Videogames: Henry Jenkins - fandom and participatory culture

Factsheet #107 - Fandom

Read Media Factsheet #107 on Fandom. Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) or log into your Greenford Google account to access the link. Read the whole of Factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) What is the definition of a fan?

Fans do more than just like or even love a particular media text, ‘true fans’ have a devotion that goes beyond simply consuming media texts, and is, as Matt Hills argues, part of a person’s identity in much the same way as gender, class and age define who we are.

2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet?

Hardcore/True Fan ,Newbie, Anti-fan

3) What makes a ‘fandom’?

Fandoms exhibit a ‘passion that binds enthusiasts in the manner of people who share a secret — this secret just happens to be shared with millions of others.’ Fandoms are subcultures within which fans experience and share a sense of camaraderie with each other and engage in particular practices of their given fandom. Fandoms can be narrowly defined and can focus on something like an individual celebrity, or be more widely defined, encompassing entire hobbies, genres or fashions.

4) What is Bordieu’s argument regarding the ‘cultural capital’ of fandom?

Bordieu argues a kind of ‘cultural capital’ which confers a symbolic power and status for the fan, especially within the realm of their fandom.

5) What examples of fandom are provided on pages 2 and 3 of the factsheet?

Sherlock Holmes fans, Liverpool, Rocky Horror show , Lord of the Rings ,Family Guy, Harry Potter, The walking dead

6) Why is imaginative extension and text creation a vital part of digital fandom?

Fans use the original media texts and get creative and innovative with the material. Crawford suggests that it is this which distinguishes fans from ordinary consumers. They engage in diverse activities such as‘the production of websites, mods and hacks, private servers, game guides, walkthroughs and FAQs, fan fiction and forms of fan art, fanvids’ all of which have been aided by digital technology. Digital fandoms use technology in multiple ways and Fiske sees this as the ‘cultural economy’ of fandoms, one that is focused not on making money but on expressing the complex ideas and value systems behind fandoms.

Henry Jenkins - degree-level reading

Read the final chapter of ‘Fandom’ – written by Henry Jenkins (note: link may be blocked in school - try this Google Drive link if you need it.) This will give you an excellent introduction to the level of reading required for seminars and essays at university as well as degree-level insight into our current work on fandom and participatory culture. Answer the following questions:

1) There is an important quote on the first page: “It’s not an audience, it’s a community”. What does this mean?

There is a bigger interaction between the fans than the one t many communication that may be intended with a product and so these fans that interact share opinions and love for a text, person of thing and develop a sense of community.

2) Jenkins quotes Clay Shirky in the second page of the chapter. Pick out a single sentence of the extended quote that you think is particularly relevant to our work on participatory culture and the ‘end of audience’ (clue – look towards the end!)

Shirky, in effect, seems to be traversing the same terrain fan studies traveled several decades ago, reasserting the emergence of the active audience in response to the perceived passivity of mass media consumers. Of course, in this formulation, it is the technology that has liberated the consumer and not their own subcultural practices.

3) What are the different names Jenkins discusses for these active consumers that are replacing the traditional audience?

“media-actives,” suggesting that they are much more likely to demand the right to participate within the media franchise than previous generations; some are calling them “prosumers,” suggesting that as consumers produce and circulate media, they are blurring the line between amateur and professional; some are calling them “inspirational consumers” or “connectors” or “influencers,” suggesting that some people play a more active role than others in shaping media flows and creating new values.

4) On the third page of the chapter, what does Wired editor Chris Anderson suggest regarding the economic argument in favour of fan communities?

Anderson argues that investing in niche properties with small but committed consumer bases may make economic sense if you can lower costs of production and replace marketing costs by building a much stronger network with your desired consumers.

5) What examples does Jenkins provide to argue that fan culture has gone mainstream?

Frequently using terms such as “fan,” “fandom,” or “fan culture,” reinforces the stereotypical aspect of geeks. The consistency of seeing this online can show how it has been implemented into mainstream culture becoming a normal thing.

6) Look at the quote from Andrew Blau in which he discusses the importance of grassroots creativity. Pick out a sentence from the longer quote and decide whether you agree that audiences will ‘reshape the media landscape from the bottom up’.

This bottom up energy will generate enormous creativity, but it will also tear apart some of the categories that organize the lives and work of media makers. I strongly agree with him as the people who are professional trained and worked hard can loose their jobs where other people can take their job easily and be online or media creators without any profession. 

7) What does Jenkins suggest the new ideal consumer is?

Today, the ideal consumer talks up the program and spreads word about the brand. The old ideal might have been the couch potato; the new ideal is almost certainly a fan.

8) Why is fandom 'the future'?

Fandom and not fans are the  the rest of the people involved in this are more focused on consumption as a social, networked, collaborative process, whereas so much of the recent work in fan studies has returned to a focus on the individual fan.

9) What does it mean when Jenkins says we shouldn’t celebrate ‘a process that commodifies fan cultural production’?

It means how we should avoid giving credit to fans and completely forgetting the original media. Even though it may be a way of promotion for industry's, it could make these fans more influential for other audiences creating context that is not associated to the original text.

10) Read through to the end of the chapter. What do you think the future of fandom is? Are we all fans now? Is fandom mainstream or are real fan communities still an example of a niche media audience?

Perhaps we are all fans or perhaps none of us is. This would be consistent with the erasure of the term “fan” and the absence of the fan stereotype in recent media coverage. As fandom becomes part of the normal way that the creative industries operate, then fandom may cease to function as a meaningful category of cultural analysis. Maybe in that sense, fandom has no future.