The focus of this research is “fanvids” which are the creative work of fans that combine clips or images from a visual “canon” source (usually a television series or movie) to music to create an alternative narrative. By using qualitative content analysis methods, I sampled from the television show Supernatural and the 2009 film Star Trek to understand the ways diverse characters were presented and what types of cultural narratives existed. Then I sampled from seven different vidding communities, collecting a total of 105 vids and 6509 comments on those vids as the second part of my sample. Then drawing on the sociological subfields of social psychology, gender, cultural studies, as well as the broader literatures of media and film studies, I analyzed both the data from canons and fanvids. My analysis centered on the following research questions: a) What are the cultural narratives present in the canon sources and how are those narratives rejected, accepted, replaced, or otherwise transformed within fanvids? (b) How do the narratives present within the canon source and within the vids reflect the ideologies and spirit of the culture that produces those narratives? (c) Are these vids and discussions a sign of potential change in cultural ideologies and narratives and, if so, what change is taking place? My findings within the two canons include an emphasis on a masculinity that maintains control through violence and aggression; in contrast vids reject this type of masculinity and the larger cultural narratives that support it, except when that violent masculinity is sexualized in the context of homosexual relationships. Further, vids predominantly reject the heteronormativity found in both Supernatural and Star Trek in favor of presenting queer relationships. Within this dissertation, I have used the transformation from canon to fandom as a narrative proxy for cultural change. The differences and similarities between canon and vid point to deficiencies both in narrative and in representation in the media we are producing in the U.S. as well as narratives that are stable and enduring, so much so that fans add them even when they are not present in canon. These are the stories our culture, right now, is built on; essentially, these are the narratives that are part of the cultural ideologies that reflect hopes, dreams, beliefs, and ideologies of the people within our society.

Anime Music Videos (AMVs) are transformative works that provide channels of communication between the viewer and the viewed. The editors who make AMVs have distinct communities built on the evolution of anime conventions in the United States but have prospered and transformed globally. In the performance of technology, AMV editors find ways of using mass-mediated texts to express themselves, to convey emotions, and to communicate social messages. They make new associations by combining materials and display these associations in sophisticated ways on social forums like the Internet and anime conventions. The associations are interpretive and articulate how storytelling, rather than a fixed and linear one-way flow, is nonlinear, a negotiation between the storytelling performer and audience.

“Textual Glory Holes” examines a particular online fan community called a kink meme, in which fans exchange sexually-charged fanfiction as gifts. In this essay, I argue that, not only does the genre of fanfiction help to create and sustain the concept of kink, but that kink as a category is an interpellation of, experimentation with, and performance of the eroticism of genre in fanfiction. Furthermore, the kink meme community constitutes itself by performing this fannish erotics for each other in fiction and in sexualized feedback, resulting in a community that embraces the pleasures of this performance but sometimes distances itself from the power and political implications of the performance. Moments when fans do not distance themselves from this erotics of genre—one of unearthing and understanding diverse and diffuse pleasures—hold the potential to become what Audre Lorde calls “creative energy empowered,” a shared pleasure that can “lessen the threat of difference.” / text

Dans cette étude, nous avons cherché à comprendre pourquoi les lecteurs de romans, et plus particulièrement de romans pour jeunes adultes (tels que Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.), décident de se joindre à des communautés virtuelles et d'y participer activement. Pour ce faire, nous nous sommes appuyés sur la théorie des usages et gratifications ainsi que sur les fan studies, c'est-à-dire le courant d'études réalisées sur des fans. Afin de répondre à notre question de recherche, nous avons effectué des entrevues qualitatives semi-dirigées. Les résultats de notre recherche indiquent que nos participantes ont joint les communautés virtuelles de fans pour répondre à des besoins non-comblés dans leur vie quotidienne, et y sont toujours actives car leurs interactions en ligne continuent de répondre à ce besoin ainsi qu'à d'autres encore.

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This dissertation, "Ban Hammer: Rhetorics of Community Management in the Computer Game Industry," argues that community management, as an emerging corporate discipline, manages community discourse to produce particular subject-consumer attitudes and behaviors. Employing a multi-perspectival, suspensionist methodology, this dissertation analyzes the discursive practices of community managers working in the computer game industry, along with the communities themselves, to discover how computer game communities and computer game development organizations employ a wide variety of rhetorical strategies as they attempt to exert power over one another. Drawing from a wide range of sources in the study of rhetoric, community management, fan studies, computer game development, psychoanalysis, new media studies, and professional communication, this project argues that community manager's inhabit a unique discursive space, one characterized by unresolved and unresolvable discursive tension, and that the work of community managers has an ever increasing importance to both the computer game development cycle and the production of fan communities.

