1. Introduction
Technological advances have changed the way we enjoy popular culture. Every day a vast number of new entertainment contents products are created. If one wants to relax after work or school, there are plenty of options on multiple platforms, one can choose what they want to watch, read or listen to. However, the Internet and other inventions not only change how we consume popular culture but also change how media is made. Many of us are fans of something (Medkult, 2016) and we all want to share our feelings with others. From that need comes the rise of participatory culture and fandom, paving the way for fan communities to grow and expand in a never before seen scale. Therefore this secondary research paper will discuss how
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Definitions of fan, fandom, and related terms
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines fan is "an ardent admirer or enthusiast (as of a celebrity or a pursuit)" or "an enthusiastic devotee (as of a sport or a performing art)". Both Merriam-Webster and Cambridge dictionary suggests that the word is a shortened version of fanatic, which is derived from the Latin word fanaticus, meaning "insanely but divinely inspired" According to Henry Jenkins, the word has a wide and slippery range of usage depending on the relationship of fans to the media itself. In short, a fan is someone that spends a large amount of time as well as dedication to a range of cultural texts that completely capture their interest (Booth, 2010). There are many kinds of fans, however, this paper will mainly focus on media fans,
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To put it simply, participatory culture describes a world where we take the media in our own hand and use it to produce and share media contents. More people are encouraged to express their ideas and their creativity using the tools and technologies to produce new original works or production based on their favorite media texts. This emphasizes the earlier statement of Henry Jenkins on passive spectatorship when the audiences are not only just "mindless consumers" but also act as producers and creators of media. However, not everyone has to participate, for the level of participation depends on each person's skills and abilities, which may limit some people from fully taking part (Jenkins, 2009). Henry Jenkins et al. (2009) have listed out some characteristics of participatory
Sport fans, sometimes also called sport devotees, followers, or supporters, are persons who are enthusiastically devoted to a particular athlete, team or sport. They may show their enthusiasm by often attending sporting events or watch on television, being members of a fan club, follow sport news through newspapers, online websites, and creating fanzines. Their disposition is often such that they will experience a game or event by living through their favored players or teams. These behaviors manifest itself in different ways. To enable better understanding of these behavioral patterns, we have to classify these sports fans into groups based on their devotion to teams: fair-weather fans, bandwagon and the super-fans.
Are technology and the media shedding the very fabric of the existence we have known? As technology and the media spread their influence, the debate over the inherent advantages and disadvantages intensifies. Although opinions vary widely on the subject, two writers offer similar views: Professor Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, in her article “Can You Hear Me Now” and Naomi Rockler-Gladen, who formerly taught media studies at Colorado State University, with her article “Me Against the Media: From the Trenches of a Media Lit Class.” Turkle asserts that technology has changed how people develop and view themselves, while at the same time affecting their concepts of time management and focus (270). Similarly, Rockler-Gladen believes media and its inherent advertising have had a profound effect on the values and thinking of the public (284). I could not agree more with Professor Turkle and Ms. Rockler-Gladen; the effects technology and media have worried and annoyed me for quite so time. The benefits of technology and media are undeniable, but so then are the flaws. People are beginning to shift their focus away from the physical world to the virtual world as they find it easier and more comfortable. The intended purpose of technology and media was to be a tool to improve the quality of life, not shackles to tie people to their devices. I no longer recognize this changed world and long for the simple world of my youth.
Up until recently television has been the most prominent medium of entertainment and information in our lives. Nothing could beat Saturday morning cartoons, the six o'clock news and zoning out from the world by the distractions of prime time sitcoms. It is all of these things and more that formed television into what was thought to be the ultimate entertainment medium, that is, up until now. Television in the twenty-first century is not the television our parents watched or in fact what we watched as children. Today’s generation are no longer satisfied with the traditional television experience. Today’s audience no longer has to follow the network’s predetermined schedule nor is television the one dimensional experience it used to be. Viewers no longer need to schedule a fixed time in order to gather information or watch their favourite show (Smith 5). They can record it with the push of the DVR (Digital Video Recording) button or watch it on a device and obtain background information via the Internet. In addition, viewers now have the opportunity to interact with, share, and produce their own material from their favourite show (5). In order to not lose the authenticity of television, media theorists have created transmedia. This new twist on television gives the user more control and more involvement than ever before. The concept has been termed as transmedia storytelling. The online journal Infoline defines transmedia storytelling in its January 2014 issue as “social, mobile, accessible and re-playable.” Originally coined in the 1990’s it was not until 2003 when Henry Jenkins, a professor of communications at the University of Southern California, wrote his article “Transmedia Storytelling” that the term began being ...
Throughout this paper I am going to touch on things such as what separates just a regular fan, a so-called nerd, and someone with a fandom. I will also go into depth about a few other things but most
In 1988, Henry Jenkins studied Star Trek fans, and their participation in the Trekker fandom through textual poaching. He defines fandom as “the ability to transform personal reaction into social interaction [and] spectator culture into participatory culture” (Jenkins 88). The fans create a shared community by responding to the original texts and emphasizing a shared identity (88). One way fans create this identity is by participating in a replay culture, which can eventually lead to films achieving cult status.
The people in these groups band together and can create amazing things, like crisis support networks. They are basically just a group of people who like the same stuff. Many people say that fandoms consist of obsessive people, but could our obsessiveness actually change, develop, and be essential to society? Durkheim’s theories of sacred and profane, functionalism, and collective effervescence prove that, that is so.
