2024/1

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All Was Well? A Comparison of Harry Potter Slash Fan Fiction Activity Online in the Years 2013 and 2024
Cuntz-Leng, Vera (2024) , S. 39-62
Harry Potter fan fiction accompanied and dominated the establishing of fan fiction as cultural practice in the digital realm that appealed to a wider mainstream audience. It is undeniably still a large community with an immense creative output, whereas slash fan fiction (homoerotic and/or queer rewritings of the original material) make up for more than half of all the Harry Potter fan texts. However, platforms and certain trends (e.g., popular pairings) have evolved and changed over time. Therefore, the approach of this paper is two-fold: Comparing data gathered in 2013 on Harry Potter slash fan fiction on the four platforms Archive of Our Own, FictionAlley, Ink-Stained Fingers, and Restricted Section with recent data of Archive of Our Own enables us to show a) changes in the quantity and availability of fan fiction as well as migration movements and b) changes in the popularity of certain character constellations (pairings/ships) used in Harry Potter slash. It will become visible that the Harry Potter slash fandom is still very much alive but—or possibly because—it is not a static phenomenon but very sensitive towards external and internal influences. Long-term monitoring of online fan activities may help us to better understand why and how fandoms evolve and persist over time.
Connecting Dots. Editorial to the First Issue of Fandom | Cultures | Research
F | C | R Editors (2024) , S. 1-3
From Analog to Digital, Between Love and Hate. The Birth of Manganime Fandom and Industry in Argentina
Labra, Diego; Del Vigo, Gerardo (2024) , S. 77-92
In the early 1990s in Argentina, comic book fandom entered a new phase when anime hit cable TV, changing the media landscape, reception practices, and popular culture. The ensuing development of a local industry around Japanese pop culture was then shaped by an antagonistic relationship between the old and the new, as well as by a series of broader transformations that are characteristic of late capitalism: deterritorialization, digitalization, transmediatization, and customization of experiences. In this paper, we approach the case threefold: First, on the publishing side, a fixed exchange rate regime with the USD ushered both local production’s terminal crisis and the birth of a specialized retail circuit based on imports from Spain, Mexico, and the United States, mostly superhero and Japanese comics. The dominance of this secondhand glocalization ended when a local upstart, Ivrea, made headway at the turn of the century with a heavily glocalized manga line that influenced the development of local fandom. Secondly, said fandom’s performativity at media industry events: The rise of big events such as Fantabaires (1996-2001) acted as the backdrop to a clash between the old guard of comics fans and the newcomer otaku. The latter counted many women among them, thanks to fan practices such as cosplay, which brought a change into stereotypically masculine socialization spaces. After Argentina’s economic collapse in 2001, manganime events became smaller and more frequent, complemented by a nascent fan-made merchandising economy. The third crucial factor is online sociability. With the spread of Internet access throughout the 2000s, cable TV’s broadcasting logic yielded to post-broadcasting. The fandom’s socialization practices shifted from live events like conventions to forums and social networks, super-places that allowed the development of new sex-affective subjectivities. Along with previous fan practices, new digital materialities (fan art, fan fiction) generated means of prosumption and sociability that continued to blur the line between cultural imports and local production.
#NotMyShip. Die Entwicklung von Anti-Fandoms innerhalb populärer Fanfiction
Deckbar, Anne (2024) , S. 4-25
Fanfictions sind Teil einer langen Tradition des Fandoms. Sie interpretieren und erweitern die jeweiligen Serienuniversen, dienen als Raum für Interaktion und zeigen, welche Serien besonders populär sind. In diesem Zusammenhang muss auch das Phänomen des Anti-Fandoms in den Blick genommen werden, denn auch diese Form des Fandoms trägt – wenn auch oftmals unerwünscht – zur Popularität einer Fanfiction und somit auch der jeweiligen Serie bei. Anti-Fans können die Popularität steigern, indem sie durch abwertende Kommentare auf digitalen Plattformen wie Reddit und Wattpad Diskussionen befeuern. In diesem Kontext spielen auch die von Fans erstellten Ranglisten eine wichtige Rolle. Die Platzierungen dienen als schnelle Popularitätsmarker, die unmittelbar zeigen, was im Fandom populär ist und was nicht. Dieser Beitrag perspektiviert anhand einer Gegenüberstellung vom etablierten und langlebigen Fandom zu Star Trek mit dem aktuellen Fandom zu My Hero Academia Ausprägungen von Anti-Fandoms. Der Fokus liegt auf analogen Fanbriefen sowie Kommentaren im digitalen Raum, um diskursive Ähnlichkeiten in Anti-Fandoms aufzudecken und zu verstehen, wie Debatten um Kanon, Fan-Hierarchien und gesellschaftspolitische Themen sowohl das Fandom als auch die Rezeption von Serien prägen können.
Dolling Up YouTube. Playbor in the DollTube Creator Economy
Hurley, Melanie (2024) , S. 63-76
This article argues that DollTube—the collection of YouTube channels and videos dedicated to doll-related topics—is a digital space that is both a play environment and a work environment. Through an analysis of five DollTube channels that were drawn from a sample of 26 channels, it shows how DollTubers transform their play with dolls into carefully curated ‘digital video play’ (that is, play that involves the capture of moving images and the uploading of the resulting footage to a video-sharing platform). In curating their play, the DollTubers also perform work within and for the creator economy; most importantly, they become involved in the process of self-branding. The aim of this paper is showing that the DollTubers’ activities meld play and work together, but that each DollTuber melds these two types of behavior together in their own way. As such, DollTube channels variously (co-)emphasize imaginativeness, critique, education, consumption, personal aggrandizement, or community building, and each thereby demonstrates an individual ‘playbor’ style that contributes to a uniquely branded persona and an individual niche in the doll community.