Submitted by Camila Fernandes de Oliveira null (oliveirafcamila@gmail.com) on 2016-10-01T04:04:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 OLIVEIRA, CF - Práticas Participativas.pdf: 3313660 bytes, checksum: 78283fa789dea7bee80eb8580a83d3eb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Paula Grisoto (grisotoana@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2016-10-05T14:35:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 oliveira_cf_me_bauru.pdf: 3313660 bytes, checksum: 78283fa789dea7bee80eb8580a83d3eb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-05T14:35:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 oliveira_cf_me_bauru.pdf: 3313660 bytes, checksum: 78283fa789dea7bee80eb8580a83d3eb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-18 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Com a popularização da internet, a maneira que a sociedade se organiza foi alterada, incluindo a facilidade – e a velocidade – com que acessam informações, a possibilidade de se relacionar com outros membros do público e a oportunidade de criar releituras dos textos originais. Com o objetivo de identificar como os fãs constituem uma esfera de consumo de mídia ativo, foi escolhido como objeto o fansite brasileiro Potterish dedicado a Harry Potter. Utilizando a análise de conteúdo como metodologia, este trabalho considera sua estrutura e os trabalhos de fãs apresentados no fansite, as publicações da seção de notícias no último trimestre de 2015, os textos da seção de colunas com interpretações sobre a obra publicados em 2014 e 2015 e a cobertura realizada nos perfis do Potterish no Twitter e no Facebook sobre o anúncio do lançamento em livro do roteiro da peça Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Este trabalho se apoia no referencial teórico produzido pelos estudos de fãs, com destaque aos autores Booth, Duffett, Fiske, Jenkins e Hills, além de autores que colaboram para a compreensão da sociedade contemporânea, como Thompson e Canclini. Os resultados da pesquisa mostraram que a estrutura do fansite representa principalmente os prazeres de performance de Duffett (2013), relacionados às atividades cuja proposta é experienciar o fandom, a seleção de notícia reúne informações em português sobre as novidades relacionadas à franquia, as colunas do Potterish se destacam pelas interpretações da história não explícitas nos livros e a atividade do Potterish nas redes sociais apresenta coerência de linguagem e maior interação com os fãs do que o próprio site. O fansite se apresenta como um facilitador do acesso à informação para os fãs ao traduzir o que é publicado em outro idioma, compartilhar com os outros fãs e organizar de maneira que os usuários do site sejam capazes de se atualizar sobre o objeto de seu fandom. / The popularization of the Internet changed the way society is organized, including the ease - and speed – to access information, the ability to relate to other members of the public and the opportunity to create new readings of the original texts. In order to identify how the fans are an active media consumption sphere, the Brazilian fan site Potterish dedicated to Harry Potter was chosen as the object of this research. Using the content analysis as a methodology, this paper considers the structure of Potterish and the fanworks presented on the fan site, the news section publications in the last quarter of 2015, the texts of the columns section with interpretations of the story published in 2014 and 2015 and coverage held on Potterish profiles on Twitter and Facebook about the announcement of the publishing of the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This work is based on the theoretical framework produced by fans studies, especially the authors Booth, Duffett, Fiske, Hills and Jenkins, and the authors that contribute to the understanding of contemporary society, as Thompson and Canclini. Research results showed that the fan site structure mainly represents the pleasures of performance of Duffett (2013), related to the activities whose purpose is to experience the fandom, the news selection gathers information in Portuguese about what is new related to the franchise, the columns of the Potterish are highlighted by interpretations of the story that is not explicit in the books and the activity of Potterish on social networks websites shows language consistency and greater interaction with the fans than the site itself.

abstract: "YouTube Shakespeares" is a study of Shakespeare online videos and the people who create, upload, and view them on YouTube. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, this work is a remix of theories and methodologies from literary, performance, (social) media, fan, and Internet studies that expands the field of Shakespeare studies. This dissertation explores the role of YouTube users and their activities, the expansion of literary research methods onto digital media venues, YouTube as site of Shakespeare performance, and YouTube Shakespeares' fan communities. It analyzes a broad array of Shakespeare visual performances including professional and user-generated mashups, remixes, film clips, auditions, and high school performances. A rich avenue for the study of people's viewing and reception of Shakespeare, YouTube tests the (un)limitations of Shakespeare adaptation. This work explores the ethical implications of researching performances that include human subjects, arguing that their presence frequently complicates common concepts of public and private identities. Although YouTube is a "published" forum for social interactivity and video repository, this work urges digital humanities scholars to recognize and honor the human users entailed in the videos not as text, but as human subjects. Shifting the study focus to human subjects demands a revision of research methods and publications protocols as the researcher repositions herself into the role of virtual ethnographer. "YouTube Shakespeares" develops its own ethics-based, online research method, which includes seeking Institutional Board Review approval and online interviews. The second half of the dissertation shifts from methodology to theorizing YouTube Shakespeares' performance spaces as analogs to the interactive and imaginary areas of Shakespeare's early modern theatre. Additionally, this work argues that YouTube Shakespeares' creators and commentators are fans. "YouTube Shakespeares" is one of the first Shakespeare-centric studies to employ fan studies as a critical lens to explore the cultural significance and etiquette of people's online Shakespeare performance activities. The work ends with a conversation about the issues of ephemerality, obsolescence, and concerns about the instability of digital and online materials, noting the risk of evidentiary loss of research materials is far outweighed by a scholarly critical registration of YouTube in the genealogy of Shakespeare performance. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2013

This project is an analytical history of the discourse of media panics that have affected comics-like forms in the mid- to late-1800s, comic books in the mid-1900s, and comics media in 1990s and the contemporary moment. The study of these media panics shapes a theory of nerd culture in general and comics culture specifically in order to better understand the delicate and foundational dialectic that sustains a consumer identity that is paradoxical in its indulgence in and animosity towards popular culture. With its historical formation in mind, this project explores the formation of geek chic as a consumer identity that, in many ways, troubles and even threatens the status quo of nerd culture.

Online fandom communities exist as a hub of subcultural construction for people across the globe. For queer people, fandom represents a space to safely converge over mutual interests. Previous research has focused on queer fans and popular music fans independently, often taking a pathological approach. This study qualitatively examines queer participants in the Katy Perry fandom through surveys and one-on-one interviews. The theoretical backbone of the study is built around uses and gratifications theory, seeking to understand motivations for fandom participation. The concepts of the heteronormative matrix and queer resistance are additionally incorporated to analyze how LGBTQ+ fans combat societal norms. This research found seven motivations for queer fans to participate in online fandom, providing insight into an understudied community.