Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks

Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) to find Media Factsheet #107 on Fandom. Save it to USB or email it to yourself so you have access to the reading for homework. Read the whole of Factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) What is the definition of a fan?
A person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal.

2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet?
Hardcore/True fan: consider themselves to be an aficionados of their chosen media text. Pride themselves on how long they have been a fan of the text and the quantity and quality of knowledge they have on the text

Newbie: New fans of a given text, don't have the devotion or depth of knowledge about the text that hardcore fans have.

Anti-fans: People who identify with a media text in a negative way. They loathe or hate the text. They don't create a relationship with the text through close-reading, but at a 'distance'.

3) What makes a ‘fandom’?
Fandoms exhibit a 'passion that binds enthusiasts in the manner of people who share a secret- this secret happens to be shared with millions of others'. Fandoms are subcultures within which fans experience and share a sense of camaraderie with each engage in particular practices of their given fandom.

4) What is Bordieu’s argument regarding the ‘cultural capital’ of fandom?
Bordieu argues a kind of 'cultural capital' which confers a symbolic power aand 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?
Fan art of Sherlock Holmes, Liverpool FC bed sheets and wallpaper.

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

Tomb Raider and Metroid fandom research

Look at this Tomb Raider fansite and answer the following questions: 

1) What types of content are on offer in this fansite?

The site offers a rating system for the best Tomb Raider fan websites for both film and game. The home page's first sentence says 'welcome friends and follow Raiders' showing the fandom community. There are walkthroughs, news on updates 

2) What does the number of links and content suggest about the size of the online fan community for Tomb Raider and Lara Croft? Pick out some examples from this page.

The amount of lints and content on the websites suggests that the Lara Croft fanbase online is extremely large with people creating fansites in order to benefit from audience pleasures such as nostalgia. 

3) Scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the short ‘About me’ bio and social media updates. Is this a typical example of ‘fandom’ in the digital age? Why?

This would be an example of a hardcore fan as this person controls three other fan pages and  runs social media pages for the website which provide daily updates and posts to their audience. 

Now look at this Metroid fansite and answer the following: 

1) What does the site offer?

This website is Metroid fansite which provides it's audience with information about Metroid Character Changes as well as providing interviews and q&as for their audience to interact with. 

2) Look at the Community Spotlight page. What does this suggest about the types of people who enjoy and participate in fan culture?

The Community Spotlight page is a page for the hardcore fans which go beyond just consuming the media product and go out their way to further engage themselves with the product, e.g. through cosplay, art and music. These people can also be identified as true fans.

3) There is a specific feature on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. What do the questions from fans tell you about the level of engagement and interest in the game and franchise from the fan community?

Henry Jenkins: degree-level reading

Read the final chapter of ‘Fandom’ – written by Henry Jenkins. 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?

"It's not an audience, it's a community" suggests that media services change the relationships between media producers and consumers. Media conglomerates are now "harnessing collective intelligence, supporting user-generated content" meaning that they are now taking ideas from the audience to improve their products.

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!)

"Some are calling them “prosumers,” suggesting that as consumers produce and upload media, they are blurring the line between amateur and professional".

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

He calls these active consumers: “loyals,” stressing the value of consumer commitment in an era of channel zapping; “media-actives,” suggesting that they are much more likely to demand the right to participate within the media franchise than previous generations; “prosumers,” suggesting that as consumers produce and circulate media, they are blurring the line between amateur and professional; “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 stronger network with your desired consumers.

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’.

"The media landscape will be reshaped by the bottom-up energy of media created by amateurs and hobbyists as a matter of course." I agree with this quote and consumers are can now create and publish their own products online and create profit. This can be linked to Clay Shirky's end of audience theory.

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

When he’s talking about consumers of manufactured products, management professor Eric Von Hippel (2005) talks about “lead users,” that is, early adopters and early adapters of emerging technologies and services. Understand how these lead users retrofit your products to suit their needs and you understand important new directions for innovation. In a sense, fans can be seen as lead users of media content—consider for example the ways that the concept of the fan metatext (Jenkins 1992), linking together the back stories of series characters.

8) Why is fandom 'the future'?

Fandom is the future. I use the word “fandom” and not “fans” here for good reason. To me, it seems a little paradoxical that the rest of the people involved in this conversation are more and more focused on consumption as a social, networked, collaborative process (“harnessing collective intelligence,” “the wisdom of crowds,” and all of that), 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’?

He says that we shouldn't celebrate this production as they 'sell it back at us with a considerable mark up'.

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?

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