Comments | starstealingirl: Wanted: A Quote

starstealingirl

Wanted: A Quote

Oct 22, 2009 13:39

Help me fannish friends. You're my only hope!

I have to do a presentation in my class tonight about Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture, and I wanted to talk a little about Jenkins' role as a fandom scholar, as a potentially divisive figure, how his work has evolved, etc. And I am trying-- believe me when I say I have searched the Internets far and ( Read more... )

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ooper67 October 22 2009, 18:33:51 UTC

I'm probably totally off base here, but is this what you are looking for:
"Fan Fiction is the way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk."

starstealingirl October 22 2009, 18:35:00 UTC

THAT'S THE ONE!!!

Oh, Colleen. Have I told you lately that I love you?

ooper67 October 22 2009, 18:36:47 UTC

lol, I think you just did. :)
I can't find anything with the page number or anything, just lots and lots of people using it.

starstealingirl October 22 2009, 18:47:33 UTC

That's okay. I'm not really worried about the page number; I'm just concerned with the fact that it shows up all over the Intarwebz.

d2leddy October 22 2009, 18:35:22 UTC

Wow. Who is this guy?

ooper67 October 22 2009, 18:39:39 UTC

He does this blog: http://www.henryjenkins.org/ and apparently teaches and writes lots about participatory culture.

starstealingirl October 22 2009, 18:45:56 UTC

Henry Jenkins? He wrote Textual Poachers back in the early '90s, about fandom. (About pre-Intarwebz fandom, mind you: his is an ancient world of apas and fanzines.) And he's fairly well-known as one of the first (or, at least, most famous) scholars of fandom to openly identify himself as a fan in his work.

He's gone on since then: he's now the director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, and I'd argue that his work is a bit more complicated than "fandom studies" these days. His most recent work, Convergence Culture, basically argues that changes in media have made fans much more active in, and central to, the media creation process; and that if media corporations are going to thrive, they will need to account for the new centrality of fans. So while fans are part of the mix, he's not necessarily doing "fandom studies."

At the same time, the above quote from Textual Poachers is the one that circulates most around fans, and I think that he's still popularly considered to be mostly a "fandom scholar ( ... )

d2leddy October 22 2009, 18:50:01 UTC

argues that changes in media have made fans much more active in, and central to, the media creation process; and that if media corporations are going to thrive, they will need to account for the new centrality of fans.

So, what he says is that fandom funneled through contemporary channels, like the Internets where topic is place--is a form of participatory rhetoric? And Media corporations ought to recognize this and allow for "two-way" creation?

starstealingirl October 22 2009, 18:56:33 UTC

I don't know that he's advocating for absolute "two-way creation." But he is arguing that, given that digital recorders, cable, Hulu, etc. have made the prime time network TV model obsolete, the best way to build brand loyalty is to cultivate loyal fans rather than try to attract as many casual viewers as possible. And that it's important to try and create and participate in a variety of media where fans can express and reinforce one another's loyalty in order to do so.

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starstealingirl October 22 2009, 19:18:12 UTC

First of all: I'm glad you're picking this apart, because I need it. (Actually, I was hoping you'd say something: I was rereading your interview on HJ's blog when you commented!)

Here's what's going through my head at the moment. And bear in mind that: a) I'm not trying to make a clear argument here; only to do an in-class presentation that gives some context to Convergence Culture, and b) fandom studies is not my forte-- I've made a pretty conscious decision to not do fandom studies, because fandom is what I do when I don't want to study.

I've read excerpts from Textual Poachers, and also from Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers, and I'd say that you're right-- he does do a pretty fair job of including gender and sexuality issues, at least as involves ethnographic studies of fan cultures. (Though I certainly agree with you that race is all but absent in most of his work.) Granted, I'm only 100 pages into Convergence Culture at the moment, but I have to say I'm not impressed with the lack of gender, sexuality, race, etc. analysis in it ( ... )

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