Prof. Romana Andò

October 10th 2016

Key-words

Fans constitute a particularly active and vocal community of consumers whose activities direct attention onto [the] process of cultural appropriation. (Jenkins 1992, p. 28)

Michel de Certeau (1984) has characterized such active reading as “poaching,” an impertinent raid on the literary preserve that takes away only those things that are useful or pleasurable to the reader:

“Far from being writers ... readers are travellers; they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write, despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it themselves” (174).

De Certeau’s “poaching” analogy characterizes the relationship between readers and writers as an ongoing struggle for possession of the text and for control over its meanings. (Jenkins 1992, p. 24)

De Certeau offers us another key insight into fan culture: readers are not simply poachers; they are also “nomads,” always in movement, “not here or there,” not constrained by permanent property ownership but rather constantly advancing upon another text, appropriating new materials, making new meanings (174).

The semiotic productivity: is characteristic of popular culture as a whole rather than... fan culture specifically. It is essentially interior, being concerned with how audience members understand media texts.

The enunciative productivity: fan talk is the generation and circulation of certain meanings of the object of fandom within a local community... But important though talk is, it is not the only means of enunciation available. The styling of hair or make-up, the choice of clothes or accessories are ways of constructing a social identity and therefore of asserting one’s membership of a particular fan community (Fiske 1992:38).

The textual productivity: Fans produce and circulate among themselves texts which are often crafted with production values as high as any in the official culture. The key differences between the two are economic rather than ones of competence, for fans do not write or produce their texts for money (Fiske 1992:39).

«Precisely because identities are constructed within, not outside, discourse, we need to understand them as produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies» (Hall 2000. «Who needs ‘identity’» «?).

Especially media discourses and practices.

“the self is a symbolic project which the individual must actively construct out of the available symbolic materials, materials which "the individual weaves into a coherent account of who he or she is, a narrative of self-identity." (Thompson 1995)

Performativity is a series of practices which mark body according to a grid of intelligibility in such a way that the body itself becomes a familiar fiction

Identity itself is an illusion retroactively created by our performances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc

(gender) identity is “a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame”

One’s gender is performatively constituted in the same way that one’s choice of clothes is curtailed, perhaps even predetermined, by the society, context, economy, etc. within which one is situated.

She prefers wearing fabrics which are soft, delicate and simple in design. The feminine woman loves drapey fabric, or clothing with pretty details, ruffles and bows. If you fall into this category, floral accessories such as a scarf & other accessories such as pearls, brooches, chains or hair pieces to will add interest to your outfits. She loves splurging on pretty clothes, delicate underwear, and beauty products and loves a good pampering session – but then again, don’t we all!

https://lourdesofstyle.wordpress.com/tag/charlotte-sex-and-the-city-style/

We live in the ‘performative society’ – a society in which the human is crucially constituted through performance.

Contemporary life is a matter of spectacle: the goal is to see and to be seen.

Poaching is no longer a struggle against the media industry power, but has shifted itself in the cut & remix culture enhanced by digital technologies.

Collecting is now guaranteed by endless online repertoires provided both by media and grassroots products, according to the logic of collective intelligence and sharing.

Consumption concerns more traceable and searchable objects whose value lies precisely in being associated with specific cult media imageries.

Performing becomes an ordinary everyday practice managed through the symbolic materials provided by media.

One of the link between fans and cult products is expressed in terms of fashion poaching, and then, in terms of fashion performance.

Within fandom communities, the appropriation of clothes – or better, the appropriation of costumes – has always been functional as the representation of the individual’s identity as a fan in contexts that validate these appropriations and performances (such as fan meetings, conventions, parties).

‘cosplay’ is a typical fandom trait and represents a negotiation space between ‘objective’ processes (the industrially produced media text that pushes the consumption) and the ‘subjective’ processes that are able to explain the fan’s interest, passion and engagement (Hills 2002).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE_d5rD4U6Y

Fashion industries are aware of the fan’s constant search for fashion items and brands, so they have begun to colonize the media imagery in a less indirect way.

For example, they exploit the product placement strategy, which can be viewed as a sort of merchandising of the media protagonists’ identities and can expand the media consumption experience.

Audiences, in fact, wish to identify with the media content and are ready to buy original clothes from the media content.

There is not a single and distinctive model to imitate, but many fashion experiences to be inspired by in representing the self.

