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.

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.

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.

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 Applying Brenda Dervin's sense-making methodology to fan studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Sense Making ◽  
Sports Media ◽  
Interpretive Study ◽  
Fan Behavior ◽  
Humanistic Approach ◽  
Fan Identity

Communication scholar Brenda Dervin created sense-making methodology (SMM), an approach for conducting interviews that draws on metatheoretical concepts such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and the humanistic approach to psychology. Since its formulation, SMM has been utilized across different disciplines through the development of interview protocols for both one-on-one interviews and focus groups. Among these studies are those that focus on people's engagement with media products or with each other in relation to media products. These SMM audience and reception studies demonstrate that the methodology can be useful for studying fans by bringing a more systematic, and thus quantifiable, approach to a phenomenological, interpretive study of fan behavior, be it mental, emotional, physical, or social. SMM would allow for studies that analyze how fans make sense of a situation involving their fandom and fan identity. After explaining what SMM is and how it has been used to study fans, a case study demonstrates how SMM may suggest a way to define being a fan and applying the concept of fandom beyond the traditional domains of sports, media, and popular culture.

“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.

scholarly journals Rhetorical moves in disclosing fan identity in fandom scholarship

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne E. Raw
Keyword(s):  
Fan Studies ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Fan Identity

The position of the acafan in fan studies remains under negotiation, and authors must make choices about if and how identities as fans are disclosed within scholarship. An analysis of sixty-nine articles published in Transformative Works and Cultures identified the rhetorical moves made when disclosing fan identities and assessed the trends in these disclosures that are present across a sample of fan studies scholarship. These moves of disclosure facilitate rhetorical identification between author and audience, enable negotiation of overlapping fan and scholar identities, and demonstrate a valuing of fan identities in scholarship. The question of disclosing fannish identity reflects the ongoing evolutions of the role of acafandom and questions about the intersections of identity and scholarship. Making choices and practices explicit and visible will help acafans continue to examine the dual position of fan and scholar and will help better reflect the balance between the two.

scholarly journals "Fake geek girls: Fandom, gender, and the convergence culture industry," by Suzanne Scott

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyra Hunting
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Convergence Culture

Review of Suzanne Scott, Fake geek girls: fandom, gender, and the convergence culture industry. New York: NYU Press, 2019, paperback, $30 (304p) ISBN 978-1479879571.

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