Videogames: Henry Jenkins - fandom and participatory culture
Henry Jenkins is a key audience theorist – an expert in fandom and participatory culture.
We need to apply Jenkins's ideas to our videogame CSPs but also think back to where his ideas are relevant with other media texts we have studied. His work on participatory culture links with Clay Shirky in places and the concept of fandom is important to many media texts - from TV drama to magazines.
Notes
Henry Jenkins is an expert in fandom and participatory culture. Key to this idea is the concept of the ‘prosumer’ – audiences that create as well as consume media. This culture has revolutionised fan communities with the opportunity to create and share content. It also links to Clay Shirky’s work on ‘mass amateurisation’.
Fandom is now big business – with Comic-Con events making millions. More importantly, the internet has demonstrated the size of fan communities so it is no longer a minority of ‘geek’ stereotypes but mainstream popular culture (such as Marvel, Harry Potter or Doctor Who).
Jenkins defends fan cultures and argues that fans are often stereotyped negatively in the media because they value popular culture (e.g. films or games) over traditional cultural capital (high brow culture or knowledge). The irony is fan culture is often dominated by middle class, educated audiences.
Jenkins discusses ‘textual poaching’ – when fans take texts and re-edit or develop their meanings, a process called semiotic productivity. Fan communities are also quick to criticise if they feel a text or character is developing in a way they don’t support.
EU copyright law: a threat to participatory culture?
A new copyright law currently moving through the European Parliament has been described as a potential 'meme-ban'. It would place the responsibility for the distribution of copyrighted material with the platform rather than the user or copyright holder - and therefore could lead to huge amounts of content being removed. If implemented in full, it could end textual poaching, fan-made texts and re-edits and many more examples of fandom and participatory culture. You can read more on the potential implications in this Wired feature.
Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks
The following tasks will give you an excellent introduction to fandom and also allow you to start exploring degree-level insight into audience studies. Work through the following:
Factsheet #107 - Fandom
Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) to find Media Factsheet #107 on Fandom. Save it to USB or email it to yourself so you have access to the reading for homework. Read the whole of Factsheet and answer the following questions:
1) What is the definition of a fan?
We need to apply Jenkins's ideas to our videogame CSPs but also think back to where his ideas are relevant with other media texts we have studied. His work on participatory culture links with Clay Shirky in places and the concept of fandom is important to many media texts - from TV drama to magazines.
Notes
Henry Jenkins is an expert in fandom and participatory culture. Key to this idea is the concept of the ‘prosumer’ – audiences that create as well as consume media. This culture has revolutionised fan communities with the opportunity to create and share content. It also links to Clay Shirky’s work on ‘mass amateurisation’.
Fandom is now big business – with Comic-Con events making millions. More importantly, the internet has demonstrated the size of fan communities so it is no longer a minority of ‘geek’ stereotypes but mainstream popular culture (such as Marvel, Harry Potter or Doctor Who).
Jenkins defends fan cultures and argues that fans are often stereotyped negatively in the media because they value popular culture (e.g. films or games) over traditional cultural capital (high brow culture or knowledge). The irony is fan culture is often dominated by middle class, educated audiences.
Jenkins discusses ‘textual poaching’ – when fans take texts and re-edit or develop their meanings, a process called semiotic productivity. Fan communities are also quick to criticise if they feel a text or character is developing in a way they don’t support.
EU copyright law: a threat to participatory culture?
A new copyright law currently moving through the European Parliament has been described as a potential 'meme-ban'. It would place the responsibility for the distribution of copyrighted material with the platform rather than the user or copyright holder - and therefore could lead to huge amounts of content being removed. If implemented in full, it could end textual poaching, fan-made texts and re-edits and many more examples of fandom and participatory culture. You can read more on the potential implications in this Wired feature.
Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks
The following tasks will give you an excellent introduction to fandom and also allow you to start exploring degree-level insight into audience studies. Work through the following:
Factsheet #107 - Fandom
Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) to find Media Factsheet #107 on Fandom. Save it to USB or email it to yourself so you have access to the reading for homework. Read the whole of Factsheet and answer the following questions:
1) What is the definition of a fan?
An individual with an extreme and uncritical energy.
2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet?
2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet?
Bad-to-the-bone/genuine fan-the 'insiders' inside some random being a fan. They value to what extent they have been a fan and how a lot of information they have accomplished from their examination.
Novice New fanatics of the media content Against fan-People contrarily connected with the media content.
subcultures that empower fans to impart a feeling of brotherhood to one another and take part in exercises identified with their fan base and the media content they appreciate.
4) What is Bordieu’s argument regarding the ‘cultural capital’ of fandom?
Bordeiu contends that fandoms offers an emblematic force and status for the fan.
Ceremonies
Amusing readings
Resisting the pundits
Tomb Raider and Metroid fandom research
Look at this Tomb Raider fansite and answer the following questions:
1) What types of content are on offer in this fansite?
The webpage offers connects to all other Tomb Raider and Lara Croft locales (registry) with an agenda of what each website brings to the table (e.g fanfiction, fanart, chatrooms, and so forth) Also, the site contains many blog entries and recordings in regards to walkthroughs of the games, Lara's history, news page, game downloads and a whole lot more.
2) What does the number of links and content suggest about the size of the online fan community for Tomb Raider and Lara Croft? Pick out some examples from this page.
There are such a large number of connections and substance on the page which proposes that the online fan base for the computer games is immense and will continue developing since an ever increasing number of individuals will tap on these connections. A few models are to their web based life pages and other fan destinations that are of the comparative classification and computer game.
3) Scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the short ‘About me’ bio and social media updates. Is this a typical example of ‘fandom’ in the digital age? Why?
I imagine that it is a run of the mill case of 'being a fan' in the advanced age - the essayist is a 'caffeine addict', 'hopeful person' and 'otaku' (a Japanese expression for individuals with fanatical interests) and I think these are very cliché qualities that we would anticipate from fans.
Now look at this Metroid fansite and answer the following:
1) What does the site offer?
Shinesparkers is a Metroid fan network committed to bringing its fans forward-thinking Metroid news and elite substance, for example, Harmony of a Hunter. It features the innovativeness of Metroid fans from over the world by exhibiting their work to our crowd. We regularly team up with the more extensive Metroid people group and bolster their undertakings to guarantee the Metroid fan network is the absolute best it very well may be. Shinesparkers expects to be the principal multilingual Metroid fan site, with content converted into numerous dialects with an end goal to connect with an extended crowd.
2) Look at the Community Spotlight page. What does this suggest about the types of people who enjoy and participate in fan culture?
The kinds of individuals highlighted on the Community Spotlight page incorporate specialists, cosplayers and artists. This recommends the individuals who appreciate and effectively take an interest in fan culture are commonly imaginative and put resources into the videogame business as it goes about as a methods for fuelling their inventiveness.
3) There is a specific feature on Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. What do the questions from fans tell you about the level of engagement and interest in the game and franchise from the fan community?
This reveals to me that the fans are incredibly dedicated and care about unmistakable insights about the game.
Henry Jenkins: degree-level reading
Read the final chapter of ‘Fandom’ – written by Henry Jenkins. This will give you an excellent introduction to the level of reading required for seminars and essays at university as well as degree-level insight into our current work on fandom and participatory culture. Answer the following questions:
1) There is an important quote on the first page: “It’s not an audience, it’s a community”. What does this mean?
I feel that this statement alludes to the way that the possibility of online life and fandoms are a methods for interfacing with individuals - it isn't uneven, however it is an open door for interconnectivity and different degrees of correspondence.
2) Jenkins quotes Clay Shirky in the second page of the chapter. Pick out a single sentence of the extended quote that you think is particularly relevant to our work on participatory culture and the ‘end of audience’ (clue – look towards the end!)
Crowds are currently being called 'prosumers' - proposing that as customers deliver and flow media, they are obscuring the line among novice and expert. They may likewise be called 'rousing shoppers' - recommending that a few people assume a more dynamic job than others in forming media streams and making new qualities.
3) What are the different names Jenkins discusses for these active consumers that are replacing the traditional audience?
In the event that everybody concurs that those individuals once in the past known as shoppers will increase another job right now computerized culture, there's very little understanding about what to call that job. Some call such individuals "loyals," focusing on the estimation of shopper duty in a period of channel destroying; some are calling them "media-actives," proposing that they are considerably more liable to request the option to take an interest inside the media establishment than past ages; some are calling them "prosumers," recommending that as buyers deliver and circle media, they are obscuring the line among beginner and expert; some are calling them "uplifting customers" or "connectors" or "influencers," proposing that a few people assume a more dynamic job than others in forming media streams and making new qualities.
4) On the third page of the chapter, what does Wired editor Chris Anderson suggest regarding the economic argument in favour of fan communities?
Chris Anderson proposes that the genuine monetary advantage would originate from having the option to bring down creation expenses and afterward compensating for this by working up an a lot more grounded connect with their focused on shoppers.
5) What examples does Jenkins provide to argue that fan culture has gone mainstream?
The principle model given is that fan culture is never again naturally connected with the cliché 'quirky' fan, and that fan culture at last commands the media now. Fior model, the flavors of fans and their thoughts significantly affect the creation of media writings, and in molding the media content.
6) Look at the quote from Andrew Blau in which he discusses the importance of grassroots creativity. Pick out a sentence from the longer quote and decide whether you agree that audiences will ‘reshape the media landscape from the bottom up’.
"This base up vitality will produce gigantic innovativeness, yet it will likewise destroy a portion of the classes that arrange the lives and work of media creators". I would concur with this since this will assist crowds with reshaping the media scene from the base up.
7) What does Jenkins suggest the new ideal consumer is?
Already, the perfect purchaser "sat in front of the TV, purchased items and didn't argue." They were progressively latent and were exclusively shopper. Be that as it may, the new perfect purchaser is an individual who "talks up the program and spreads word adjoin the brand."
8) Why is fandom 'the future'?
Being a fan is the future since media organizations can't exist without them. "Media organizations act diversely today since they have been molded by the expanded perceivability of participatory culture: they are producing new sorts of substance and shaping new sorts of associations with their purchasers."
9) What does it mean when Jenkins says we shouldn’t celebrate ‘a process that commodifies fan cultural production’?
This statement implies that we ought not advance this procedure as bigger media organizations misuse the items that are delivered by the fans - the fans are not compensated for their endeavors.
10) Read through to the end of the chapter. What do you think the future of fandom is? Are we all fans now? Is fandom mainstream or are real fan communities still an example of a niche media audience?
I believe that the fate of being a fan is that it will begin to develop later on and how a greater amount of an effect on our lives. It will be a piece of people groups personality and individuals will remember them for that. I imagine that everybody is fans. I feel that being a fan isn't standard yet I imagine that it will be later on however I believe that genuine fan networks are as yet a case of a specialty media crowd.
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