Online Fan Communities Research Articles

Virtually real: learning ethicality in an online fan community

In this paper, we offer a non-typical snapshot of interaction from the field of Reality TV fandom to explore new ways of conceiving the relationship between empathic response, ethical awareness and emergent possibilities for learning as conditioned by online participatory cultures. We provide a limit-case analysis of an instance of situated ethical action among members of the fan forum Television Without Pity (TWoP) to explore the context-sensitive and unpredictable nature of learning in fan communities characterized by collective (no one knows everything), participatory (everybody knows something), and emergent (arising in the interactions between the knower and the world-to-be-known) forms of knowledge. We suggest that learning in the context of this participatory fan culture involves an ongoing willingness to respond to triggers, make discernments and articulate perspectives within a virtually real community of others.

From fan appropriation to industry re-appropriation: the sexual identity of comic superheroes

In his controversial text Seduction of the Innocent, Fredric Wertham's (1954) description of Batman and Robin as a ‘wish dream of two homosexuals living together’ (Lendrum 2004, p. 70) represents one of the first published queer readings of superhero characters. This text signalled the commencement of, and subsequent intense interest in, the way superhero characters often portray a ‘camp' sensibility (Medhurst 1991) representative of a queer performative identity (Butler 1993). This is most evident in online fan-communities where the sexual identity of popular superheroes are continuously explored and debated in discussion forums and expressed through the production of slash fiction and queer-themed fan art. The ambiguity inherent in superhero comics has traditionally allowed and encouraged fans to operate as ‘textual poachers’ (Jenkins 1992) appropriating these texts for their own means. Today, however, there exist a new generation of comic book superheroes, in the form of established industry-penned ‘out’ gay characters. This paper examines the impact and meaning of the shift from the ‘implied’ to ‘actual’ in terms of fans’ acceptance, resistance and desire to further appropriate comic texts.

Korean TV Serials in the English-Language Diaspora: Translating Difference Online and Making It Racial

Korean TV Serials in the English-Language Diaspora:Translating Difference Online and Making It Racial Brian Hu In an online discussion forum for the Korean television serial Love Story in Harvard (SBS, 2004-05), one fan joined in a raucous denunciation of the poor English spoken by the program's lead actors, all three of whom play law or medical students at Harvard University: "I cringe at the sound of every english word they try so hard to pronounce. it's like taking your fingernails and running it across the blackboard. jeez . . . they just do not take into consideration of the viewers outside korea. Have some sympathy for the US audience !! pls !!!"1 Of course, the program, produced by Korean television network SBS, was never intended for the U.S. audience but rather for the domestic Korean market as well as those in the East and Southeast Asian regions. But with the ease of online piracy and the international reach of Asian diasporas, the "Korean wave" (or hallyu in Korean) spreading throughout Asia has become a cross-regional phenomenon, attracting fans from all continents even before legal distribution channels have been established. As the quote above suggests, this underground network of fans has a lot invested in these television serials. The anxiety over poor English is more than a cry for realism; it is an elaboration of an Asian American identity separate from Asia and sensitive to the stigma of linguistic inauthenticity as a population deemed perpetually "foreign" by mainstream America.2 The quote also articulates a sentiment common to many pirate communities in the Asian diaspora: the powerlessness of nonrecognition as a consumer market. The problem is that overseas Asians around the world don't have a voice in the Asian media because they are not included in the target audience. These online communities are alternative spaces in which complaints are lodged and identities are worked through with-or in spite of-other members of the diaspora around the world. However, first I must acknowledge that these self-conscious elaborations of identity are a rarity in online fan communities like D-Addicts, Soompi, and Asian Fanatics. While the forums for Love Story in Harvard are full of attacks on the program's poor accents (which makes sense, given that these Web sites are frequented by English speakers), very few of the fans connect their disappointment with representation to any political or panethnic agency.3 Fans on these Web sites come from different parts of the globe and thus interpret the dramas (and bad accents) through different cultural contexts and desires that may or may not be related to progressive identity politics. What we observe instead are postings that demonstrate a considerable overflow of emotional investment in Korean television serials. Emotion, not politics, is perhaps a more suitable category through which to explore the forums' fan activity, which ranges from complaints about the use of language, to confessions of sexual attraction to stars, to yearnings for an online store selling the jewelry seen in the television program. This does not mean that racial discourse is absent but rather that race and panethnic affiliations undergird an emotional rather than a political investment in fandom. One can observe the (un)conscious workings of race and ethnicity in the emotion-laden practice of translation-an essential means of maintaining and informing fans in forums where not all users understand all Asian languages. The collective act of translation mobilizes resources from around the world in order to sustain the emotional investment necessary for fandom in the absence of traditional advertising and publicity. In this article I explore the ways fan communities for Love Story in Harvard on the Web sites D-Addicts, Soompi, and Asian Fanatics exemplify what I call affective translation communities. First, I define this term and how it emerges out of the medium specificity of the online forum. I then show how these fan communities bring [End Page 36] to the ground the various ways in which the global proliferation of media texts and their official and unofficial discourses activate multiple transnational sites of affective engagement along lines of gossip, fashion, sexuality, and especially race. As an international network of English...

