Fanfiction, also spelled fan fiction, refers to amateur creative works based on existing media. Fanfiction authors use established characters, plots, and fictitious worlds to create their own stories or extend existing stories (Derecho, 2006). Often based on books, movies, or television shows, fanfiction can also stem from video games, music, YouTube channels, or any other type of public entertainment. While fanfiction has been around long before the internet, spread through fanzines, the world-wide web has allowed for the creation of large online fanfiction communities (Jenkins, 1992). Some of the largest fanfiction sites such as Fanfiction.net, Wattpad, and Archive of Our Own contain millions of stories, authors, and readers publishing, reading, and reviewing these works. Demographic information on authors is difficult to gather as many of these sites do not open their records to research nor do authors always leave identifying information. However, fan-generated research indicates that while fanfiction is composed by people of all ages, a majority of authors are teens (Sendlor, 2011).
Fanfiction is one new literacy practice primed for bridging the gap between traditional and New Literacies. Researchers use the world of online fanfiction communities as a prime example of many of the qualities of New Literacies (Knobel & Lankshear, 2014; Lankshear & Knobel, 2006), and many fanfiction studies draw on New Literacies for a framework for their research (e.g., Black, 2005; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015). Online fanfiction communities are a single new literacy that exhibits many of the overall qualities of New Literacies (involve new and changing technologies, are unbounded and valued for wide dispersion, are dynamic and deictic, are multimodal, involve new, complex interactions with text, are collaborative and participatory, are specialized, personalized, and authentic) while still engaging in the traditional books, stories, and texted-based writing valued in the traditional classroom.
Obviously, online fanfiction communities require new technologies in order for readers and writers to access and interact in an unbounded, ever-updating world of stories. Additionally, fanfiction spaces are multimodal and require new designs for reading and creating ((Black, 2006, 2007; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006). Fanfiction allows for multimodal and remixed literacy practices, exemplifying these key elements of New Literacies.
Also, online fanfiction communities are social, participatory, and spaces of “efficacious learning” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006). In this space, authors do not solely write what they know, but rather the community becomes a teaching space where feedback, models, and explicit instruction help individuals develop their skills (Korobkova & Black, 2014).
Beyond these New Literacies practices evident in online fanfiction spaces, many traditional literacy practices take place there as well. Lankshear and Knobel (2006) outlined how fanfiction communities exemplify traditional skills such as proofreading, literary criticism, and narrative writing. Fanfiction readers and writers often seek out or write stories based on traditional print novels and engage in traditional narrative writing and reviewing practices.
The ways in which adolescents often engage with traditional print books and write traditional prose while participating in online communities of review and interaction with authentic audiences make this activity a fertile ground for literacy and literature teachers.
To see how fanfiction has been studied within the field of literacy education, I searched the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database, along with Education Source, for the terms “fanfiction or fandom or fan fiction” and “literacy.” This resulted in forty-eight articles and books to be reviewed. For the purpose of this review of research, I narrowed this list by attending to only research articles. I also eliminated some articles that focused on fandom only rather than tying the phenomenon to education. This resulted in twenty-one focused, relevant articles.
The literature on fanfiction in education varies somewhat in populations studied. Most studies involve a small number of participants who were studied closely with ethnographic methods and interviews (Alvermann & Hagood, 2000; Black, 2005, 2007, 2009a, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Jwa, 2012; Kell, 2009; B. Kelley, 2016; Lammers et al., 2012; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Magnifico, Curwood, & Lammers, 2015; Roozen, 2009). However, some studies explore larger groups, including four studies of specific fanfiction communities (Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2013; Land, 2010; Thomas, 2006), and two studies involving using fanfiction in the classroom (McWilliams et al., 2011; Sauro & Sundmark, 2016). Because of the focus on individuals, much of the work has focused on what Lammers (2016) called “exceptional cases” of stand-out fanfiction authors. Though Magnifico, Curwood, and Lammers (2015) specifically attempted to study more “typical” cases.
Dominated by the work of one researcher, Rebecca Black, much of the included literature focused on English Language Learners in online fanfiction communities (Black, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Jwa, 2012; Sauro & Sundmark, 2016). A majority of the works focus on adolescents (Alvermann & Hagood, 2000; Black, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Jwa, 2012; Kell, 2009; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers et al., 2012; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Land, 2010; McWilliams et al., 2011), while three focused on adults (B. Kelley, 2016; Roozen, 2009; Sauro & Sundmark, 2016), and two focused on groups in which ages were not revealed (Lammers, 2013; Thomas, 2006). However, in the studies of adults, one was an adult who had been writing since adolescence (Roozen, 2009) and one was a study of future teachers so that they could use these techniques with adolescents (Sauro & Sundmark, 2016).
Finally, while none of the researchers explicitly intended to focus on female fanfiction writers, the studies of people or communities who already wrote fanfiction, as opposed to studies of classes using fanfiction, all either had female participants or noted that the majority of fanfiction writers were female.
