A Brief History of Media Fandom and Fan Studies Part I
Here it is. The damn literature review/fandom history I've been working on for something like two weeks. This is completely unedited, and formatted in the MLA manner, so all those numbers in parentheses are page numbers so you can find the quote or whatever, if you ever decided to do that.
In fandom studies, one of the most contentious topics is what the definition of “fan” is. Jenkins (2013) introduces his text on fan culture, Textual Poachers, by finding in the word origins of “fanatic” the source of the negative stereotypes of the fan. From the Latin “fanaticus,” or “of or belonging to the temple, a temple servant, a devotee,” it gained negative connotations of “persons inspired by orgiastic rites and enthusiastic frenzy” (Oxford Latin Dictionary, qtd. in Jenkins 12). “Fan” dates back to late 19th century baseball spectators and “Matinee Girls” who came to the theater to admire the actors instead of the plays. Contemporary ideas of the fan range from the creepy, psychotic “fan in the attic” with a sick obsession, as in The Fan (1981) and Misery (1990), to the sadly “socially maladjusted” used for comedic effect, to myth of the eroticized, “orgiastic” rock groupie (14). Jenkins notes that with exceptions, the psychotic fan and the comic fan are usually a de-gendered, asexual male, the eroticized fan is always female: he calls to mind the contemporary Justin Bieber fan (15).
Hills, however, finds the definition of “fan” is more ephemeral. He discusses previous definitions of fans, such as Abercrombie and Loghurst’s “spectrum of identities and experiences” and Tulloch and Jenkins’s distinction between the “fan” and the “follower” (ix-x). He uses the term “cult fan” and “fan” interchangeably, noting how fandoms often spring up around texts that arouse cultish devotion. He does, however, associate “cult fan” more with fans that remain enthusiastic about a text “in the absence of ‘new’ or official material in the originating medium” (x). While Busse and Hellekson don’t define the word “fan,” though they assert that “fandom” is “a collected entity” that is not necessarily cohesive (6). In their history of fandom, Reagin and Rubenstien define “fans” as “referring to people who were active participants in popular culture,” noting that fans existed “often decades earlier than is often acknowledged in modern fan studies” (np).
Fan studies as a field of study, and fandom itself, can be framed historically. Reagin and Rubenstein argue that copyright law and the early nineteenth century concept of the author or artist as genius worked as a precondition for what we commonly call “fandom.” The spread of public education, which led to higher literacy rates, a reduction in the cost of paper making and printing, the reduction of special taxes on newspapers and other printed materials, and the increasing ease of transportation all worked to create a public that was ready for mass entertainment (np). Fervor for mass media led to the emergence of “organized fan communities” as engaged fans began to seek each other out. The most famous early fan communities were those that formed around science fiction and Sherlock Holmes. Clubs were formed around specific books and authors, and fan fiction arose out of these literary “fan clubs.”
In her history of media fandom, Coppa dates the origin of fandom to the 1920’s, when fans began exchanging ideas on the letter pages of Gernsback’s Amazing Stories. These fans would interact with the editor and each other, sometimes exchanging personal information so that they could contact one another (42). Fan magazines were created, science fiction clubs were formed, and the first conventions were held by the 1930s. Because of the role gender would later play in media fandom, it should be noted that women participated in fandom from the beginning, though their experience was often marginalized.
It’s not clear whether The Man from U.N.C.L.E or Star Trek was the first media fandom, but the latter’s struggle for ratings made its fans more vocal. From the beginning, Star Trek fans, who were often better educated than most, heavy readers, and scientifically literate, responded to the show with both critical and creative works. That Gene Roddenberry turned a “blind eye” (45) towards fan art and fan fiction could be argued as the reason for the proliferation of media fandom. Star Trek was a divisive show for science fiction fandom, as some dismissed it as “science fiction for non-readers” (45), as well as dismissing its mostly female fan base. The 1970s saw Star Trek fans holding their own conventions after feeling unwelcome at the more established science fiction conventions, and in 1975 “Star Trek” Lives!, a history of the Star Trek fandom, was published. The female-driven Star Trek fandom flourished, and “Star Trek” Lives! included close readings of fan fiction, legitimizing it and calling it “’a whole new genre of science fiction’” (Coppa 48). Much of these fan fictions were homoerotic in nature, focusing on the relationship of Kirk and Spock, setting the stage for years of “slash” fiction (so named because of the slash symbol used in the phrase “Kirk/Spock,” denoting stories about this relationship).
