The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media (an incomplete summarisation and analysis)

Edited by Lisa A. Lewis 
Routledge 1992

"Historical propensity to treat media audiences as passive & controlled, its tendency to privilege aesthetic superiority in programming, its reluctance to support consumerism, its belief in media industry manipulation. The popular press, as well, has stigmatised fandom by emphasising danger, abnormality and silliness. And the public deny their own fandom, carry on secret lives as fans rick the stigma that comes from being a fan."

"Perhaps only a fan can appreciate the depth feeling, the gratifications, the importance for coping with everyday life that fandom represents."

PART I: Defining fandom

Fandom as Pathology: The consequences of characterisation by Jolie Jensen

• There are two types of fans: obsessed loner and the hysterical crowd
• Obsessed loner = intense fantasy relationship with celebrity figures -> stalking, threatening, killing
• Hysterical crowd = drugs, violence, alcohol, sexual and racial imagery associated (young hysterical fans)
• The fan is defined as a response to the star system. This means that passivity is ascribed to the fan he or she is seen as being enthralled /brought into existence by the modern celebrity system via mass media. 
• "Erotomania" or the "Othello Syndrom" is an increasingly narcissistic society or maybe the fantasy life we see on television
• Caughey = media addicted age, celebrities function as role models for fan who engage in 'artificial social relation'
• Schickel = compares deranged fans and serial killers to 'us' ("normal" fans)
• Fandom as psychological compensation - psychological version of the mass
• Society critique = Fandom, especially 'excessive' fandom, is defined as a form of psychological compensation, an attempt to make up for all that modern life lacks. 
• Para-social interaction = surrogate relationship - inadequately imitates normal relationships

The Cultural Economy of the Fandom by John Fiske

• Fandom is typically associated with cultural forms that dominate value system denigrates: music, novels, comics, celebrities
• Fans fiercely discriminate against what makes a (true) fan and what falls in that fandom
• D'Acci (1988): 'Cagney and Lacey' Fans -> Use show = higher self esteem, confidence to stand up for self, adult woman took inspiration to risk starting own business
• This popular discrimination involves the selection of texts that offer fans opportunities to make meanings of their social identities an social experiences that are self interested and functional
• Cultural tastes as practices are produced by social rather than individual differences, and so textual discrimination and social discrimination are part of the same cultural process within and between fans just as much as between fans and other popular audiences
• Fans make their culture out of the commercial commodities of cultural industries
• Fandom is a heightened form of popular culture in industrial societies that the fan is an 'excessive reader' who differs from the 'ordinary' one in degree that than kind

PART II: Fandom & Gender

Something More than Love: Fan stories on film by Lisa A. Lewis

This is a list of films that portray the extremes of fandom and fans:

• Hollywood or bust
• The Fan
• Comeback to the Five and Dime Jimmie Dean, Jimmie Dean
• I Wanna Hold Your Hand
• King of Comedy
• Heartbreak Hotel

PART III: Fans and industry

Fans as Tastemakers: Viewers of Quality Television by Sue Brower

Fans dictating the course and popularity of a show and how it relates. 

• Role for a play incirculating social and aesthetic opinions in our culture
• Television series develops a following among people who both discover and create in Dick Hebdige's terms, a 'symbolic fit' between certain expressive materials and their lives (199, 11). 
• By their activity in relation to the cultural form, they refine and enhance its social image while, as fans, claiming it as symbolic of their identity

Tutorial #4

A long overdue tutorial with the teacher saw me panic and cry on the inside.

I was initially excited to present all the primary research I've done. My focus group, the questionnaire and the convention. I was pretty progressive.

And then I realised I didn't have a proper question. I thought I did. But I don't. So pretty much I am screwed. I have 7 weeks to research, analyse and write up a 7000 report.

The good news is I found what I need to do within the next week and a half. Bad news is I have to do it within a week and a half. So I will definitely be just focussing on this for a while.

I was explaining to teacher everything I could about fandom and in the end I just wanted to show how crazy it can make people and what extents it makes people go to. This is all mumbo jumbo right now. A constant stream of consciousness. It was quite hard explaining fandom to a person who claims to have no obsessions in life.

So main focus from now on = HYPER REALITY. A theory/term developed by Jean Baudrillard in 1980s. Going beyond popular culture, the new level in which we reach that not only blurs the line between fantasy and reality but where fantasy nearly overtakes the aspects of real life.

Makings of a question:

To Infinity and Beyond!

Fandemonium and Hyperreality

The evolution of popular culture into the realms of fandom and the influence of cyber-community life on fans 

To what extent does "hardcore" fandom inflence the lives and identities of fans?

Hypothesis: That "hardcore" fandom significantly blurs the distinction between hyperreality and "real" reality

Chapter 1: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" (Star Wars)

The definition of fandom, the fans and the history of fandom studies. The move to cyber-fandom. Pop Culture evolution, birth of fandom. 

Chapter 2:

Living a life through fiction. Fandom Addiction. Beyond escapism. 

Chapter 3: 

Worlds within worlds: Baudrillard meets Joss Whedon. The theory of hyperreality and it's application to fandom today. 