It is a culture in which private persons (the public) do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers. We are in a moment of time in which an explosion of new media technology has made it very easy for everyday people to take media in their own hands to create, to share, to express themselves, through every possible media channel. Participatory culture could be defined as new ways of life that lead people to create and circulate new self-made content including video, audio, text, and images. The movement is taking shape and being popularized by consumer social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr, and Wikipedia that encourage mass participation and collaboration. Participatory culture is changing the way people and the media communicate and actively engage. The characteristic that define modern participatory culture is that consumption is no longer the only way we used media like in the past. We have started to expand our focus to include producing and sharing media too which can be found in any form or content. Example would be fan communities, groups of gamers, the blogging population, and various sub cultures online. What these groups have in common is their supportive environments in which to create and share. There is an assumption that anyone who is currently a reader could become a writer, anyone who is a consumer can become a producer. Participatory culture fostered by new media is like a communication triathlon involving consumption, production, and sharing leads to more knowledge. Many of these tools allow us to remix, recirculate, content from media as a mode of creative expression. There is an informal training process for experienced participants help newbies acquire the skills they need to be...
Fan Culture is something that has been around for a while, but it the last twenty years, since the introduction of the Internet, it is also something that has changed dramatically. A fan is an enthusiast of something and now the Internet is a good home for fans to gather and build together a community of fans, a ‘Fandom’. The turn Fandom means a community of a group of people who all enjoy them same thing and the Internet has created a place for online communities. Fan Culture has irreversibly changed the media industry because of the ability share information and fan made created content. The creation of these online based communities have meant that people from all over the world can talk about the latest TV shows, movies, books, comics and other forms of content and create groups dedicated to them. The Internet has also become a platform for the creation of a collective community, where individuals who all have shared interests can go. “Fans uses of technologies bring a sense of playfulness to the work of active reading” (2010; 12). Digital Fandoms are user-led forum of content creation, the fans create a number of things; fan fiction, fan blogs, fan made videos, fan art work, wiki leaks. The fans create a whole new life, another side of the TV show, film or book, that is complicity run and used by the fans. These fan made creation do not have to stick to what is canon in the show and can do what they wish with the character and the storylines. However is this an okay thing to do, Henry Jenkins refers to the fans who create these things are ‘Textual Poachers’. Those fans are now active interpreters instead of passive consumers. In this view the fans are poaching the created content of the writer. The fans have power to create t...
Fandom impact on life Google survey Do you ever look at your favorite book, movies, or television shows and wonder, "Has this made an impact on anyone else's lives? Ask anyone who participates in fandom culture, and they can guarantee you that it has. Many fandoms exist today due to pop culture and the internet, making it easy for fans of anything imaginable to join together and talk about characters, plots, setting, etc. with ease. These fandoms can be large, lovely places full of positivity or breeding grounds for hate and community backlash.
Fandom is a result of a person or a group of people who are a fan of a particular object, person or thing. A fan can be an enthusiastic follower of sport or entertainment or an enthusiastic admirer of a celebrity. There are different types of situations in which people can call themselves a fan. In a small case you can be a fan of a particular person so you might go and watch them in movies or perform on stage. In other cases its when people decide to dress up like their favourite characters or tend to wait in line for hours to get a five second look at them when they come to town. There are many different areas of fandom but in most cases it has to do with a favourite tv/movie. Game of Thrones, Star Wars the Twilight Sega and Harry Potter
While the word “fandom” was originally used to refer to those who had a fascination with sports, it can now be used to refer to any area of interest. Among the most common are television shows, movies, books and celebrities. However the fandoms that exist in 2014 are varied and sites such as “Tumblr” contain many references to fandoms such as the furniture fandom, the cat fandom, the maths fandom and the science fandom.
Watkins, Craig. “Fast Entertainment and Multitasking in an Always-On World.” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. Ed. Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon. Seventh ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 97-103. Print.
Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change” (John Podhoretz). It encompasses the advertisements we see on T.V, the clothes we wear, the music we listen too, and it’s the reason Leonardo DiCaprio has not won an Oscar yet. It defines and dictates the desires and fears of the mainstream members of society; and it is so ingrained into our lives that it has become as natural as breathing. Moreover, adults never even bat an eyelash at all the pop culture and advertising that surrounds them since it has become just another part of everyday life. Pop culture is still somewhat seen as entertainment enjoyed by the lower class members of society; but pop culture standards change over time. A notable example of this is the sixteenth century author, William Shakespeare, since his works were considered pop culture, entertainment that could be enjoyed by everyone, but now they are considered literary classics. While pop culture encompasses most aspects of our lives, its influence is most obvious through each generations reaction to media,
Entertainment has become very important to humankind. In the book “Life the Movie”, Neal Gabler claimed that entertainment is ruining our society because entertainment is “fun, sensational, mindless, formulaic, predictable and subversive”, and in return it has been creating people who are ignorant, and thoughtless of the world surrounding them. But on the contrary, entertainment has taught us to be creative and thoughtful of others, it creates a feeling of connection with one another, we maintain socially stable, and keep relationships interesting with the influence of entertainment. Entertainment has become more important than ever in this chaotic world that we live in today. It has helped us learn to take a break from the stress of our everyday
Every morning along with my alarm, I am greeted by notifications from the news, social media, and celebrities. Throughout my day I continue to experience literature, news, and social media. Before bed, like countless other teenagers, I like to relax by watching a TV show on the ever-popular streaming website, Netflix. Needless to say, entertainment is always present in today 's society. Entertainment has the capacity to be informative and enjoyable: a source of relaxation and mindless fun. However, it is what we, as members of society, do with entertainment that determines the impact it will have on our society. While it can be beneficial, entertainment does indeed have the capacity to “ruin.” Not only does the broader entertainment industry