.

‘Elf Lives Matter’? The racial dynamics of participatory politics in a predominantly White fandom

Declining rates of political participation in the West have led to increasing scholarly interest in the potential for participatory culture to re-engage marginalised citizens. Media fandom has, in particular, been hailed as a gateway to a new era of ‘participatory politics’. However, the implications of a politics founded on popular culture within a racially segmented media landscape is under-researched. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Dragon Age fandom on Tumblr, this article analyses how the racial dynamics of a predominantly White fandom impact upon participatory politics, taking as a case study the analogy fans made between elves and real-world racial minority groups. It argues for the dangers of founding political action upon predominantly White content worlds, with non-White fans disproportionately burdened with the task of contesting implicit racial hegemonies. Without this work, however, there is the risk that a participatory politics based on White content worlds will perpetuate racial injustice.

Mediafandomit, julkisuuden henkilöiden fanitus ja osallistuva kulttuuri

Mediafandomeja on tutkittu eri tieteenaloilla vuosikymmeniä. Tuona aikana tutkimusten painopiste on siirtynyt kriittisestä voimaannuttavaan, minkä jälkeen ne ovat asettuneet tämän hetken monitieteellisiin näkökulmiin. Yksi mediafandomien toimintatapa on kuitenkin jäänyt tutkimuksessa vähemmälle huomiolle. Kyseessä on fandomien harjoittama julkisuuden henkilöiden fanitus, johon perehdyn tässä artikkelissa tarkastelemalla näyttelijöiden Benedict Cumberbatchin ja Tom Hiddlestonin mediafandomeja Tumblr-mikroblogipalvelussa. Selvitän, miten tutkimuskohteenani olevien mediafandomien harjoittama julkisuuden henkilöiden fanitus ilmenee ja millaisia eri merkityksiä se saa. Perehdyn fanittamisen tapoihin ja merkityksiin fanitutkimuksen klassikon, Henry Jenkinsin osallistuvan kulttuurin teorian avulla. Palaan Jenkinsin teoriaan, koska mediafandomien harjoittamaa julkisuuden henkilöiden fanitusta ei ole aiemmin yhdistetty siihen. Tarkastelen artikkelissani näissä fandomeissa esiintyviä erilaisia fanituksen tapoja. Erityisesti käsittelen persoonakuvien rakentamisen tapaa, jota ei ole aiemmin tutkittu. Kyseessä on fanituksen tapa, jossa fanit muodostavat ja ylläpitävät yhdessä fanituksen kohteen persoonasta rakennettua mielikuvaa. Tarkastelen ja analysoin tekemiäni löytöjä Jenkinsin osallistuvan kulttuurin teorian kautta. Persoonamielikuvien rakentaminen nousee tärkeään asemaan, sillä se osoittaa, että nämä fandomit luovat ja ylläpitävät yhteisiä metatekstejä, mikä on tärkeää osallistuvassa kulttuurissa. Esitän, että mediafandomien harjoittama julkisuuden henkilöiden fanitus kuuluu osallistuvan kulttuurin piiriin samoin kuin mediafandomien harjoittama mediatuotteiden fanitus. Artikkelin lopussa tarkastelen myös hieman osallistuvan kulttuurin muutosta ja pohdin, miten tutkimuksen kohteena olevien fandomien toiminta sopii Jenkinsin omaan päivitettyyn versioon teoriasta. Media fandoms, celebrity fandom, and participatory culture: Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddlestone fandoms in Tumblr microblog platform Media fandoms have been studied for decades. During this time the emphasis of the research has shifted from critical to empowering, after which it has settled to the current multidisciplinary studies that cover multiple viewpoints. In spite of all these studies, one media fandom practice, the fandom of public figures, has been left in the sidelines. In this article, I focus on this type of fandom through the media fandoms of the actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston in Tumblr microblog service. In this article, I ask how the subjects of my research practice their fandom and what different meanings these practices have. I look into different ways in which Henry Jenkins’ participatory cultural theory can be used to analyze the practices and meanings of these two Tumblr-based fandoms. I return to this classic of fandom research, because it has not been used to explore the fandom of public figures before. My article focuses on different ways fandom manifests, specifically in these Tumblr-based platforms. I focus especially on a previously unresearched fandom practice, the construction of persona images. This refers to the way fans collectively form and maintain the image of the public persona. Based on my findings I compare the ways in which the practices of these fandoms relate to Jenkins' theory of participatory culture. The construction of mental images of the public figures is a key element here, because it shows that these fandoms create and maintain metatexts, which is one of the most important practices of the participatory culture. I argue that the fandom of public figures is a part of participatory culture (Jenkins) similarly to the fandom of brands and products. At the end of the article, I take a quick look at the changes taking place in participatory culture, and ask how the fandoms I have researched fit into Jenkins updated version of the theory.