Researching Series Fatigue. A Data and Methodology Paper
Einwächter, Sophie G.; Jensen, Thessa (2024) , S. 123-134
This data paper describes the data and methodology behind a collaborative and exploratory study from 2023–2024 that addresses the phenomenon of ‘serial fatigue,’ which appears to arise from the abundant availability of serial media content on the internet. The data paper complements the scientific article that emerged from this study and was published in Fandom | Cultures | Research (1/2024) and provides a detailed description of the dataset published via the media/rep/ data repository. The paper traces the course of the study, from its initial conceptualization to various phases of the research process, from data collection and coding to considerations of the data‘s longevity. Furthermore, the paper highlights the study‘s limitations, such as the homogeneity of the sample, but also addresses its advantages, such as rich, qualitative insights into contemporary media consumption. It also describes the challenges of data management across countries. Aiming to facilitate the sharing of data, reusability and transparency in research, the paper is intended to serve as a bridge between the raw data in the dataset (questionnaire, preliminary coding table, final codebook with code descriptions and examples, survey responses and interview transcripts, informed consent) and the broader research community.
Beyond the Coffee Shop: Fan Community, Critique, and Conversation through Good Omens Alternate Universe Fan Fiction
Cremonese, Kara (2024) , S. 26-38
This article explores alternate universe (AU) fan fiction as a critique of plot, characterization, and the queer narrative through close reading and analysis of AU fan works in the Good Omens fandom. I argue that if we examine the trend of AU fan fiction within a specific fandom, we can see the kinds of conversations fans are having with each other, how they are connecting and communicating, and, perhaps most interestingly, how fans examine or critique the plot and characterization of canon works and create an ongoing conversation by changing the circumstances of the original texts. Writer Neil Gaiman and director Douglas Mackinnon’s 2019 television series, Good Omens—the first season of which is an adaptation of Gaiman’s 1990 novel with Terry Pratchett—is intentionally adapted as a love story between the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who must work together to find the missing antichrist and avert the Apocalypse. The main characters are canonically nonbinary but present as masculine and genderfluid, so their relationship is by its nature queer, and the storyline can be interpreted as a coming-out narrative. AU fan fiction often takes this a step further in making the characters human and emphasizing the lived experiences of queer men, closeted or otherwise. AU authors maintain this and other conversations with their readers by telling the same story in new ways. AU fan fiction may also create an avenue for the fan community to revisit beloved characters whose stories have concluded without rehashing known storylines, as was the case with Good Omens fans before a second season was announced. Collected via autoethnography, the fan works analyzed in this article demonstrate several ways fan authors communicate analysis of the plot and characterization of the Good Omens television series (and, by extension, the Good Omens novel) within the fan community.
Exploring Viewers’ Experiences of 'Series Fatigue’
Einwächter, Sophie G.; Jensen, Thessa (2024) , S. 106-122
Streaming services may be thriving, but some viewers become increasingly critical of serial content and the way it is presented and distributed. This article addresses the phenomenon of ‘series fatigue,’ which has become common with recipients who encounter an unmanageable abundance of consumable material online. Despite the positively perceived emancipation from linear television, opaque platform dynamics create new requirements for self-organization and management of leisure media consumption. Accordingly, overwhelmed viewers state that watching TV and streaming-based series has started to feel like work. Many also criticize that the premature cancellation of series has become an all too regular experience, while others feel patronized by the platforms’ experimenting with no-binge release schedules. The traditionally strained fan-producer relationship is thus further complicated by powerful third parties: platforms that act as distributors and curators and thus ultimately gatekeepers of content. This qualitative, exploratory, and collaborative study from Denmark and Germany brings to light various facets of ‘series fatigue,’ drawing on qualitative interviews with a sample of students and scholars in which their experiences of series fatigue as well as their coping strategies come to light. It also extrapolates possible consequences for fan cultural media consumption in the age of platform capitalism: The sheer amount of available content may lead to people falling out of love with series more quickly or not becoming fans in the first place but rather sticking to a more superficial or distracted viewing mode associated with non-fans. As recommendation-based streaming platforms seem to encourage individual binge-watching (cf. Lickhardt 2024) and “cyclical fandom” (Hills 2005) rather than socially-oriented and ritualized viewing practices, the future of fandom as a collective activity and experience seems to be called into question.
Big Brother Brasil. Longevity, Innovations, and Interaction with Fans
Greco Alves, Clarice; Teixeira Arantes, Fábio (2024) , S. 93-105
This article analyzes the TV segment CAT BBB [BBB Customer Service] of Big Brother Brasil, broadcast between 2020 and 2023, to understand how it operated as a strategy to prolong fans’ experience. This case study is based on the theoretical contributions by Jenkins (2007; 2009), Fechine (2014), Gosciola (2014), and Pratten (2015). The analysis was developed around the following research question: What elements does the segment CAT BBB potentially add to the reality TV show Big Brother Brasil? The hypothesis was that the segment attempted to play at least three different roles: 1) bringing a fresh perspective to the show in response to its longevity after 24 seasons, 2) exploring transmedia strategies to bring innovation, and 3) enhancing the interaction with fans. The main takeaways lead to the perception that the fans’ engagement with this media phenomenon, while certainly a consequence, also contributes to the show’s longevity. Despite the impact of fans, the cyclical aspects of the broadcast also encourage reflections on the concept of originality in audiovisual production.

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