Videogames: Henry Jenkins - fandom and participatory culture

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Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks


The following tasks will give you an excellent introduction to fandom and also allow you to start exploring degree-level insight into audience studies. Work through the following:

Factsheet #107 - Fandom

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?

Fanatic- A person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal- shortened to fan

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

Hardcore or true fan 
Newbie
Anti-Fan

3) What makes a ‘fandom’?
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?

A Liverpool fan's room may consist of Liverpool themed bedding, curtains and wallpaper which means that this level of display is not simply about preferring one team over the other, it as as Bourdieu argues ‘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?

 Examples of fandoms provided on pages 2 and 3 are:
  • Ritual and participation 
  • Ironic readings 
  • Defy critics and institutions 
  • Imaginative extension and text creation

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, fan vids’ all of which have been aided by digital technology.

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?
  • Wallpapers
  • Screenshots
  • Comics and Collectibles
  • Costumes

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 high number of content suggests that the online fan community size is large for Tomb Raider and Lara Croft. 

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?

Now look at this Metroid fansite and answer the following: 

1) What does the site offer?
  • Games
  • Interviews
  • Social Media links

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

The types of people featured on the Community Spotlight page include artists, cosplayers and musicians. This suggests that the people who enjoy and actively participate in fan culture are typically very creative and invested in the videogame industry as it acts as a means of fuelling their creativity.

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?

The questions from fans suggest that they interact with the games heavily.


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?

This means that services such as Newsweek transform the relationship between media producers and consumers.

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!)

"In the age of the internet, no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet."

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

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?

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’.

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

The ideal consumer talks up the program and spreads word about the brand.

8) Why is fandom 'the future'?

Fandom is the future because fans are ultimately the ones who spread words about the media text and help it to develop a wider/stronger audience. Without fans, media texts would not thrive as well. I think that fandom is also the future because of the impact that participatory culture has had on media companies as a whole; it has generated a lot of content which has helped the media industry to grow.

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

We should certainly avoid celebrating a process that commodifies fan cultural production and sells it back to us with a considerable markup. Yet, these same trends can also be understood in terms of making companies more responsive to their most committed consumers, as extending the influence that fans exert over the media they love, and fans as creating a context in which more people create and circulate media that more perfectly reflects their own world views. I can understand why we might now want to call this a democratisation of culture—which is to read a social, cultural, and economic shift in overly political terms. 

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?

I believe fandom is definitely mainstream. People are fans and don't even realise it. The creative industries are so effective that people are constantly watching the media and becoming part of this 'fandom'. Some are fans and some aren't.


Extension: EU copyright law - is a meme ban coming?

Read this Wired feature on the upcoming EU copyright law (Article 13 and Article 11) and discuss the potential implications for participatory culture and fandom. How might this impact on fans' 'textual poaching'?

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