FANDOM

Issues to consider.
ARE THEY MAD?
http://vimeo.com/899847



ISSUES TO CONSIDER.
Use text on moodle - Media Fandom and
Audience Subcultures


Use Associated PowerPoint:

http://www.slideshare.net/Nikchik89/media-fandom-
and-audience-subcultures
ISSUES TO CONSIDER
Are they just Crazy people?
What are FAN CULTURES?
Communities and Subcultures
Fan Activism
Protecting the text!

ARE THEY JUST CRAZY PEOPLE?

June 2010. Los Angeles Times:
When 'Twilight' fandom becomes addiction

BBC News. 14
th
August 2013.
One Direction fandom an 'obsession'




Psychological studies on fandom sometimes appear to confirm this!

E.g. Personality correlates of football fandom.
Miller, Stuart
Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior, Vol. 13(4), Nov 1976, 7-13.

That fans, whether football, music etc can display extreme forms of desire
for trills, senation etc that can be pathological.




ARE THEY JUST CRAZY PEOPLE?

Fan Stereotypes

Negative notions of fans, seen through the lens of
extremism and psycho-pathology, dominated the
popular consciousness when scholars began to
examine the phenomenon of fandom.

John Sullivan. Media Audiences p193

Indeed the word Fan is derived from Fanatic.


IS THIS THE CASE?
the fan is characterized as (at least potentially) an obsessed loner,
suffering from a disease of isolation, or a frenzied crowd member,
suffering from a disease of contagion. In either case, the fan is seen as
being irrational, out of control, and prey to a number of external forces.

Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization JOLI JENSON in The Adoring
Audience FAN CULTURE AND POPULAR MEDIA edited by LISA A. LEWIS. P13


Press full of stories of the loner stalking a celebrity, or the frenzied crowd at a rock
gig, the crowd out of control.. Etc..

ARE FANS CRAZY????
Jenson continues to say that these characterisations perhaps
say more about the press and their view of the world than the
fan.
{The} fan type mobilizes related assumptions about modern
individuals: the obsessed loner invokes the image of the
alienated, atomized mass man; the frenzied crowd member
invokes the image of the vulnerable, irrational victim of mass
persuasion. These assumptions about alienation,
atomization, vulnerability and irrationality are central aspects
of twentieth-century beliefs p14

PERHAPS THE WORLD IS ISOLATED
Perhaps its the case that the world is an isolating
place for people.

Some thinkers have argued that modern world is
alienated, that people are powerless in the face of
large scale institutions etc... And feel that they have
no control.

I dont usually recommend Wikipedia but this is quite
good as an overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation

NEED FOR BELONGING AND SOLIDARITY
If world is an alienated place we can seek comfort
from others who share our views...

Perhaps this is the underlying cause of fan
cultures?
So instead of fans being obsessive's they are to be
understood as people seeking a way of
compensating for the frustrations and loneliness of
modern life.

What they do is just a form of what we all do,
seeking friendships and companionship...
FAN CULTURES
The emergence of social groupings around a particular
interest or activity is quite common. What distinguishes fans
from other kinds of social groups (like stamp collectors or golf
enthusiasts, for instance) are the subjects of their admiring
gaze. Rather, negative perceptions arise because the
materials that fans have selected to rally around are typically
found on the low end of the cultural hierarchy.
J Sullivan. op cit. p196
Perhaps this is another reason for why fandom is derided?

A snobbery towards popular culture?

FAN CULTURES
But read paragraph in Sullivan on Dick Hebdiges book
Subculture: The Meaning of Style
P196.

Basically fandom can be seen as a way for people to
construct and define their identities through fashions, styles
etc... Fandom as an extension of this sub cultural pursuit.
ACTIVISM AND PROTECTING THE TEXT
Read Sullivan pp 196 - 202