The research on fanfiction, when explicitly stating a theoretical or conceptual framework, most often called upon a combination of sociocultural/ situated literacy and New Literacies/multiliteracies. Those articles citing sociocultural perspectives directly (Black, 2005; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015) emphasized the social interaction that takes place in online fanfiction communities. Similarly, those that cited situated literacy (Black, 2006; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Roozen, 2009) focused on online fanfiction spaces as “communities of practice” (Wenger, 1998) and “affinity spaces” (Gee, 2001).
The most prominent theoretical framework used in the research in online fanfiction communities is New Literacies. The researchers who cite New Literacies or 21st Century Literacies as a framework (Black, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Kell, 2009; Lammers, 2016; McWilliams et al., 2011) focus on how online fanfiction communities exemplify the New Literacy practices Lankshear and Knobel (2006) outlined as collaboration, participation, dispersion, and distributed experience (p.27). Along those lines, many of the articles referenced multiliteracies in their discussion of fanfiction in education, aligning their studies with a New Literacies perspective (Black, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015). These authors saw the “design” elements of multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) to be both integral to online fanfiction communities and relevant to literacy education.
Most of the studies in this review used similar methods of data collection. All of the studies in this review collected online posts such as fanfiction works and reviews for analysis. Many also included interviews with fanfiction authors to gain clarification or insight into what they were seeing posted (Black, 2007, 2009b, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Kell, 2009; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006). Regardless of the similar data collection methods, the studies in this review did frame their studies with different methodologies. Most frequently researchers explicitly framed their work as case studies (Black, 2006; Kell, 2009; Kelley, 2016; Sauro & Sundmark, 2016). Some used discourse or content analysis (Black, 2009b; Jwa, 2012; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Land, 2010; Magnifico et al., 2015). A small portion labeled their studies ethnographies (Black, 2005, 2007; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Lammers, 2013).
The main findings in a literature review of all of these articles included the following:
One of the most prominent themes to emerge in these pieces was the relationship between in and out-of-school literacies. Thirteen of the twenty-one sources addressed this concept (Black, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009a, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Land, 2010; McWilliams et al., 2011; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006). One of the main discussions regarding the relationship between in and out-of-school literacies was the disconnect between the two that students often face (Black, 2007; Black, 2008; Black, 2009c; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Thomas, 2006). Many differences between school writing and fanfiction writing were noted:
Unlike school-based writing, which tends to limit audience access to the teacher or other classmates who mostly see each other and each other’s writing during the school day, FFN [fanfiction.net] writing expands access geographically and temporally…unlike school-based writing, where teachers assess merit based upon perceived quality, successful writing in the FFN networked public requires understanding and conscious engagement with abstract audience. (Lammers & Marsh, 2015, p. 280)
These researchers speak to the ways in which the writing that students find relevant at home is not the same as the writing being done in the classroom. This causes a rift in application and relevancy.
However, some research spoke to the fact that, despite this rift, some students find their out-of-school fanfiction literacies helped them in school-based literacy (Korobkova & Black, 2014; Roozen, 2009). In fact, in Roozen’s (2009) study of one fanfiction writer turned English major his participant reflected on how the two worlds worked together saying, “I don't think that I ever thought of them as separate. I've always been combining them” (p.148). Because of this, many sources call for more research and increased teacher understanding of the literacies involved in fanfiction in order to more effectively teach adolescents (Black, 2005; Black, 2007; Black, 2008; Black, 2009; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Kell, 2009; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Land, 2010; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006).
As addressed earlier, several of the articles used a New Literacies framework for their studies. These and other sources highlighted some New Literacies practices in which participants in online fanfiction communities engage.
Relationship with audience. Many sources discussed the unique relationship between author and audience in online fanfiction spaces (Black, 2005, 2006, 2009a; Kelley, 2016; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Land, 2010; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006). Lammers (2016) described this relationship saying that in these online spaces, “writing and sharing are inextricably linked as engagement with the audience becomes inseparable from the act of writing” (p. 311). The immediate and constant access to audience and feedback in online fanfiction communities creates a sense of collaboration and participation in writing that is unmatched in traditional literacies.
Multimodal/remix. Beyond the audience element of new literacies, an extremely important aspect is the multimodal and remixed nature of texts found in online fanfiction communities. Several articles addressed this aspect of these online spaces (Black, 2005; Black, 2006; Black, 2007; Black, 2008; Black, 2009; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Kelley, 2016; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006) . From texts that are “linguistically and culturally hybrid” (Black, 2006, p.177), to texts composed using a wide variety of resources (Black, 2007), to texts created using various digital communication and writing tools (Thomas, 2006), to texts that are a mixture of different genres (Korobkova & Black, 2014), and, finally, to multimodal texts drawing on words, images, video, and audio (Roozen, 2009), fanfiction allows for multimodal and remixed literacy practices.
Researchers also outlined many motivational factors that played a role in why so many adolescents choose to spend so much time reading and writing online fanfiction. Two major themes that motivated the continued practices of reading and writing in these spaces were the sense of community and the building of voice and identity.
