Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The people responsible for Xena: Warrior Princess seem to violate the general understanding of television—that makers create and fans consume; they were known to participate in fan discussions on the internet, fans appear as characters in several episodes, and, controversially, some have claimed that, as a result of fan agitation online, Xena’s makers began to incorporate suggestions of lesbianism between the two main characters into the show. However, upon further investigation, the relationship becomes far more complex. When fans occupy the grammatical second person—as in DVD commentaries whose presumptive audience is the fan—the attitude is exactly as collegial as it seems at first; however, when fans become the third person—as they do in the aforementioned appearances in episodes—the negativity surrounding the sign “fan” in our culture becomes primary. In my analysis of this dual signification of “fan,” I consider the role of genre as well as how representation causes a reduction to the most-common meaning, concluding that visual representation’s seeming transparency and broad dissemination more completely reinforces the power differential between fans and makers than fan-friendliness expressed in commentary deconstructs it.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Fans represent an important segment of television audiences that programmers cultivate across genres. While scholars have examined fans for sports, soap operas, and reality programs separately, they haven’t looked for commonalities in fanship across programming genres. This study assessed the ways in which the viewing experience for sports fans is similar to—and different from—the viewing experience for fans of other popular genres of programming. Self-administered questionnaires were completed by 267 students at a large Midwestern university. Close-ended questions assessed the viewing experience for soap operas, reality programs, situation comedies, daytime and late night talk shows, adult-oriented animation programs, and prime time dramas. Fans of televised sports were likely to engage in a variety of pre-game planning and information search activities. Their viewing was more likely to be purposive and content-oriented. Sports fans appeared to be active viewers who took a keen interest in the action on the screen. They were emotionally involved and cared about the outcomes. Perhaps as a result, they also were more likely to check media sources for follow-up information about the games they watched. Sports fans stood alone. Fans for other programming genres were not as active or invested in their favorite programming genre.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: As digital comic book consumption (both legal and illegal) continues to rise in popularity, the comic book fan community appears conflicted over the effect that digital scans and files have on the values of reading, collecting and fan identity politics. Historically, ownership of comic texts has been the locus for determining comic fan social capital, but do digital scans hold the same cultural capital that printed comic books hold? Does the dissemination of post-purchased digital scans by electronic means primarily hurt copyright holders through lost sales or help copyright holders through social promotion?
Examining the aftermath of two contentious controversies involving scanned comics, 896 discussion forum posts were gathered and coded for frame analysis. Seeking to understand how fans frame their justification for or against download activities, the work provides insight into the relationship between fan and text.
Consistent with the third wave study of fandom studies, the current work draws insight from the collected sample to draw inferences about how consumers related to popular culture texts in general, as well as distinguishing unique characteristics about comic book fandom owing to their unique text.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: English football (“soccer”) has undergone significant changes in the last fifteen years. Gone are the days when fans stood on concrete terraces, surging forward when a goal was scored, singing and chanting with one voice, fighting with opposing fans and invading the pitch. Now fans sit down in orderly rows, and some seem more concerned with refreshments than with what is happening on the pitch. Higher ticket prices and safer stadia have meant more middle class fans and women are attending football than ever before. Traditional working class fans worry that these fans dilute the atmosphere, change the meaning of fandom and are not genuine fans. The issue of authenticity is extremely important for fans, as it helps them to define why being a fan is such a key part of their identities. This paper examines how both traditional and new fans conceptualize the authentic or genuine fan, using interviews with English football fans. By analyzing the ways that fans construct hierarchies of authenticity, I explain how class, region and gender influence definitions of fandom, and how fans use the notion of authenticity to validate their identities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the distinctions between mass and vernacular popular culture as manifestedin the fan productions of Star Trek fans. Fan-produced video represents an opportunity for ordinary people to take the means of cultural production into their own hands. However, becauseof its roots in an already-existing, culture industry-produced world, there may exist limits to the amount of resistance this form of vernacular culture can provide. To explore these tensions, Icompare two fan film productions based on the popular Star Trek television and movie franchise. These two productions, both of which are distributed through the Internet, illustrate the differentlevels of attachment to and freedom from the main text that characterize much of fan film.