Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
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852 research outputs found
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Ethical and privacy considerations for research using online fandom data
No full textAs online fandom continues to grow, so do the public data created by fan creations and interactions. With researchers and journalists regularly engaging with those data (and not always asking permission), many fans are concerned that their content might end up in front of the wrong audience, which could lead to privacy violations or even harassment from within or outside of fandom. To better understand fan perspectives on the collection and analysis of public data as a methodology, we conducted both an interview study and a survey to solicit responses that would help provide a broader understanding of fandom's privacy norms as they relate to the ethical use of data. We use these findings to revisit and recommend best practices for working with public data within fandom
How (not) to talk about race: A critique of methodological practices in fan studies
No full textFan studies, a thoroughly interdisciplinary field, has drawn on methodological strategies from such fields as anthropology, literary studies, cultural and media studies, and psychoanalysis, resulting in a wide range of analytical frameworks and methodological approaches that highlight the different aspects of the fan communities being considered. Yet a lack of attention to how (unmarked) whiteness underpins these strategies has led to persistent blind spots regarding the operation of race and racism within these spaces. An analysis drawing from cultural and postcolonial studies highlights some of the ways scholars can overcome these gaps. Nonetheless, the logics of white supremacy continue to influence both micro and macro issues around research in fan studies
The role of popular media in 2016 US presidential election memes
No full textThe 2016 US presidential election was marked by the extensive role that social media played in the construction of the candidates as well as by the growth of a number of forms of digital political rhetoric, including memes. The subgenre of popular culture-based political memes that draw on well-known entertainment media, particularly those with large fandoms like the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises, reveal inequities in gender representation in entertainment media that are replicated when these media become source material for memes. Memes based on popular culture that are designed to celebrate female candidates are disadvantaged by having a more limited popular culture lexicon than do memes featuring male candidates. This imbalance is compounded by the ways negative stereotypes of women already present in popular culture can be deployed in these memes, often in ways that align with news frames that work to police female politicians. Examining the popular culture materials deployed in memes and the way in which they replicate existing representational inequities can improve our understanding of the relationship among memes, popular media, and gender stereotypes
Autiethnography
No full textAutoethnography may be regarded as writing of and about the self as embedded in culture; however, neurotypical status affects autoethnographic perception, and such so-called autiethnographies can cross the boundaries of humanism by providing examples of metahumanist subjectivity. As an autistic gamer, I engage with games in a different way, showcasing how (dis)abled gaming, neurotypicality, fannishness, and sociopolitical responses are never independent from one another. Autiethnographies blur the limitations of science and creative writing, and may be expressed through other forms of communication, such as a performance, a podcast, or a work of visual art
Fan studies, citation practices, and fannish knowledge production
No full textMapping the fine line we walk as fan studies scholars engaging with fannish knowledge productio
Fan studies and/as feminist methodology
No full textFeminist cultural studies and feminist theory in genealogies of fan studies are taken for granted. However, the implications of feminist methodological and epistemological frameworks within discussions of fan studies methodology are more often inferred than directly stated—or cited. Examining the parallel debates taking place around knowledge, power, and reflexivity within feminist theory, feminist cultural studies, and fan studies illustrates how key methodological approaches within fan studies are deeply grounded in feminist epistemology and ontology. Building on theorizations of the dual positionality of the acafan alongside feminist theorizations of self-reflexivity permits an exploration of how acafandom aligns with feminist methodological frameworks regarding researcher fragmentation and reflexivity. Emotion and affect are important concerns for acafan scholarship to address, as they align fan studies with feminist traditions of personal and autobiographical writing that privilege subjectivity as a legitimate source of knowledge. Explicitly reframing fan studies within this theoretical and methodological context augments the understanding of many of the fundamental beliefs and principles underpinning the production of knowledge within fan studies, and helps refine the critical language used to frame and describe scholarly methodologies
"Politics for the love of fandom: Fan-based citizenship in a digital world," by Ashley Hinck
No full textReview of Ashley Hinck. Politics for the love of fandom: Fan-based citizenship in a digital world. Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2019, hardcover, 39.49 (2813KB) ASIN B07NWY5LMH
Fan users and platform studies
No full textAn analysis of the issues and limitations inherent in platform studies considers what the field could offer fan studies despite such obstacles and notes some key concepts to keep in mind when considering a platform studies approach to fan studies work. Fan studies scholars may need to adapt certain elements of platform studies in order to suit both fan studies work and the wider cultural idea of what a platform is
Fandom and politics
No full textEditorial for guest-edited issue, "Fandom and Politics," Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 32 (March 15, 2020)
Benefits of quantitative and doctrinal methodological approaches to fan studies research
No full textThis discussion of the main practices of both legal research and fan studies research explores their key differences and similarities to demonstrate that there are important conclusions that can be drawn from the discourse between the two. The methodology of this research into copyright and fan fiction will be used as a case study to demonstrate how well these fields intersect. This research investigates whether transformative works of fan fiction should be covered by the new fair-dealing exception for pastiche within UK copyright law (Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988), similar to parody. To discuss this, my research investigates whether it can be said empirically and doctrinally that fan fiction could be classified as a special case that does not adversely affect the rights holders' interests, as required by Article 13 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and Article 9 of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. By adding doctrinal and empirical research methods to fan studies, the argument can be made that fan fiction is not harmful to the underlying work and does not interfere with the copyright holders' normal exploitation of that work, and as such should be permitted as fair dealing