Module: MCO4102-20 Media Fandom

Level: 4

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: James Newman

Module Tutor Contact Details: J.Newman@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

Traditionally, media fans have been considered as especially 'active' and even pathologised audience members. However, practices once considered the domain of the fan have become increasingly mainstream and normalised elements of contemporary media culture.

The module encourages you to investigate the histories of media fandom and the changing relationships between media producers and consumers. This is important particularly in light of the emergence of new media production tools and distribution networks that see a shift from ‘material’ to ‘digital’ fandoms. Thinking globally, the module asks you to consider similarities and differences between Japanese Otaku and more widely theorised forms of US and European fan culture.

As well as focusing on specific fan communities (such as those coalescing around particular media texts or franchises) and studying distinctive fan practices (such as fanfiction, machinima, fanslation), the module asks you to critically examine the myriad ethical, legal and intellectual property issues that arise at the intersection of media fans and rightsholders.

By eschewing celebratory accounts of fan creativity, the module encourages you to consider the questions of authenticity, contestation and cultural power; industry mobilisation and co-opting of fandoms; and the problematic nature of certain fan cultures and practices.

Key to this module is the negotiation of your positions as fans, aca/fans and antifans - operating at the interface between critically-detached scholars, enthusiastic (over)identified or even contrary and resistant audiences. In this way, the module encourages you to pose broader questions about doing media studies and how you might go about theorising your own interests.

2.Outline syllabus

Defining media fans

The module commences with a challenge to the popular discourse that presents fans as misfits or obsessives, ‘nerds’ or ‘geeks’, and instead considers fans through the lens of audience research. By exploring concepts such as Levy’s ‘collective intelligence’ (1997) and its adoption by Jenkins (e.g. 2006), the module encourages the consideration of fandom as social, participatory and productive. You will explore the idea that media fans are proactive constructors of an alternative culture (and ‘shadow cultural economy’, after Fiske 1992) using elements ‘poached’ from popular media that are reworked and reframed.

Fans and/as producers

You will explore the creativity, productivity and scope of fans and their textual productions as well as their harnessing of new platforms and tools for making and distributing their creations (e.g. subbing, re-editing, fanslating, cosplay, Machinima, Let’s Plays and the uses of blogging, image, video sharing and streaming platforms). Importantly, the module retains a global perspective throughout dealing, in particular, with work that examines Otaku culture and its similarities to and differences from Western fan practices.

Fandom, labour, authorship and intellectual property

However, while celebratory discourses abound, it is essential that we also investigate the myriad ethical and legal questions centring on ownership and intellectual property that often lead to conflicts and tensions with rightsholders (see Newman 2013). Furthermore, the module explores questions of labour - and what Julian Kuchlich has called ‘playbour’ - along with debates around the highly problematic nature of some fan communities.

Studying fans and studying as a fan

Drawing on more recent scholarship on fandoms (e.g. Booth, 2018), you will explore claims that ‘fandom’ is no longer a distinctive category as contemporary media production and consumption practices have incorporated and mainstreamed its once marginal strategies and tactics.

3.Teaching and learning activities

In the opening block of the module, lectures will introduce key themes and theories from the extant research on media fandom and will map the territory of the subject. Seminars are structured around key readings, activities and exercises. These sessions allow you to explore ideas in greater depth and to demonstrate your applied knowledge and understanding through exemplification and the identification of further case studies.

The second block of the course focuses on the practicalities of doing fan studies research in support of your Research Portfolio (S1). This involves working through a series of case studies including investigations of specific media fandoms (e.g. Star Wars, Harry Potter, AKB48); technologies and platforms (video, text and image sharing, game engines, non-linear writing tools); and types of fan practice (fiction, art, song, romhacking, subbing, translation, machinima). These sessions will also draw out key issues of ethics, legality, authorship, intellectual property and ownership.

In preparation for the Reflective Commentary (S2), this second block of the module will return to Jenkins and Hills’ conceptualisation of the fan, aca/fan and antifan and the ways these positions impact on scholars’ - including your own - approaches to critical media studies.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Research Portfolio on an aspect of fandom (3,000 words)

• % Weighting: 75%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Reflective Commentary on your own position as an aca/fan (1,000 words)

• % Weighting: 25%