The “buddy ” genre of television (Starsky and Hutch) gave rise to their own slash fiction fandoms in the late 1970s, but it was Star Wars that would bring fandom into the 1980s. Its success led to the making of the first Star Trek film, but it also led to the splintering of media fandom. Star Trek, Star Wars, and buddy shows became distinct fandoms, though there was some fluidity to them, and the culture of mass media fandom led to more conventions, such as MediaWest, Creation Con, and DragonCon, all of which are still influential in science fiction and media fandom today. In the 1980s, British media made in the seventies gained cult status in America, with Doctor Who, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus crossing the pond and forming their own American fandoms. Star Trek fandom was revived with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and researchers in audience studies began to notice this subculture of fandom as a phenomenon unto itself.
Early audience theories came about after the propaganda blitz of World War II, examining how such propaganda worked when it reached its target. As researchers conducted mostly quantitative surveys, they found that audiences weren’t automatically consuming the message in the way its creators intended. This created the paradigm in communication studies called “uses and gratifications,” where researchers began to examine what uses audiences had for media and how they used the media to gratify personal interests and desires (Gray and Lotz 59). This was different from the original “hypodermic needle” view of media consumption, where audiences were just waiting to be injected with messages.
In the 1970s, as media fandom was rising, a more nuanced methodology to understand the relationship between text and audience came out of the Center for Contemporary Culture Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University in England (60). CCCS was influenced by semiology, which saw popular culture as a language. Stuart Hall’s “encoding/decoding” model of consumption “shifted the focus to balancing out the ‘encoding’ and construction of messages with the ‘decoding’ of them, or how audiences interacted with them and shaped meaning themselves” (60). This model was tied to Gramsci’s ideas of ideology and hegemony, which were coded into popular culture at the micro level. Hall’s model saw decoding as the study of how power works in a society, not just how a message works.
Active audience theory in the 1980s rejuvenated television studies, which was taken up by feminist media scholars who wanted to “test their suspicions of seemingly anti-feminist genres, and the widespread vilification and ridicule of women’s genres in general” (63). Work was conducted on romance novels and soap operas, finding both to be patriarchal but also seeing women using the texts in new ways and creating intelligent communities of fans around these media products.
In fandom studies, one of the most contentious topics is what the definition of “fan” is. Jenkins (2013) introduces his text on fan culture, Textual Poachers, by finding in the word origins of “fanatic” the source of the negative stereotypes of the fan. From the Latin “fanaticus,” or “of or belonging to the temple, a temple servant, a devotee,” it gained negative connotations of “persons inspired by orgiastic rites and enthusiastic frenzy” (Oxford Latin Dictionary, qtd. in Jenkins 12). “Fan” dates back to late 19th century baseball spectators and “Matinee Girls” who came to the theater to admire the actors instead of the plays. Contemporary ideas of the fan range from the creepy, psychotic “fan in the attic” with a sick obsession, as in The Fan (1981) and Misery (1990), to the sadly “socially maladjusted” used for comedic effect, to myth of the eroticized, “orgiastic” rock groupie (14). Jenkins notes that with exceptions, the psychotic fan and the comic fan are usually a de-gendered, asexual male, the eroticized fan is always female: he calls to mind the contemporary Justin Bieber fan (15).
Hills, however, finds the definition of “fan” is more ephemeral. He discusses previous definitions of fans, such as Abercrombie and Loghurst’s “spectrum of identities and experiences” and Tulloch and Jenkins’s distinction between the “fan” and the “follower” (ix-x). He uses the term “cult fan” and “fan” interchangeably, noting how fandoms often spring up around texts that arouse cultish devotion. He does, however, associate “cult fan” more with fans that remain enthusiastic about a text “in the absence of ‘new’ or official material in the originating medium” (x). While Busse and Hellekson don’t define the word “fan,” though they assert that “fandom” is “a collected entity” that is not necessarily cohesive (6). In their history of fandom, Reagin and Rubenstien define “fans” as “referring to people who were active participants in popular culture,” noting that fans existed “often decades earlier than is often acknowledged in modern fan studies” (np).
