Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
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852 research outputs found
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"Cult media, fandom, and textiles," by Brigid Cherry
No full textBrigid Cherry, Cult media, fandom, and textiles: Handicrafting as fan art. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, paperback, $39.95 (216p) ISBN 9781350071339
Rainbow Direction and fan-based citizenship performance
No full textThe success of the activist group Rainbow Direction, created by fans of the UK boy band One Direction, helped change the dominant ideology of One Direction's concerts and chip away at the long-held assertions of who fangirls are. Social media can be used to enact social change, combating the erasure of LGBT+ fans from the fangirl narrative
Fandom names and collective identities in contemporary popular culture
No full textFandom names are one of the first ways for fans as a group to express their taste. As a category of thought, they allow fans to bond with the object and with a community. Within this collective, selecting a name is a performative way to bring the group into existence. It is also a differentiation tool (from other audiences) from which attitudes emerge, making it possible to describe these communities as subcultures. In the digital era, names are the result of collective mobilizations revealing tensions between fans and industries, leading to new ways to assert and present oneself on social networks and media
Personality, behavioral, and social heterogeneity within the cosplay community
No full textIn an exploratory study that surveyed 929 demographically diverse self-identified adult cosplayers about extraversion and behavioral and social aspects of cosplay, respondents completed a thirty-four-item self-report questionnaire regarding demographic information, cosplay behavior, and the ten extraversion items from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised Short Form (EPQR-S). Cosplayers are within a normative range of extraversion; respondents who are relatively more introverted differ in some of their cosplay behaviors and experiences from those who are more extraverted
Tumblr's GIF culture and the infinite image: Lone fandom, ruptures, and working through on a microblogging platform
No full textTumblr's modes of looping and repetition (especially via the circulation of GIFs) offer a potential source of comfort during moments of fannish rupture. By analyzing my own responses to the ending of a favorite television series, I argue that the repetition of Tumblr—the sense of infinity that is engendered by the fact that users may see the same thing reblogged and turning up on their dashboard over and over again—can be understood as offering the potential for working through moments of affective disruption. By assessing Tumblr's sense of endlessness and the reblogging of images and GIF and GIF sets across fan blogs after the finale of the television series Hannibal (2013–15), I consider how the use of a single specific platform can relate to the absence rather than the presence of fan-created objects. In an analysis of fan engagement and attachment, I draw on Freud's work on repeating and working through to study the relationship among repetition, trauma, and the wider media. The repetition engendered by the repeated viewing of GIFs and GIF sets on Tumblr offers comfort and catharsis for fans in periods of mourning. These areas of study inform an analysis of Tumblr as a specific platform for fan engagement and this platform's use as a mechanism for reassurance in the face of moments of rupture
"Controversies in digital ethics," edited by Amber Davisson and Paul Booth
No full textBook review of Amber Davisson and Paul Booth. Controversies in Digital Ethics. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2016. $130.00 (392p) ISBN 978-1-50131-056-0
Tumblr and fandom
No full textEditorial for special issue, "Tumblr and Fandom," guest edited by Lori Morimoto and Louisa Stein
Further future fandom: A conversation with middle school–age fans
No full textThis conversation among the author and four middle school-age fans concerns their online practices as well as some observations and analysis
Extraludic narratives: Online communities and video games
No full textThe role of online community is central to the process of understanding game narratives. Given a tension in game narrative theory, a solution to that tension is the stories that players tell of their own game-play experiences. This analysis of the rhetorical dimension of telling game-play stories as part of a communal experience seeks to illuminate the intersections of game narrative, community, and rhetoric. The rhetorical dimensions of players' personal game narratives and online community building coalesce as a phenomenon unique to how video games influence community construction through the sharing of personal game-play experiences. Using symbolic convergence theory, I examine the personal game-play experiences found on an online community for the game Dark Souls (From Software, 2011), revealing how extraludic narratives function rhetorically to solve the tension between player agency and game narrative
Theater criticism, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," and online community
No full textAfter summarizing initial research into the UK's theater blogging communities, I present some early observations about amateur theater critics writing from within and outside fandom. From my multiple perspectives as Tumblr user, blogger, theater fan, and academic, I consider the way those who respond to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) on Tumblr display similar behaviors to those who maintain general theater review blogs, with both groups appearing to organize and distinguish themselves according to strict codes of ethics, ways of working, and markers of taste