Videogames: Henry Jenkins - fandom and participatory culture

Factsheet #107 - Fandom

1) What is the definition of a fan?
Fanatic: a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal - shortened to fan.
Fandom: the state or attitude of being a fan.

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.

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?
Earliest examples is the fandom created around the literary detective Sherlock Holmes,
A Liverpool fan’s room with duvet cover, wallpaper, memorabilia etc.

6) Why are 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. 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?
Shows all the different games and websites in a table

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 fandom is quite large because there are many links and content to click on. Also shows its quite world wide for example there is a Croft Collection (French) and Examinando Pixels (Portuguese)

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?
Yes, it quite prevalent to see this in most digital fandoms because there has been a rise in social media and its prompted through the website.

Now look at this Metroid fansite and answer the following:

1) What does the site offer?
The website offers different blogs made for the game

2) Look at the Community Spotlight page. What does this suggest about the types of people who enjoy and participate in fan culture?
This part of the page shows the different things the community have created. Shows the creative and passionate fans who create dedicated for the game

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?

Shows the fans are truly interested in the game and ask questions about the game play and different features of the game.

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?

MySpace, Flickr, and all the other newcomers aren’t places to go, but things to do, ways to express yourself, means to connect with others and extend your own horizons

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!)

' 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 '

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?

The new multipliers are simply a less geeky version of the fan—fans who don’t wear rubber Spock ears, fans who didn’t live in their parents’ basement, fans who have got a life. In other words, they are fans that don’t fit the stereotypes

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'

The audience does have significant power on reshaping the media landscape however the producer does have more power so the audience cannot reshape from the foundation. 

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'?

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. Therefore in that sense fandoms have no future

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

We should certainly avoid celebrating the process that commodifies fan cultural production and sells it back to us with a considerable markup

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?

There is definitely a future in fandoms especially through the digital age where it's much easier for fandoms to communicate with others. There is a division from mainstream media material to niche media which decides whether the fandom is mainstream or not and to some extent real fans can be considered niche for their devotions but there is an uprise in real fans.