Henry Jenkins has this to say about fandom in the book 'Textual Poachers':
“Organized fandom is, perhaps first and foremost, an institution of theory and criticism, a semi-structured space where competing interpretation and evaluations of common texts are proposed, debated, and negotiated and where readers speculate about the nature of the mass media and their own relationship to it.”
I generally agree that this process of theory crafting, criticism, and debating/negotiating the relationship fans have with the creators and companies that produce comics is a HUGE part of what the community spends their time and effort on in online spaces. He also says:
“This fan views shifts in characterization or format as acts committed against the fans by the producers (unwarranted damage to their common cultural property) and thus as acts warranting a direct personal response.”
Which can often make the debate that comic book fans spend so much time on so personal and heated. Especially now that digital culture has brought fans and creators so close together.
In the book, 'The Internet of Us' Lynch argues that social media and digital technologies undermine our 'reasonableness', or ability to hear conflicting arguments weight them equally, and says that due to our embeddedness in groups of people like ourselves it is now MUCH harder for us to genuinely weigh other beliefs, grounds, and epistemic values.
So, the main goal of 'fandom' is to create and weight theories, beliefs, and criticism, but the nature of people in the digital age is to become surrounded by people that already agree with your worldview, pushing us all towards more extreme beliefs. (There's an article that supports this that I can't quite find right now, but I'll add it here when I do.) Ultimately this results in a split comic fandom with sides are unable to hear conflicting arguments and theories, but become more and more convinced that the other side is causing 'unwarranted damage to their common cultural property'.
I often see people copying / re-using pre-made arguments and just changing them slightly based on the current issue or format. (almost as if they were internet memes) In the next few blogs, I'd like to take a look at some of the main issues and the arguments both sides hold onto because I think this will become more clear when there are specific issues at hand.
“Organized fandom is, perhaps first and foremost, an institution of theory and criticism, a semi-structured space where competing interpretation and evaluations of common texts are proposed, debated, and negotiated and where readers speculate about the nature of the mass media and their own relationship to it.”
I generally agree that this process of theory crafting, criticism, and debating/negotiating the relationship fans have with the creators and companies that produce comics is a HUGE part of what the community spends their time and effort on in online spaces. He also says:
“This fan views shifts in characterization or format as acts committed against the fans by the producers (unwarranted damage to their common cultural property) and thus as acts warranting a direct personal response.”
Which can often make the debate that comic book fans spend so much time on so personal and heated. Especially now that digital culture has brought fans and creators so close together.
In the book, 'The Internet of Us' Lynch argues that social media and digital technologies undermine our 'reasonableness', or ability to hear conflicting arguments weight them equally, and says that due to our embeddedness in groups of people like ourselves it is now MUCH harder for us to genuinely weigh other beliefs, grounds, and epistemic values.
So, the main goal of 'fandom' is to create and weight theories, beliefs, and criticism, but the nature of people in the digital age is to become surrounded by people that already agree with your worldview, pushing us all towards more extreme beliefs. (There's an article that supports this that I can't quite find right now, but I'll add it here when I do.) Ultimately this results in a split comic fandom with sides are unable to hear conflicting arguments and theories, but become more and more convinced that the other side is causing 'unwarranted damage to their common cultural property'.
I often see people copying / re-using pre-made arguments and just changing them slightly based on the current issue or format. (almost as if they were internet memes) In the next few blogs, I'd like to take a look at some of the main issues and the arguments both sides hold onto because I think this will become more clear when there are specific issues at hand.
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