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Fandom and Audience SubculturesWhat is a fan and how do they impact the media?What is a fan?Think, Pair, Share.The geeky, socially challenged, but ultimately benign and lovable fan:

This notion of the sweet but socially awkward fan exists alongside a much darker view:

Fan StereotypesDefining what a fan isShort for fanatic, the term originally referred to religious membership of or belonging to the temple, a temple servant, a devotee.

TASK: Read the section entitled Fan Stereotypes and give a summary of all of the negative associations with fans.

Audience to FanA common scenario of the progression6our interactions with media texts today rarely have any clear boundaries. The expansive, malleable nature of the Internet and the declining cost of computers have allowed audiences to easily extend their media experiences beyond the reception of the original text. Texts can be reinterpreted in many new and contrary ways: through connections to other audiences online, creation of new media texts based upon the source material, andthanks to the power of inexpensive computers to achieve professional-quality video and audio editing even alteration of the original media text.John L. SullivanMedia Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Powers (2013)

The Rocky Horror Picture ShowWhere would these people be on the continuum?

The Rocky Horror Picture ShowAudience Participation GuideTask: Take a look at the audience participation guide for cinema viewings. What do you think of it?

http://www.rockyhorror.com/participation/

The unique social environment surrounding Rocky Horror points to some of the fascinating ways in which fandom alters and even creates new cultural experiences out of popular media texts. These unique interactions between fans and media place theories of fandom squarely in the sights of audience scholars.Consumers, Enthusiasts, Fans, or Producers?Think, Pair, Share: Where do these people sit on the Continuum of Fandom?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akZ1PwSrRPMTask: Start reading and answeringMedia Fandom and Audience Subcultures.pdfThe impact of fansTASK: Discuss what impact you think fans can have on a media text. Positive and Negative.Fans CulturesThe difference between watching a [television] series and becoming a fan lies in the intensity of their emotional and intellectual involvement.There are two elements to fan cultures:15Impacts of Social ElementFan ActivismThe social interaction among fans is not merely to spur a deeper appreciation of the original text. Close-knit communities of fans can also offer direct challenges Fans can be mobilized to press producers and media corporations for change."

Fan ActivismChallenging Institutional ProducersTASK: Find out what the Star Trek letter writing campaign was and the impact that it had. What was the campaign?Who was involved?What were the instructions?What was the impact of the campaign?17Impacts of Interpretive ElementAdapting own interpretationsFan internalise these mainstream cultural materials (films, tv series etc.) into their own personal lives.

Media fans are members of subcultures in the sense that they adopt their own linguistic codes and symbolic forms the delineate them from the rest of the population.

TASK: What are the linguistic codes and symbolic forms of these fans?

Impacts of Social and Interpretive ElementsRead Fans and Media Texts: Protecting Continuity and Canon (Pg10 11) to answer questions below:How can the social interactions and interpretation of texts impact on the production?What causes this?