The audience seems uninterested in imitating a specific role model by assuming it as a whole (Gauntlett 2002), especially because it is often set in a context very different from their own (such as historical, dystopian or foreign), or because the audience loves some characters’ traits while rejecting some other features.

Brands are included in the media narrative contexts as they represent the cultural and social backdrop of everyday life.

This means that the brand becomes part of the story, as it provides realism and credibility or charm and attraction elements for the audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXSlUAS2MNw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQEHtGdq1mE

Transmedia storytelling even introduces a mutation to this scenario in which the brand is no longer inside the fiction, but rather the fiction is the brand.

This mutation in brand fiction — from the product placed inside the fiction to the fictional world becoming the product — closes the analytical path inaugurated by semioticians two decades ago: from "brands as narrative worlds" to "narrative worlds are brands."

Key-words

Economic subjects no longer try to sell a product or service by means of persuasive advertising. Now the objectives are much more ambitious; they aim to create a symbolic universe endowed with meaning: brands (Scolari, 2008).

“From a semiotic perspective, the brand is a device that can produce a discourse, give it meaning, and communicate this to audiences.

The brand expresses values and is presented as an interpretative contract between the companies and the consumers; it proposes a series of values and the consumers accept (or not) to become part of this world. Therefore, brands appear as narrative or possible worlds since they constitute complex discourse universes with a strong narrative imprint […].

Semioticians consider brands as narrative worlds that can be analyzed by applying the theoretical tools developed for fictional texts” (Scolari, 2009,p. 599)

Any brand can use transmedia storytelling. A brand is, after all, a story. Transmedia storytelling just demands the intentional use of multiple platforms to tell consistent and additive narratives that extend the brand’s core story.

Transmedia storytelling is designed to adapt to social-connected multi-platform world where stories are shared, co-created and relational, adapting and evolving through the audience.

http://mprcenter.org/blog/2015/01/from-

coke-to-burberry-dynamic-or-transmedia-storytelling/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojBufhpPgMo

“Burberry is no longer just a fashion company — today they are a thriving media enterprise.

Burberry is now the most widely followed fashion brand on Facebook. It’s successful not just because it makes great clothes but because it understands the importance of sparking interest in the community and using social media to engage and delight their consumers.” (Joanna Shields, Vice President EMEA, 2010)

http://www.slideshare.net/adeptfouralex/innovative-marketing-communications-at-burberry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1OwrDmO8mY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWvBQ9p9KnU

Don’t get stuck on Madison Avenue when you can be using the […] story to connect with your audience. Transmedia Storytelling catapults brands into relationship with customers in dynamic and integrated ways that no jingle or clever copy can do. It opens a door for authentic communication between consumer and brand.

It makes Main Street a very exciting place.

http://www.kcommhtml.com/ima/2011_03/transmedia_storytelling.pdf

http://www.kcommhtml.com/ima/2011_03/transmedia_storytelling.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/pamelarutledge/transmedia-storytelling-as-a-content-marketing-strategy?from_action=save

“Brands’ values are expressed in all the different texts that integrate the space of a certain transmedia experience

But a brand is not just a set of values; these values must be expressed in certain texts. A brand proposes an aesthetic, a series of textures, colors, materials, and styles that create a difference with respect to other brands.

Traditional branding is mainly constructed with iconic elements, such as logotypes or company graphic images. Online branding is based on the interactive experience of the user” (Scolari, 2009, p. 600).

“In TS, then, the brand is expressed by the characters, topics, and aesthetic style of the fictional world.

This set of distinctive attributes can be translated into different languages and media:

It is a "moveable" set of properties that can be applied to different forms of expression.

In fan fiction, even consumers can participate in the expansion of the fictional world by applying this set of attributes to create new situations and characters”. (Scolari 2009, p. 599)

https://artofthetrench.burberry.com/

• Multiple platforms/touch points.

• Each piece contributes

something valuable and new

(story world).

• Not re-telling a story through

different media.

• Each medium used for what it

does best.

• Hunting & Gathering –

consumer expectations.

Scholars like Evans (2008) have demonstrated that not all consumers are "transmedia" or are interested in media surfing. Is "transmedia consumption" a property of new users? A characteristic of the digital native generation? Or a practice of a limited, hardcore group of consumers, for example, the fans of a narrative brand?