Tag: fan studies

The regifting economy that is emerging, I argue, is the result of the industry’s careful cultivation of a parallel fan space alongside grassroots formations of fandom. By precariously attempting to balance the communal ideals of fandom’s gift economy with their commercial interests, the regifting economy of ancillary content models in particular can be viewed as attempting to regift a narrowly defined and contained version of fandom to a general audience. This regifted version of fandom that ancillary content models represent exchanges grassroots fandom’s organically generated output and fluid exchange of fan works for the regulation and resale of fan works through contests and the elusive promise of credibility.

“Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content models," Suzanne Scott

FanLib remains the most histrionic example of an attempted (and failed) commercial co-optation of fandom, arguably overshadowing the discussion and analysis of more covert and complex instances of corporate attempts to construct their own fannish spaces for profit. My concern, as fans and acafans continue to vigorously debate the importance or continued viability of fandom’s gift economy and focus on flagrant instances of the industry’s attempt to co-opt fandom, is that the subtler attempts to replicate fannish gift economies aren’t being met with an equivalent volume of discussion or scrutiny.

“Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content models," Suzanne Scott

FanLib remains the most histrionic example of an attempted (and failed) commercial co-optation of fandom, arguably overshadowing the discussion and analysis of more covert and complex instances of corporate attempts to construct their own fannish spaces for profit. My concern, as fans and acafans continue to vigorously debate the importance or continued viability of fandom’s gift economy and focus on flagrant instances of the industry’s attempt to co-opt fandom, is that the subtler attempts to replicate fannish gift economies aren’t being met with an equivalent volume of discussion or scrutiny.

“Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content models,” Suzanne Scott

My concern, as fans and acafans continue to vigorously debate the importance or continued viability of fandom’s gift economy and focus on flagrant instances of the industry’s attempt to co-opt fandom, is that the subtler attempts to replicate fannish gift economies aren’t being met with an equivalent volume of discussion or scrutiny.

There are a number of important reasons why fandom (and those who study it) continue to construct gift and commercial models as discrete economic spheres. This strategic definition of fandom as a gift economy serves as a defensive front to impede encroaching industrial factions.

(…)

Media producers, primarily through the lure of “gifted” ancillary content aimed at fans through official Web sites, are rapidly perfecting a mixed economy that obscures its commercial imperatives through a calculated adoption of fandom’s gift economy, its sense of community, and the promise of participation.

Suzanne Scott, Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content models (via fanhackers)

My concern, as fans and acafans continue to vigorously debate the importance or continued viability of fandom’s gift economy and focus on flagrant instances of the industry’s attempt to co-opt fandom, is that the subtler attempts to replicate fannish gift economies aren’t being met with an equivalent volume of discussion or scrutiny.

There are a number of important reasons why fandom (and those who study it) continue to construct gift and commercial models as discrete economic spheres. This strategic definition of fandom as a gift economy serves as a defensive front to impede encroaching industrial factions.

(…)

Media producers, primarily through the lure of “gifted” ancillary content aimed at fans through official Web sites, are rapidly perfecting a mixed economy that obscures its commercial imperatives through a calculated adoption of fandom’s gift economy, its sense of community, and the promise of participation.

Suzanne Scott, Repackaging fan culture: The regifting economy of ancillary content models (via fanhackers)

The romance genre is partly defined by content and mostly by the way it is distributed and consumed. The early novel and romance fiction are written and especially consumed by women. This consumption is framed as private and purely for pleasure, and this as something like a guilty secret.

(Catherine Driscoll, “One True Pairing: The Romance of Pornography and the Pornography of Romance,” 80)

The romance genre is partly defined by content and mostly by the way it is distributed and consumed. The early novel and romance fiction are written and especially consumed by women. This consumption is framed as private and purely for pleasure, and this as something like a guilty secret.

(Catherine Driscoll, “One True Pairing: The Romance of Pornography and the Pornography of Romance,” 80)

We often do not realize that beyond the dichotomy of proactive or passive consumer of popular culture, especially media culture, that we are contained within sometimes loose, sometimes strict borders of fandom, and yet most people are fans of something. Are we afraid to confront the reality that scholarship of fandom translates in its entirety to a study of our complex interpersonal and social relationships and construction of personal identities? Does the field challenge academics’ identities, formal disciplines, and scholarly norms?

 Douglas Kellner and Heather Collette-VanDeraa (reviewing Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington’s Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World)