Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers Exploring Participatory Culture Release Date: 2006/9/1 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. ------------------------- Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture Book by Henry Jenkins; 1992. a well-argued case than fans are active participants in a burgeoning underground of cultural consumerism as "owners." These owners are skillfully producing new genres, i.e., fan fic, as well as being a kind of nomadic poacher, constructing mythology, alternative social communities, and cultural representation. He goes on to say some more intriguing things. That the fan community sees itself in opposition to the capitalist control of culture, choosing to create what he terms meta-stories. Meta-stories are the online writing of non-industry people, based on television shows and movies. Through these meta-stories or fan fic, fans clearly express alternative "ownership," and in fact, have begun to impact the original "producers." For example, Jenkins reports that several studios monitor fan websites in order to gauge trends when considering television or movie sequels. -------------------- George Lucas in love http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=-85duF_i9C4 ------------- anime expo cosplay gaara from naruto by Joits http://flickr.com/photos/joits/2654146500/in/photostream/ Potato Head - Couch Potato : ) by oddsock Mr Couch Potato by Ohm17 -------- starwars StarWars Fans Triangle by JF Sebastian Figuras StarWars by DraXus StarWars BottleCaps by QuattroVageena lego starwars cake by megpi StarTrek.sg vs. StarWars.sg by inju Chewbacca Portrait by Balakov USPS R2D2 Mailbox by bcbeatty Yoda by PhillipWest LEGO R2D2 by jurvetson StarWars Spielzeug by crosathorian FIDM fans in costumes by Don Solo ---------- World of Warcraft Blizzard Entertainment Perry cites this "Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game" or MMORPG, which places international players in a vast fantasy world, as evidence of the growing popularity of online games. "There are 5.5 million registered players of World of Warcraft right now, who have paid something like $50 for this game," observes Perry. "Imagine how many people would play a game of this style if it were available for free." Perry anticipates free-of-charge MMORPGs gaining momentum, and believes revenue will be generated by the sales of onscreen weapons, clothing accessories, and other objects.