Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks

 Henry Jenkins - fandom blog tasks


The following tasks will give you an excellent introduction to fandom and also allow you to start exploring degree-level insight into audience studies. Work through the following:


Factsheet #107 - Fandom


Read Media Factsheet #107 on Fandom. Use our Media Factsheet archive on the M: drive Media Shared (M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets) or log into your Greenford Google account to access the link. Read the whole of Factsheet and answer the following questions:


1) What is the definition of a fan?

A fan (fanatic) is a person with extreme and uncritical enthusiasm.


2) What the different types of fan identified in the factsheet?

Fan, fanatic, newbie  hardcore/ true fan  and anit-fan  

3) What makes a ‘fandom’?

True fans have devotions that go beyond their media texts, and affects their identity in the same way class gender ethnicity and age do. 

A fandom has its roots in a group people with an exceptional enthusiasm in any topic 


4) What is Bordieu’s argument regarding the ‘cultural capital’ of fandom?

as seen with the example of the liverpool supporter, fandom can have heirarchies within their own cultural capitals, displaying power and status by how much things you decorated the room with giving them symbolic power.


5) What examples of fandom are provided on pages 2 and 3 of the factsheet?

Potterhead, Trekkie, Twilighter, Twihard, Gearhead , Whovian, football


6) Why is imaginative extension and text creation a vital part of digital fandom?

Cosplay and fan made text creation is important and secures echo chambers and cult like followings.



Henry Jenkins - degree-level reading


Read the final chapter of ‘Fandom’ – written by Henry Jenkins (note: link may be blocked in school - try this Google Drive link if you need it.) This will give you an excellent introduction to the level of reading required for seminars and essays at university as well as degree-level insight into our current work on fandom and participatory culture. Answer the following questions:


1) There is an important quote on the first page: “It’s not an audience, it’s a community”. What does this mean?

“it’s not an audience, it’s a community,” arguing that such ser-

vices transform the relationship between media producers and consumers.

2) Jenkins quotes Clay Shirky in the second page of the chapter. Pick out a single sentence of the extended quote that you think is particularly relevant to our work on participatory culture and the ‘end of audience’ (clue – look towards the end!) 

In the age of the internet, no one is a passive consumer anymore because everyone is a media outlet.

3) What are the different names Jenkins discusses for these active consumers that are replacing the traditional audience?

“media-actives,”

“prosumers,”

4) On the third page of the chapter, what does Wired editor Chris Anderson suggest regarding the economic argument in favour of fan communities? 

“fan,” “fandom,” or “fan culture,” yet their models rest on the same social behaviours and emotional commitments that fan scholars have been researching over the past several decades. The new multipliers are simply a less geeky version of the fan—fans who don’t wear rubber Spock ears, fans who didn’t live in their parents’ basement, fans who have got a life. In other words, they are fans that don’t fit the stereotypes. These writers are predicting, and documenting, a world where what we are calling “fan culture” has a real economic and cultural impact;

5) What examples does Jenkins provide to argue that fan culture has gone mainstream? 

fan tastes are ruling


at the box office (witness all of the superhero and fantasy blockbusters of recent years); where fan tastes are dominating television (resulting in the kind of complexity that Steven Johnson celebrates in his new book, Every- Afterword: The Future of Fandom 359 thing Bad Is Good for You [2005]); where fan practices are shaping the games industry (where today’s modders quickly get recruited by the big companies).

6) Look at the quote from Andrew Blau in which he discusses the importance of grassroots creativity. Pick out a sentence from the longer quote and decide whether you agree that audiences will ‘reshape the media landscape from the bottom up The media landscape will be reshaped by the bottom-up energy of media created by amateurs and hobbyists as a matter of course. This bottom up energy will generate enormous creativity, but it will also tear apart some of the categories that organize the lives and work of media makers A new generation of media makers and viewers are [sic] emerging which could lead to a sea change in how media is made and consumed.

7) What does Jenkins suggest the new ideal consumer is? 

prosumer". They are no longer a passive recipient of media content. 

8) Why is fandom 'the future'? fans have a lot influence in the decision making of films.

9) What does it mean when Jenkins says we shouldn’t celebrate ‘a process that commodifies fan cultural production’? He  fan creations are a valuable form of "participatory culture, "this value is lost when they are turned into a product that is owned conglomerates and other media companies 

10) Read through to the end of the chapter. What do you think the future of fandom is? Are we all fans now? Is fandom mainstream or are real fan communities still an example of a niche media audience?

I'd say fandom is mainstream seeing as social media platforms easily allow fandoms and communities to talk to one another and people who willing engage with media product are fans. 

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