A Fangirl’s Place Is in the Resistance

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-50
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Culture Industry ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
Convergence Culture ◽  
Do So

This chapter historicizes the foundational relationship between feminism and the field of fan studies and considers the ways in which this relationship has been threatened by the mainstreaming of the field alongside the mainstreaming of fan culture. To do so, this chapter returns to two of the field’s structuring theoretical binaries (incorporation/resistance and affirmational/transformative) to argue that while these categories are essentialist, they are also essential to understanding which fans (and by extension, fan studies) are embraced within the convergence culture industry. Finally, this chapter explores anxieties among some feminist fan scholars that the rapid expansion of the field and the mainstreaming of fan culture might create a “postfeminist turn,” in which the interests of industry are centered.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Correctness ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
Convergence Culture

This introduction briefly introduces the book’s topic and historical scope and establishes “the convergence culture industry” as an analytical framework. This portmanteau of Henry Jenkins’s “convergence culture” and Adorno and Horkheimer’s “the culture industry” is positioned as a polemic, but nonetheless one that can help us understand the gendered mainstreaming of fan culture and attempts to standardize fan identities and practices in the digital age. As the title of the introduction suggests, it also situates this moment within fan and geek culture (and the privilege of white, straight, cis-gendered men in it) within a broader array of antifeminist pushbacks against “political correctness” and “social justice warriors.” Accordingly, the introduction concludes with a consideration of whether systemic attempts to remarginalize female fans within both fan culture and fan studies might be productively, if allegorically, framed through the GOP’s “War on Women,” emergent “Men’s Rights” and alt-right movements, and nostalgia for a lost status quo.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 221-234
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Culture Industry ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Convergence Culture ◽  
Fan Identity

The conclusion explores the ongoing place of feminism within contemporary fan studies, reasserting it as the field’s “OTP” or “one true pairing” in fannish terms. It also brings together the various strains of reactionary “fan fragility” (a play on the concept of “white fragility”) that has been cultivated within the convergence culture industry and explored throughout the book. Centrally, the conclusion foregrounds emergent work from an array of fan scholars addressing other axes of identity (race, age, ability, and so on), ultimately calling for more intersectional considerations of fan identity moving forward.

“Get a life, will you people?!”

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-75
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Hegemonic Masculinity ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Convergence Culture ◽  
Fictional Representations

This chapter considers how the reframing of fans as a power demographic over the past decade recuperates the figure of the fanboy into hegemonic masculinity. Drawing on both journalistic and fictional representations, this chapter suggests that fangirls have been systematically erased from this narrative of the “empowered” fan within the convergence culture industry. In tracing how this narrative of “fan empowerment” has devolved into concerns about “fan entitlement” in recent years, this chapter contends that these discourses still benefit the most privileged fans within the convergence culture industry (white, straight men), while offloading critiques of fan culture onto the most disempowered within this decade, marginalized fans.

Terms and Conditions

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-143
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Media Industries ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
Convergence Culture ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Participatory Practices

This chapter investigates how media industries’ partial and conditional embrace of fan culture and participatory practices subtly colors perceptions of which fans are (in many cases, quite literally) valuable within a post–Web 2.0 media landscape driven by user-generated content. In order to interrogate both the legal and ideological “terms and conditions” that govern sanctioned modes of fan participation within the convergence culture industry, this chapter focuses on two key issues. First, it considers how fan labor has been industrially co-opted, contained, and commercialized through a series of test cases. Second, it addresses the growing prominence and industrial reliance on enunciative fan production through an analysis of AMC’s fan aftershow The Talking Dead, considering how the show temporally (rather than legally) censures fan production, stressing “correct” interpretations that economically and ideologically reinforce industrial interests.

From Poaching to Pinning

2019 ◽  
pp. 184-220
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fictional Characters ◽  
Beauty Culture ◽  
Convergence Culture ◽  
Curatorial Practice ◽  
Modes Of Engagement

If the prior four chapters survey the ways in which female fans and their creative practices have been marginalized or contained, then this one contemplates the ways in which geek girls are hailed within the convergence culture industry through fashion and beauty culture. Centrally, this chapter examines the political possibilities of conceptually moving from poaching (as a mode of feminist intervention) to pinning (as a feminine curatorial practice on sites like Pinterest) alongside efforts to route female fans towards postfeminist or neoliberal modes of engagement. The second half of this chapter addresses the growing intersections between fan fashion and cosplay as a fan practice (e.g., constructing costumes inspired by fictional characters and embodying those characters in real-world spaces such as fan conventions) by historicizing and contextualizing “everyday” or “casual” cosplay merchandising trends offered by fancentric retailers (Her Universe, Hot Topic, etc.) and considering these items as a form of fannish “drag.”

