Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
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"Participatory memory: Fandom experiences across time and space," by Liza Potts et al.
No full textReview of Liza Potts, Melissa Beattie, Emily Dallaire, Katie Grimes, and Kelly Turner, Participatory memory: Fandom experiences across time and space. Intermezzo, 2018, online at http://participatorymemory.org/book/index (ISBN 978-0-9864333-6-8)
The impact of the phenomenon of sport rivalry on fans
No full textThis study of the current knowledge and research being conducted about the phenomenon of sport rivalry introduces new avenues of research in an effort to encourage researchers outside of sport fandom to investigate it, thus providing insight from a perspective outside the field
Tumblr's Supernatural fandom and the rhetorical affordance of GIFs
No full textThe rhetoricity of GIFs on Tumblr is analyzed by using the Supernatural (2005–) fan community as a case study. Tumblr's platform design, which encourages visual communication and content sharing, allows users to assert their identities as fans and their memberships to fan communities through the production and curation of visual content. Supernatural fans on Tumblr make affordances of GIFs from the show and its extratextual materials, putting them to various rhetorical uses, including emotional expression, transformative storytelling, inside jokes, and argumentation. Tumblr's platform, which facilitates the spread of content through its reblogging function, allows GIFs to be shared among various interpretative communities for whom the images contain different connotations and meanings. Because of their decontextualization, recontextualization, and intertextuality, GIFs offer a complex and rhetorically layered mode of communication on Tumblr
Content, conduct, and apologies in Tumblr fandom tags
No full textThe architecture of Tumblr differs substantially from many other social media platforms, such as Facebook, because there are no personal profiles and social connections are not made public. Because Tumblr's architecture lacks formal grouping structures, tags, traditionally thought of as a way of organizing resources, may take on functions otherwise associated with communities even though the affiliation is looser. Content analysis was performed to investigate content and conduct norms in two specialized fandom tags on Tumblr. This research compares the circulation of sexually suggestive material, reproaches, and apology rituals in posts tagged "zoethian" and "sjips." Even though these two tags originate from similar source material (YouTube videos produced under the Yogscast umbrella), different standards of behavior and shared content emerge among participants, which are assessed in light of the increasingly close contact and overlap between media producers and fans in social media spaces. Although the data set is from 2013, and thus describes a slightly different version of Tumblr, it serves as an historical capture of the site and behaviors from that time period
"The fanfiction reader: Folk tales for the digital age," by Francesca Coppa
No full textReview of Francesca Coppa. The fanfiction reader: Folk tales for the digital age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017. Hardcover, 29.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-472-05348-3; e-book $29.95
Locating black queer TV: Fans, producers, and networked publics on YouTube
No full textAbstract—For black creators, television remains an elusive yet illustrious art form. Corporate television networks have restricted access to black writers, limiting black representations. However, through a more open distribution system on the Internet, black writers have expanded the art of television, producing stories in a wider range of genres through a variety of intersectional identities and intersecting art forms. Here we interrogate indie black cultural production to first locate how writers queer traditional television production. We then examine how audiences form counterpublics to read and respond to these works in comments and on blogs. We engage a broad array of popular indie series whose creators span identities and whose narratives span genres, including the black queer and lesbian dramas Between Women (2011–present) and No Shade (2013–2015) as well as the comedic black gay pilots Twenties (2013) and Words with Girls (2012–2014). We explore how and why producers conceived of these series alongside how viewing publics interpreted and consumed them. To varying degrees, these series queer not only the norms of television production and form but also of viewership and audience response
Traditional transformations and transmedial affirmations: Blurring the boundaries of Sherlockian fan practices
No full textThe modes of discourse employed by fans of Sherlock Holmes represent both affirmational and transformational impulses. As the fan community has grown and diversified, tensions have arisen between Sherlockians who prefer to utilize traditional frameworks dating back to the early practices of the Baker Street Irregulars in the 1930s and '40s and those who operate primarily in virtual spaces and utilize 21st-century digital platforms as frameworks for their discourse. Because the demographics of affirmational fans tend to align with those of fans preferring traditional frameworks, and conversely, the demographics of transformational fans tend to align with those of fans preferring transmedial frameworks, the styles of engagement often become conflated with the impulses driving the discourse itself. By first examining these tensions and then utilizing case studies that illustrate the four combinations of frameworks and modes of discourse—traditional-affirmational, transmedial-affirmational, traditional-transformational, and transmedial-transformational—I seek to complicate the boundaries that appear to divide the larger Sherlock Holmes fan community. I will demonstrate that the twin fannish impulses to affirm the text and transform it have operated not at odds but in parallel throughout the history of the fandom
"By any media necessary: The new youth activism," by Henry Jenkins et al.
No full textReview of Henry Jenkins, Sangita Shresthova, Liana Gamber-Thompson, Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, and Arely Zimmerman. By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism. New York: NYU Press, 2016, hardcover, 19.86 (58780 KB), ASIN B0171WAJAA. Full text available online: http://connectedyouth.nyupress.org/
Bodies in horrifying hurt/comfort fan fiction: Paying the toll
No full textHurt/comfort (h/c) fan fiction revels in the malleability of the flesh (changing it, destroying it, manipulating it to new purpose), and some find this fascination baffling and worrisome. At its most extreme, hurt/comfort focuses on the body in pain because it assumes that the destroyed body adds immense value to the narrative. Through the ideas of Elaine Scarry and Julia Kristeva, I move the conversation beyond h/c's uneasy readership and toward the ways pain functions when it takes center stage
Intersectional critique and social media activism in "Sleepy Hollow" fandom
No full textWe examine fans' social media engagement with the supernatural detective series Sleepy Hollow (2013–17) and argue that fan discourses about the African American police detective Abbie Mills address the representational and institutional treatment of women of color. Sleepy Hollow fans use social media to counter and reshape industry narratives that often cast Black women as archetypes. We explore how fans recreate meaning by writing fan fiction, how fans collectively critique stereotypes on social media, and how fan boycotts challenge media institutions. By charting the evolution of fan responses to Abbie Mills's narrative arc over three seasons, we explore the potential for fan actions to disrupt the television industry. While fan activism is unlikely to alter the industry objectives of a capitalist media system or reconfigure power dynamics between producers and consumers, organized actions can resist institutional efforts to channel fan activity into show promotion