Community. One major motivational factor outlined by the literature was a sense of community within the online spaces (Black, 2005; Black, 2006; Black, 2009; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Kell, 2009; Kelley, 2016; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Thomas, 2006). Candler-Olcott and Mahar (2002) commented on community in online fanfiction:
Fanfiction writing also helped to develop and solidify relationships with various friends, online or otherwise. Whether they were sharing their texts with each other—or, as was the case with some of Rhiannon’s stories, writing their friends into the narratives in a more literal sense fanfics appeared to serve as ‘social glue.’ (p. 560).
In the case of their participants, writing fanfiction was social. It also showed belonging in an affinity space (Gee, 2001) and provided opportunities for feedback.
Identity. Of particular relevance to this study are the ways in which fanfiction relates to identity. Many authors spoke of the ways that fanfiction spaces allowed adolescents to form identities as writers and experts or explore parts of their offline identities (Black, 2005; Black, 2006; Black, 2007; Black, 2008; Black, 2009; Kelley, 2016; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Land, 2010; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006). Korobkova and Black (2014) explained that “this interest-driven space enables participants to take identity stances of authority, expertise, and legitimacy, which are often at odds with identity stances they are able to take within the classroom walls” (2014, p.624). Whether it is authority in writing, fandom, or cultural setting, adolescents are able to participate in literacy activities and leverage their strengths for belonging while working on their weaknesses. This literacy identity helps promote continued participation.
In this space, adolescents do not solely write what they know, but rather the community becomes a teaching space where feedback, models, and explicit instruction help individuals develop their skills. The literature addressed the pedagogical moves happening in online fanfiction communities (Black, 2005; Black, 2006; Black 2007; Black, 2009; Kell, 2009; Kelley, 2016; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2013; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Land, 2010; Thomas, 2006). This took the shape of feedback through reviews, fora dedicated to answering questions about writing, technology, or content, and mentor texts. Korobkova and Black (2014) spoke to this quality of online fanfiction spaces saying, “scholars aligned with digital media and learning research communities have argued that fans also create valuable informal learning spaces, in which fans learn and practice valuable skills while engaging with the object of their fandom” (p.619). Though this is not a formal learning environment, adolescent engagement in these spaces allows them to learn and grow in various literacy activities.
One final theme in the literature is the marginalization and therefore embarrassment that some adolescent fanfiction authors feel. Some researchers explained how fanfiction writing was disregarded by the educational community or how adolescents were hesitant to admit to writing fanfiction to their teachers (Black, 2007; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Thomas, 2006). Korobkova and Black (2014) saw this with many of their participants and explained that “this idea of a stigmatized teengirl fandom was echoed throughout the study, as participants spoke about fangirling as a set of practices that can be easily dismissed, or even laughed at, by parents and teachers” (p. 629). Despite the rich literacy activities evident in these communities, fanfiction writers are often dismissed because of stigmas about content and stereotypes about the frivolity of teenage girl pursuits.
Research in fanfiction in education settings is limited for many reasons. First, as a marginalized, adolescent, and often gendered activity (Black, 2007; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Thomas, 2006), many teachers, policy makers, and even researchers are unaware of fanfiction, much less its potential for literacy education. Beyond this, the challenge of the perceived stark separation between in and out of school literacies by many educational professionals prevents fanfiction from becoming a serious research topic in education (Black, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009a, 2009c; Chandler-Olcott & Mahar, 2002; Korobkova & Black, 2014; Lammers, 2016; Lammers & Marsh, 2015; Land, 2010; McWilliams et al., 2011; Roozen, 2009; Thomas, 2006).
However, even when fanfiction is seen for its literacy potential by adults, the ability to bring these types of out-of-school literacies into the classroom can be difficult because of student perception. Often students feel there is a difference between in and out-of-school literacy, making them unable to connect the two (Korobkova & Black, 2014; McWilliams et al., 2011; Thomas, 2006) . Furthermore, students may not want to connect the two. As Korbakova and Black (2014) pointed out, many adolescents like the fact that their fanfiction is “inaccessible to adults for the most part. Some highlight the positive aspects of carving out a space for themselves on the internet and the inability of adults to truly ‘get’ their passion” (p.626).
Regardless of adolescent resistance, researchers suggest that, despite the extensive literacy practices taking place in online fanfiction communities, the influence of teachers is necessary. Magnifico, Curwood, and Lammers (2015) state that their look at feedback in online fanfiction communities suggest that, “teachers’ expertise is deeply needed in the difficult task of developing students’ skills in writing, peer review and critique” (p. 158). A way to harness the beneficial literacy practices of online fanfiction communities combined with teacher expertise without alienating adolescents is needed. Practical studies of using fanfiction within the classroom exists, but needs to be expanded (McWilliams et al., 2011; Sauro & Sundmark, 2016). Additionally, examining classroom practices that may lead to students’ independent engagement with out-of-school literacy practices such as fanfiction might be a more fruitful area of study for the future.