Google: Fandom Addiction

People to e-mail and interview: http://fanstudies.wordpress.com/about/ and Adam Possamai

List of books to track down and borrow

State library most likely:

• Theorizing Fandom: Subculture and Identity by Cheryl Drake Harris
• Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins
• The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media by Lisa A. Lewis
• Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth by Camille Bacon-Smith

Lists of dissertations and theses

For the purpose of research and analysis of my first chapter: Defining and exploring the history and term of Fandom

• Close Encounters of a Different Kind: A study of science fiction fan culture and its interaction with multiple literacies by Gail A. Bondi
• Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys - Ethnography of Online Slash/Yaoi Fans by Sandra Youssef
• Academia Explores the Final Frontier: A look at fandom theses and dissertations by Karen Ann Yost

Girls who like Boys who like Boys – Ethnography of Online Slash/Yaoi Fans

Red went on to tell me that all of the fans described in this piece did something “higher” with it. Gesticulating, she painted the picture of an ordinary American girl liking the TV-show Angel, and watching it every time it is on TV. This girl could be called a “fan.” But the fans, I was working with and writing about, including myself, had “made it part of identity” to such a degree that we thought about it outside of the times shown on TV, to the extent that “being a fan” pervaded other aspects of our lives.

....This text is, essentially, an ethnography of what it means to be an online fan. In order to underline what I wanted to translate, I would have had to offer a moment of ethnography alien enough, yet understandable enough, to introduce an unfamiliar audience to the topic. Yet, such a single ethnographic moment does not exist. All of the scenes depicted above are, after all, not simply moments of ritual or hobby, but moreover are infused with a certain mode of identity. Beyond serving an introductory function, they urge you to immerse yourself into a world that will seem alien at best.

Girls who like Boys who like Boys – Ethnography of Online Slash/Yaoi Fans

Sandra Youssef

Websites to take note of:

Dr Gafia's Fan Terms:
It's pretty much as the title says
http://www.fanac.org/Fannish_Reference_Works/Fan_terms/

The definition of 'Fandom':
Notice how it was first known to be used in 1903 and the comments section
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fandom

"Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture"
By Henry Jenkins:
Online gold
http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/starwars.html


Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet
By Kristina Hellekson and Kristina Busse
Interesting and awesome, a contemporary take on cyberfandom. 
http://karenhellekson.com/?page_id=38

The Formula of a Thesis

1. The Context - What is it? What is it about? The general history and development of the subject and why it is discussed (more elaborate than introduction of course)
2. The Object - The main focus on certain aspect(s) and more specific questions and findings which are supported by primary and secondary research. 
3. The Interaction - Where the concepts of society and culture are emphasised and the connection between subject and society/group/individual.
4. The Impact - The resulting consequences and/or results that may or may not be conclusive in nature.

The Communication of Fan Culture: The Impact of New Media on Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom

By Betsy Gooch of the Georgia Institute of Technology

THE FIRST TWELVE PAGES

Probably the best site to help me start. I've gotten through 10 pages or more and have already WRITTEN, in my dusty logbook, 7 pages worth of notes about this. 4 of those pages are my own thoughts and gatherings about fandom and rough drafts of possible questions and ventures I should persue. 3 of those pages are completely filled with notes from this thesis.

Basically what I've gotten from the first 12 pages is what fandom is, what it involves and how it has evolved. There have been three generations of study: 1950s-1980s: the beginning of scholary investigation on fandoms, 1990-1999: media fans, 2000 to present: cyberfandom. However even the concept of fandom predates all of this. Nevertheless, the thesis gives me great information about what each generation entails and includes great examples of fandoms and prominent scholars for each era.

1950s-1980s:
Literary works, fanzines (unofficial fan magazines)

• Harry Warner Jr.
  Fandom historian and a fan himself. Noted the increasing of the blurred lines and crossover between science fiction and fantasy genres

1990-1999
More visual texts: film, television, comics/graphic novels. Media fans/mediafen who are starting to "shape the face of science fiction and fantasy on television through their dedication and inspiring love for the show and genre." Crossing over from just a personal hobby and obsession into the realm of reality and production (large scale fan campaigns and support)

• Forest Ackerman
  Coined term: sci-fi. Devoted fan turned professional writer and editor, investigated the progression of sci-fi as a genre in literature, film and TV
• John Tulloch
  Explains the relationship between producers and the audience. Investigates growing influence, power and authority of fans on the production of siginifcant shows (Doctor Who, Star Trek). This has grown more evident with the developement of techonology and communication
• Camille Bacon-Smith
  Talks about the fan community and the growing amount and influence of female fans (fanfiction helping them play out their fantasies and desires)

2000-Present
Cyberfandom, emphasis on the role of the internet for both the fans and how fandom operates.

• Henry Jenkins
  Explains relationship between fans with the television and film productions with the media culture (Production compant/actors etc.).
  "Textual Poachers": the emergence of ratists and authors who taker original material and create their own texts. This is said with affection though - in a positive light.
  "Fandom: a community of hardworking authors and artists trying to become closer to their favourite stories, films, television via reproduction."
  Significant emphasis on the growth in participatory nature of fandom.

Fan culture studies can further be divided into 3 areas of research:

• The historical documentation of individual fandoms
• Exploration of the cultural reasoning for and issues that occur due to fan activites
• The analysis of fan productions as cultural artifacts.

• (historical aspect of fandom -> consumer analysis of fan culture -> culture research on reasons behind fan productions)

Most of the notes I've just typed up are direct quotes from the thesis. I just summarised so that it can be understood more easily in layman terms. For more in depth information and a general great, geeky read, click this link or just the title for the full thesis. I don't claim to own any of this material or ideas.