Fan studies as a field of study, and fandom itself, can be framed historically. Reagin and Rubenstein argue that copyright law and the early nineteenth century concept of the author or artist as genius worked as a precondition for what we commonly call “fandom.” The spread of public education, which led to higher literacy rates, a reduction in the cost of paper making and printing, the reduction of special taxes on newspapers and other printed materials, and the increasing ease of transportation all worked to create a public that was ready for mass entertainment (np). Fervor for mass media led to the emergence of “organized fan communities” as engaged fans began to seek each other out. The most famous early fan communities were those that formed around science fiction and Sherlock Holmes. Clubs were formed around specific books and authors, and fan fiction arose out of these literary “fan clubs.”
In her history of media fandom, Coppa dates the origin of fandom to the 1920’s, when fans began exchanging ideas on the letter pages of Gernsback’s Amazing Stories. These fans would interact with the editor and each other, sometimes exchanging personal information so that they could contact one another (42). Fan magazines were created, science fiction clubs were formed, and the first conventions were held by the 1930s. Because of the role gender would later play in media fandom, it should be noted that women participated in fandom from the beginning, though their experience was often marginalized.
It’s not clear whether The Man from U.N.C.L.E or Star Trek was the first media fandom, but the latter’s struggle for ratings made its fans more vocal. From the beginning, Star Trek fans, who were often better educated than most, heavy readers, and scientifically literate, responded to the show with both critical and creative works. That Gene Roddenberry turned a “blind eye” (45) towards fan art and fan fiction could be argued as the reason for the proliferation of media fandom. Star Trek was a divisive show for science fiction fandom, as some dismissed it as “science fiction for non-readers” (45), as well as dismissing its mostly female fan base. The 1970s saw Star Trek fans holding their own conventions after feeling unwelcome at the more established science fiction conventions, and in 1975 “Star Trek” Lives!, a history of the Star Trek fandom, was published. The female-driven Star Trek fandom flourished, and “Star Trek” Lives! included close readings of fan fiction, legitimizing it and calling it “’a whole new genre of science fiction’” (Coppa 48). Much of these fan fictions were homoerotic in nature, focusing on the relationship of Kirk and Spock, setting the stage for years of “slash” fiction (so named because of the slash symbol used in the phrase “Kirk/Spock,” denoting stories about this relationship).
The “buddy ” genre of television (Starsky and Hutch) gave rise to their own slash fiction fandoms in the late 1970s, but it was Star Wars that would bring fandom into the 1980s. Its success led to the making of the first Star Trek film, but it also led to the splintering of media fandom. Star Trek, Star Wars, and buddy shows became distinct fandoms, though there was some fluidity to them, and the culture of mass media fandom led to more conventions, such as MediaWest, Creation Con, and DragonCon, all of which are still influential in science fiction and media fandom today. In the 1980s, British media made in the seventies gained cult status in America, with Doctor Who, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus crossing the pond and forming their own American fandoms. Star Trek fandom was revived with Star Trek: The Next Generation, and researchers in audience studies began to notice this subculture of fandom as a phenomenon unto itself.
Early audience theories came about after the propaganda blitz of World War II, examining how such propaganda worked when it reached its target. As researchers conducted mostly quantitative surveys, they found that audiences weren’t automatically consuming the message in the way its creators intended. This created the paradigm in communication studies called “uses and gratifications,” where researchers began to examine what uses audiences had for media and how they used the media to gratify personal interests and desires (Gray and Lotz 59). This was different from the original “hypodermic needle” view of media consumption, where audiences were just waiting to be injected with messages.
In the 1970s, as media fandom was rising, a more nuanced methodology to understand the relationship between text and audience came out of the Center for Contemporary Culture Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University in England (60). CCCS was influenced by semiology, which saw popular culture as a language. Stuart Hall’s “encoding/decoding” model of consumption “shifted the focus to balancing out the ‘encoding’ and construction of messages with the ‘decoding’ of them, or how audiences interacted with them and shaped meaning themselves” (60). This model was tied to Gramsci’s ideas of ideology and hegemony, which were coded into popular culture at the micro level. Hall’s model saw decoding as the study of how power works in a society, not just how a message works.
Active audience theory in the 1980s rejuvenated television studies, which was taken up by feminist media scholars who wanted to “test their suspicions of seemingly anti-feminist genres, and the widespread vilification and ridicule of women’s genres in general” (63). Work was conducted on romance novels and soap operas, finding both to be patriarchal but also seeing women using the texts in new ways and creating intelligent communities of fans around these media products.