Exploring the ambiguous relationship between fandom and consumer culture, this book provides a critical overview of fans, fan cultures and fan experiences in relation to the broader experience and transformation economy. Fans and Fan Cultures discusses key theoretical concepts concerning celebrity, fandoms, subculture, consumerism and marketing through a range of examples in film, travel and tourism, football and music. With an emphasis on social media, and how various online platforms are utilised by brands, artists and fans, the authors explore how this type of communication often contributes to trivialising authentic expressions of cultural and social values and identities.

Emphasising the contradictions of fandom, Matt Hills outlines how media fans have been conceptualised in cultural theory. Drawing on case studies of specific fan groups, from Elvis impersonators to X-Philes and Trekkers, Hills discusses a range of approaches to fandom, from the Frankfurt School to psychoanalytic readings, and asks whether the development of new media creates the possibility of new forms of fandom. Fan Cultures also explores the notion of "fan cults" or followings, considering how media fans perform the distinctions of 'cult' status.

This book offers a media ethnography of the digital culture, conventions, and urban spaces associated with fandoms, arguing that fandom is an area of productive, creative, and subversive value.

Fans used to be seen as an overly obsessed fraction of the audience. In the last few decades, shifts in media technology and production have instead made fandom a central mode of consumption. A range of ideas has emerged to explore different facets of this growing phenomenon. With a foreword by Matt Hills, Understanding Fandom introduces the whole field of fan research by looking at the history of debate, key paradigms and methodological issues. The book discusses insights from scholars working with fans of different texts, genres and media forms, including television and popular music. Mark Duffett shows that fan research is an emergent interdisciplinary field with its own key thinkers: a tradition that is distinct from both textual analysis and reception studies. Drawing on a range of debates from media studies, cultural studies and psychology, Duffett argues that fandom is a particular kind of engagement with the power relations of media culture.

Henry Jenkins at Authors@Google (video) Henry Jenkins“s pioneering work in the early 1990s promoted the idea that fans are among the most active, creative, critically engaged, and socially connected consumers of popular culture and that they represent the vanguard of a new relationship with mass media. Though marginal and largely invisible to the general public at the time, today, media producers and advertisers, not to mention researchers and fans, take for granted the idea that the success of a media franchise depends on fan investments and participation. Bringing together the highlights of a decade and a half of groundbreaking research into the cultural life of media consumers,Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers takes readers from Jenkins's progressive early work defending fan culture against those who would marginalize or stigmatize it, through to his more recent work, combating moral panic and defending Goths and gamers in the wake of the Columbine shootings. Starting with an interview on the current state of fan studies, this volume maps the core theoretical and methodological issues in Fan Studies. It goes on to chart the growth of participatory culture on the web, take up blogging as perhaps the most powerful illustration of how consumer participation impacts mainstream media, and debate the public policy implications surrounding participation and intellectual property.

Explores the social, cultural, and psychological premises and consequences of fan consumption. This book describes the nature and development of whole fan cultures, and focuses on the experience and identity of the individual fan.

Television, Social Media, and Fan Culture examines how fans use social media to engage with television programming, characters, and narrative as well as how television uses social media to engage fan cultures. The contributors review the history and impact of social media and television programming; analyze specific programs and the impact of related social media interactions; and scrutinize the past fan culture to anticipate how social media programming will develop in the future. The contributors explore a diverse array of television personalities, shows, media outlets, and fan activities in their analysis, including: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Paula Deen; Community, Game of Thrones, Duck Dynasty, Toddlers and Tiaras, Talking Dead, Breaking Bad, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Army Wives, The Newsroom, Doctor Who, Twin Peaks, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; as well as ESPN’s TrueHoop Network and Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie; and cosplay.