Specialist music, public service and the BBC in the Internet age

This article reports on a study into the implications of the development of online fan communities for specialist music broadcasting on the domestic radio stations controlled by the United Kingdom's publically funded the British Broadcasting Company. In particular it focuses on jazz, soul reggae/urban and indie rock. The early sections explore ideas of specialist music and their role in the development of the idea of public service broadcasting within the United Kingdom. This is followed by an analysis of the activities and communities of specialist music fans online. The final section reports on the way the BBC organizes the production of radio and online media around specialist music forms. We also outline our proposals on modularization and dissemination of content, the exploitation of the taste-leadership of the stations' presenters and experts, and the possible ways in which changes in the production of programmes could serve broadcast and online media. The study concludes that the BBC places the support of specialist music as a key argument in defence of their role as a public service broadcaster, and thus for public funds, as well as demonstrating significant policy and organizational support for the implications of new online media. However, we argue that an appreciation of the place of radio and online media in specialist fan culture is not the basis for organizing production. This results in two orientations amongst staff: a broadcast one built around the centrality of the station brand and an emergent interactive one built around the potential of the new media and the BBC as a provider of public service media.

The De/Stabilization of Identity in Online Fan Communities

This article explores the negotiation of fan identity within two internet-based fan communities (the television fan site City of Angel and videogame fan site Silent Hill Heaven) in responses to two destabilizing events (the ‘Save Angel’ campaign and the release of the Silent Hill film). The article explores three aspects of the posting activity relating to these events: the ways that members, at times, constitute what it is to be a fan through the reification of their own agency; the ways that posters conceptualize external threats to their own interests; and the ways that they respond to internal challenges to the stability of these settings. Developing a relational approach to the study of fan identity, the article examines how these moves are tied into ongoing struggles for legitimacy within these sites.

`Showing the girl'

This paper examines the cultural phenomenon of `new burlesque', a subculture in which young women take part in striptease performances which invoke the iconic styles and routines associated with mid-20th century cabaret. By reading burlesque websites alongside the celebrity culture and advertising, the article examines how the retro styles of dress and make-up associated with this subculture have circulated through a range of media sites as an alternative mode of femininity. By focusing on the intersections between online fan communities, popular images of burlesque, fashion, and beauty, I argue that burlesque styles involve a reclaiming of traditionally normative sites of identity production and that computer technologies are an extension of the technologies of dress, cosmetics and movements through which femininity is produced. I go on to suggest a re-framing of burlesque as a site of parody and resistance which `troubles' critiques of femininity within both feminist theory and queer theory.

Hearth and Hotmail

Hearth and Hotmail

Beyond the web: integrated digital communities

This paper details two case studies exploring integration within digital communities. Three types of integration are introduced information, technological and online offline integration. These concepts are explored through two online fan communities and through a mobile web-based system. All types of integration were present and are vital to the communication and interaction needs of the members.

Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenomenon

Harry Potter and the Fan Fiction Phenomenon