Transformative Works and Cultures - TWC (Organization for Transformative Works)
Not a member yet
852 research outputs found
Sort by
"Transmedia storytelling and the new era of media convergence in higher education," by Stavroula Kalogeras
No full textReview of Stavroula Kalogeras. Transmedia storytelling and the new era of media convergence in higher education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Hardcover, $100 (276p) ISBN 978-1137388360
Exhibiting fandom: A museological perspective
No full textFandom and the collecting of objects are interwoven phenomena. The insights of museum studies may be brought to bear on the study of fan objects to provide a better understanding of fan collections and fan collecting. A museum studies focus assesses the meanings and interpretations of material objects as well as the workings and dynamics of collections, collectors, and collecting. With science fiction fan collections used as examples, we highlight object and museum theory, demonstrating how this theory and its conceptual tools can be used to analyze fan culture. We then apply these tools to a case study: the EMP Museum in Seattle, Washington, a museum in the United States largely dedicated to the genre of science fiction. When fan collections enter the realm of museums, fandom becomes a world that involves touching, smelling, collecting, and controlling objects
Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture
No full textOnline Roundtable on Spreadable Media, by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green, with participants Paul Booth, Kristina Busse, Melissa Click, Sam Ford, Henry Jenkins, Xiaochang Li, and Sharon Ross. Section 1 first published as "Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture," by Louisa Stein, Cinema Journal 53 (3): 152–77. Copyright 2014 by The University of Texas Press. All rights reserved
The cultural economics of performance space: Negotiating fan, labor, and marketing practice in "Glee"'s transmedia geography
No full textThe Fox television show Glee (2009–present) constitutes a cultural phenomenon of the digital age. Through its multiplatform marketing of musical and theatrical performance, the show has attracted a substantial fan base and created a self-sustaining economy of cultural expression. As a serialized narrative with a focus on the underdog's struggle for fame, it constructs a populist forum for fans to live their dream of becoming a star vicariously and learn how to realize it in real life—how to make it. Glee's marketing approach postulates performance as the essential element in forming an intimate relationship between the show and its core fans, the Gleeks. Performances are distributed across several spaces, including a multitude of video and audio channels, to satisfy Gleeks' desire for maximum content. The show's cast and crew further offer to discuss these performances and grant special insights into their creation. Glee's promotional discourse overtly characterizes fans as equals, positioning its programming as a gift to them. The overarching message of this marketing methodology is that Glee rewards its fans for their investment and loyalty by offering up content and interaction in a variety of performative spaces—a transmedia geography—that transcend television. By using an interdisciplinary framework of political economy, cultural geography, and transmedia communications, Glee may be examined in relation to its diegetic and nondiegetic conceptualization and commodification of performance space. Doing this illuminates how the show negotiates—indeed exploits—the concepts of fan and labor practice in contemporary media industries
Peril-sensitive sunglasses, superheroes in miniature, and pink polka-dot boxers: Artifact and collectible video game feelies, play, and the paratextual gaming experience
No full textMaterial artifacts included in video game packaging, referred to in the industry as feelies, operate as media paratexts that are both extensions of and separate from the video games that inspired them. Although most discourses on video game feelies are centered on 1980s text-based adventure games, feelies have continually been included in contemporary games, albeit primarily in collector's or special editions. To explore the diversity of feelies and how they are able to generate their own texts away from the digital game itself, I identify two specific types of feelies: artifact feelies, which are life-size reproductions of objects from within the game space, and collectible feelies, which serve as extensions of the game space into the physical realm but tend to include objects more frequently associated with fan collecting activities. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that includes material culture studies and media studies, I show how feelies allow scholars to gain further insight into how screen media operate away from the screens themselves, how the accumulation of material objects in the digital age encourages us to reevaluate our notions of the material and the immaterial, and how the concept of play is crucial to understanding how these objects are reappropriated in ways that move beyond their originally intended use
Written on the body: Experiencing affect and identity in my fannish tattoos
No full textThis autoethnographic account of fan tattoos emphasizes the importance of affect and identity in relation to fan tattooing
"Digital labor: The Internet as playground and factory," edited by Trebor Scholz
No full textReview of Trebor Scholz, ed. Digital labor: The Internet as playground and factory. New York: Routledge, 2013. Paperback, 150, ISBN 978-0-415-89694-8
"Cognitive capitalism, education, and digital labor," edited by Michael A. Peters and Ergin Bulut
No full textReview of Michael A. Peters and Ergin Bulut, eds. Cognitive capitalism, education, and digital labor. New York: Peter Lang, 2011. Paperback, $38.95 (341p) ISBN 978-1-4331-0981-2
Queer encounters between Iron Man and Chinese boys' love fandom
No full textSuperhero fan fiction is increasingly popular in the Chinese boys' love (BL) community. An exploration of the fan fic Gangtiexia: Zhongdu Yilai (Iron Man: Overly attached) investigates how the Hollywood cultural icon Iron Man/Tony Stark is reimagined in Chinese BL culture and to what degree this kind of rendition both echoes and extends as well as challenges and deviates from our current insights into BL fandoms. Through the lenses of queerness and technological human transformation, I explore the fresh contribution of Iron Man fan fiction to both local BL cultures and global superhero fandoms