lovebetweenthecovers:

The #‎LBTCScreenathon‬ hasn’t even begun, and we already have a VARIETY of screenings in the works at…
• a large military base in Hawaii
• a beautiful new public library in Halifax
• a romance readers’ conference in Denver
• a Landmark theater in Cambridge, MA
– and more!
For information about how to host a screening of your own, visit:http://lovebetweenthecovers.com/screenings

fandomthennow:

For the next round of posts, I’m going to focus on some of the ways fans described themselves in 2008. In order to get a sense of who was participating in the 2008 Fan Fiction survey, the participants were asked for some general demographic information. At the time, I wanted to get a sense of the mix of fans taking the survey. Now, I’d love to know what you make of this data.

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2) gender and sexuality

The vast majority of fans participating in the survey (96%) identified as female. Many participants identified as heterosexual (68%), but a significant portion of participants (32%) identified as non-heterosexual, including the 23% of participants that identified themselves as bisexual. That’s roughly a third of participants identifying as something other than straight.

I’ve got a few different things I’m wondering about this and I’d love to get your thoughts. 

  • First, what do you make of this data? Is there anything else you think we should pay attention to here? 
  • Also, how much does this match with your experience of fans and fandoms today?
  • Finally, how do you feel about surveys collecting this kind of information about fans? Do we need this kind of data? Is it useful? 

Share your ideas by replying to this post or by posting comments on the Fandom Then/Now website.

fandomthennow:

For the next round of posts, I’m going to focus on some of the ways fans described themselves in 2008. In order to get a sense of who was participating in the 2008 Fan Fiction survey, the participants were asked for some general demographic information. At the time, I wanted to get a sense of the mix of fans taking the survey. Now, I’d love to know what you make of this data. 

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1) ages

First, in 2008 the participants skewed younger. The survey was only open to participants 18 or older, but the vast majority of survey participants were under thirty years of age. These numbers may also imply that there is significant participation in fan culture from individuals younger than 18. However, since younger fans were excluded from participating, these fans and their reading practices are not represented by the 2008 survey results.

What do you make of these numbers and the ranges of ages represented? Is there anything else you think we should pay attention to here?

Also, how much does this match with your experience of fans and fandoms today? Do you think most fans are 30 and under or have things changed?

Share your ideas by replying to this post or by posting comments on the Fandom Then/Now website

fandomthennow:

The next area of the project I’d like to talk about are the participant demographics. This section of the project can be found here: The Participants.

To be honest, I’m ambivalent about the use of participant demographics in fan research. I’m not sure how helpful they are. What do you think? Do you think demographics are useful? What do you want people to think about when they’re looking at demographic data on fans? What advice would you give them?

only those for whom a sexual fantasy ‘works,’ that is, those who are aroused by it, have a chance of telling us to what particular set of conditions that fantasy speaks, and can analyze how and why it works and for whom. Sexual fantasy materials are like icebergs; the one-tenth that shows about the surface is no reliable indicator of the size or significance of the whole thing. Sexual fantasy that doesn’t arouse is boring, funny, or repellent, and unsympathetic outsiders trying to decode these fantasies (or any others) will make all sorts of mistakes.

Joanna Russ, “Pornography By Women For Women, With Love,” 89

one important conclusion we can draw from these stories is that sexual fantasy can’t be taken at face value. Another is that no sexual cues are morally privileged (though some kinds of sexual behavior certainly are) since sexualizing any kind of behavior drastically changes the meaning of that behavior.

Joanna Russ, “Pornography By Women For Women, With Love,” 88

on the difference between calling something erotic vs. pornographic: 

“to call something by one name when you like it and another when you don’t is like those married ladies we all know who call what they do ‘making love’ while what is done at single bars is ‘shallow and trivial sex’”

– Joanna Russ, “Pornography By Women For Women, With Love,” 79 

With the popularity of the Fifty Shades trilogy and commercial romance publishers wanting to build on the trend, I suspect there are more serial romances available to [commercial romance] readers today than there were in 2008. Fan fiction stories continue to be produced as works-in-progress or works in a series, as they always have. Fan fiction also continues to deal with source-texts that change and complicate the character relationships fans are interested in. However, fans can track these updates much more easily than ever with Archive of Our Own subscriptions or by following specific Tumblr tags. Does this mean that serials are more available to fans as well?

From Fandom Then/Now: Romance & Fan Fiction

What do you think? Share your thoughts at Fandom Then/Now.