Introduction

How can we take vids seriously as works in their own right? The introduction chapter of Fanvids covers a brief history of media fandom, which I understand as the productive home media audiences who adopt domestic technology as tools for remix and recombination to create interventions into their own media landscape. This chapter contains an overview of the structure and aims of the monograph. This chapter also describes the different genres and categorizations of vids, each of which illuminate a different facet of a vid’s argument or the kinds of transformation enacted in the vid.

Fanvids

Fanvids, or vids, are short videos created in media fandom. Made from television and film sources, they are neither television episodes nor films; they resemble music videos but are non-commercial fanworks that construct creative and critical analyses of existing media. The creators of fanvids-called vidders-are predominantly women, whose vids prompt questions about media historiography and pleasures taken from screen media. Vids remake narratives for an attentive fan audience, who watch with a deep knowledge of the source text(s), or an interest in the vid form itself. Fanvids: Television, Women, and Home Media Re-Use draws on four decades of vids, produced on videotape and digitally, to argue that the vid form's creation and reception reveals a mode of engaged spectatorship that counters academic histories of media audiences and technologies. Vids offer an answer to the prevalent questions: What happens to television after it's been aired? How and by whom is it used and shared? Is it still television?

Motivasi Penggemar K-Pop sebagai Citizen Author Menulis Fan Fiction

Fandom muncul sebagai kelompok yang terbentuk karena adanya ketertarikan pada satu objek yang sama. Fandom adalah budaya popular dalam masyarakat industri, sebagai bentuk untuk mengagumi suatu budaya. Fandom juga merupakan bukti bahwa khalayak adalah faktor penting dalam perkembangan media. Fandom pada boyband Korea dapat dikatakan yang paling besar dan memiliki anggota terbanyak. Saat ini kemunculan Fandom (kelompok penggemar) pada boyband Korea menyebabkan munculnya aktivitas penggemar dalam mengaktualisasikan Fan Fiction sebagai bentuk dukungan kepada idolanya. Perkembangan penggunaan internet saat ini bukan hanya sebagai media pencarian, namun juga menjadi alat komunikasi. Peneliti mencoba menganalisis fenomena Fan Fiction yang disebarkan dengan memanfaatkan kehadiran internet, yaitu platform Wattpad, dan kemampuan internet yang memungkinkan seseorang untuk dapat menjadi citizen author. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif, dengan melakukan wawancara untuk mendapatkan data. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah terdapat dua faktor yang mempengaruhi seorang fan untuk menulis Fan Fiction mengenai idola mereka, yaitu faktor internal dan juga faktor eksternal. Kata kunci: Penggemar, Fan Fiction, Citizen Author, Wattpad.

Theorizing comic cons

When comics fandom emerged as a distinct media-oriented community in the 1960s, one of the things it brought with it from science-fiction fandoms was the convention. Buoyed by the synergistic relationship between Hollywood and the San Diego Comic-Con and the growing prominence of ‘geek’ culture, comic conventions, comic art festivals and related media fandom events across North America have enjoyed enhanced prestige, attention and attendance over the last fifteen to twenty years. But what kind of event are these ‘con events’? This article builds on a cultural mapping survey of convention organizers. The survey’s goal was to suggest something of the scope and diversity of the contemporary sector. Behind this variation, we define the con event as an organizational and cultural form that is (1) oriented to media, (2) audience-facing and (3) concerned with circulation.