Something Jenkins wrote has really stuck with me: “One
becomes a fan not by being a regular viewer of a particular program but by
translating that viewing into some type of cultural activity, by sharing feelings
and thoughts about the program content with friends, by joining a community of
other fans who share common interests” (473). This seems to imply that to be a
fan means to be an active participant in a community. Do we agree with this?
Can you be a fan of something without actively participating in some community
(whether in conversation or online), or can I watch something at home, never
talk about it, but still be considered a fan? Is this term too limiting and
necessitates an expansion, or does it remain restrictive and fan doesn’t imply
just strongly liking something anymore?
I honestly think that this is one of the pitfalls of qualitative, ethnographical research into fandom. If we are to observe the fandom, unless you are a member of that fandom, the only way to access their cultural, social capital is through tangible representation of their interests. Hence, scholars would have to rely on interviews or actual creative endeavors that the more zealous spectrum of fans engage themselves in.
ReplyDeleteEngaging with fans that do not participate in such activities would be near impossible. I remember working as a producer in Korean television, while we were planning K-pop contents that attempted to draw a map of the fandom across activities and levels of engagements, there would be some fans that explicitly did not want to be made visible. Their extensive knowledge of as well as anonymous engagement with fan pages were known to us through their acquaintances, but they simply refused to be shown in public as a fan, whether it be in the form of research data or televised interviews.
As limiting as the term may be, if we are to avoid simply representing fandom in crunched-up numbers and statistics, then, Jenkins' definition of active fandom is the only method to visualize the cultural forces of an audience, it seems.
I agree, Maddie. It seems that this definition of "fan" only accounts for active and more hardcore fans, situating passive fans (not sure how to word this exactly) as common viewers. I do understand that it would make it hard to discuss active fans if the low-key ones were also put in the same category, but I think this also comes to show how fandoms have their own hierarchies. Maybe we could distinguish active and passive fans by having the passive viewers be called fans (because they are) and the active, hardcore, convention-loving and fanfic writer viewers be called stans (thank you Twitter)?
ReplyDelete