One Fanboy to Rule Them All

2019 ◽  
pp. 144-183
Author(s):  
Suzanne Scott
Keyword(s):  
Culture Industry ◽  
Perceived Ability ◽  
Convergence Culture

Chapter 5 discusses how professionalization runs apace differently for fanboys and fangirls within the convergence culture industry. Through an analysis of emergent authorial archetypes like the “fanboy auteur” and the “fantrepreneur” and how they model fannish consumption, this chapter considers who can more or less easily trade on their fan identities for professional gain. Specifically, this chapter theorizes the industrial and fannish appeal of these figures as “moderators” for the evolving relationship between industry and audience, and their perceived ability to speak fans’ “language.”

scholarly journals It's not all about the music: Online fan communities and collecting Hard Rock Café pins

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lincoln Geraghty
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Hard Rock ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
The World

Previous studies of music fan culture have largely centered on the diverse range of subcultures devoted to particular genres, groups, and stars. Where studies have moved beyond the actual music and examined the fashion, concerts, and collecting ephemera such as vinyl records and posters, they have tended to remain closely allied to notions of subcultural distinction, emphasizing hierarchies of taste. This paper shifts the focus in music fan studies beyond the appreciation of the music and discusses the popular fan practice of collecting souvenir pins produced and sold by the Hard Rock Café (HRC) within a framework of fan tourism. Traveling to and collecting unique pins from locations across the globe creates a fan dialogue that centers on tourism and the collecting practices associated with souvenir consumption. Collectors engage in practices such as blogging, travel writing, and administration that become important indicators of their particular expression of fandom: pin collecting. Membership requires both time and money; recording visits around the world and collecting unique pins from every café builds fans' cultural capital. This indicates an internationalization of popular fandom, with the Internet acting as a connective virtual space between local and national, personal and public physical space. The study of HRC pin collecting and its fan community suggests that HRC enthusiasts are not so because they enjoy rock music or follow any particular artist but due to the physical ephemera that they collect and the places and spaces they visit.

scholarly journals Perception-based Indicator for Sustainability of Shrimp Culture in the Less Favorable Areas at Southern Coast of Yogyakarta

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Suadi Suadi ◽  
Hery Saksono ◽  
Bambang Triyatmo
Keyword(s):  
Development Project ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Shrimp Farming ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Economic Indicators ◽  
High Price ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
Shrimp Culture

Shrimp farming has been introduced since the mid-1980s at the southern coast of Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY). However, the industry was not well growing in the initial stage. The new shrimp development project also promoted in the early of 2000s, particularly in Jangkaran Village, Subdistrict of Temon, Kulon Progo District and Poncosari Village, Subdistrict of Srandakan, Bantul District, but many of shrimp farms fail because of shrimp diseases, lack of capital to recover and shrimp farming experiences. Recently, the shrimp culture industry experienced rapid expansion along the coast of the two districts. This study aimed to determine the profile and growing of shrimp farming at the southern coast of DIY and to identify the technical aspects, social, and economic indicators of sustainable shrimp culture in the less favorable areas. To identify the sustainability of current shrimp culture, the study develop four indicators consist of technical indicators (6 sub-indicators), economic indicators (9 sub-indicators), social indicators (7 sub-indicators), and environmental indicators (8 sub-indicator). The study was conducted during March to October 2014 by using a combination of literature study and survey at two selected villages: Jangkaran and Poncosari Villages. The total 82 respondents were interviewed; consist of shrimp farmers, coastal communities, community leaders, and local government. The study showed that the rapid growing of shrimp farming were caused by several factors, among others: (1) the existence of technological innovation in shrimp farming in the sandy soil areas, particularly the lower cost in the pond investment and the more easier of seawater collecting; (2) high price and market opportunities of the commodity; and (3) changes in the physical environment due to the threat of coastal erosion which damage the fisher livelihood, thus demanding adaptation strategies. Shrimp farmer in average managed 2,138 m2 and implemented intensive to super intensive cultivation technology, with an average stocking density of 144 shrimp/m2. Production per year in average reaches 25.9 ton/ha and generating revenue of IDR286.544.232 per year. The total cost of production is estimated at IDR210.590.175 per year, and generated a net profit of IDR75.954.057 per year. The perception based indicator of sustainability showed the environmental related issues were in average have a low value. Thus, environmental regulation of aquaculture is an important aspect to be considered in promoting sustainable development of shrimp farming at the southern coast of the province.

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