User:Jkoplin1/NMAC 4460 Final Project

Textual Poachers

Textual Poachers:Television Fans & Participatory Culture is a book written by Henry Jenkins that focuses on the culture and social impact of fans and fandoms. The first edition was released in 1992. Jenkins wrote the book while he was a first year assistant professor. The cover art for the first edition was developed around a piece of Star Trek art by a fan named Jean Kluge. A updated 20th anniversary edition was released in 2012. The new edition starts off with a conversation between Jenkins and Suzanne Scott. The new edition also includes a teaching guide and discussion questions. Jenkins collaborated with a contemporary fan for the covert art of the new edition.

"Fans, Poachers, and Nomads"

In the beginning, Jenkins takes a look at a skit from Saturday Night Live featuring William Shatner. The skit was a satirical view of fans of Star Trek, also referred to as Trekkies. Jenkins gives a summary of the skit and also lists several stereotypes depicted in the skit that are often associated with avid fans like Trekkies. He talks about an issue of Newsweek that described a similar view of a fan convention. Jenkins goes on to talk about the origin of the word "fan," taking a closer look at the history behind the word.

Jenkins goes on to talk about textual poaching, referencing the work of Michel de Certeau. Jenkins states that De Certeau’s “poaching” analogy characterizes the relationship between readers and writers as an ongoing struggle for possession of the text and for control over its meanings. Jenkins takes a closer look at what fans get from poaching a text, stating that they get new meanings from the text in the future. He also states that fandom does not preserve an extreme division between readers and writers. Jenkins also points out how gender can create a feeling of exclusion in some fandoms, focusing more on the 1960s when fandoms like Star Trek were a very male dominated group.

How Texts become Real

In this chapter, Jenkins focuses on three aspects of fans' characteristics mode of reception: ways fans draw texts close to the realm of their lived experience, the role played by rereading within fan culture, and the process by which program information gets inserted into ongoing social interactions. Jenkins takes a closer look on studies done on viewing television and how that creates fans. He points out that viewing a show as a fan encourages a higher level of interest and brings about a different way of viewing a show that one is not a fan of. While some may see fans as obliviously viewing a show, they are actually emotionally engaged in the show they are viewing. He continues on to discuss why rereading a text is so important and points out the fans seem content in with rereading. Jenkins closes the chapter taking a look at how gossip can affect fans.

Fan Critics

This chapter takes a look at fan criticism. Jenkins states that "Organized fandom is, perhaps first and foremost, an institution of theory and criticism, a semistructured space where competing interpretations and evaluations of common texts are proposed, debated, and negotiated and where readers speculate about the nature of the mass media and their own relationship to it." The fact is that professional critics cannot compete with a true fan of a text when it comes to attention to detail. Jenkins continues on to take a closer look at the fandom surrounding Alien Nationand the why textual canon is so important to fans, following certain aspects of the text like in Star Trek.

Gender, Genre, Beauty and the Beast

Jenkins opens this chapter by taking a look at an issue featured by TV Guide on January 13, 1990. The feature focuses on the 1980s television show, Beauty and the Beast and how the fan base of the show reacted to the news of its cancelation. The Jenkins goes on to discuss what happened with the attempts to relaunch the show and how the new version of the show seemed to be targeted towards a more masculine audience, focusing more on action and adventure rather than romance. According to Jenkins, fans reaction to the third season of the show raised questions about the status of the fans in a political and cultural sense. "TV Guide and the network both fell into the trap of taking for granted the fans’ unconditional loyalty to the series and its producers." Jenkins continues the chapter discussing the shows placement as a genre and how some of the romantic relationships of the show were perceived by fans, even including personal interviews from some fans.

Fan Readers/ Fan Writers

This chapter starts of taking a look at a group of four fans who follow the show Quantum Leap. These fans write their own stories about characters from the show and some times publish their stories to fanzines. Jenkins goes on to talk about the publishing and distribution of zines. He also points out that many fans write to support their zine-buying habit since contributors get a free copy of the zine. Jenkins states that for a fandom to flourish, the reader and writer must depend on each other. He also gives detailed instructions on how to rewrite a television show from a fan perspective.

Slash and Fan-Writing Community

Some Star Trek fans make be familiar with the term slash fiction. "The colorful term, “slash,” refers to the convention of employing a stroke or “slash” to signify a same-sex relationship between two characters (Kirk/Spock or K/S) and specifies a genre of fan stories positing homoerotic affairs between series protagonists. Slash originated as a genre of fan writing within Star Trek fandom in the early 1970s..." Jenkins point out that slash writing is an important part of fan writing and one of fandom's most original contribution to popular literature. Both fans and academic writers describe slash as a projection of female sexual fantasies onto male characters from a particular series but it can be used to refer to fan written stories that focus on another form of sexuality. Jenkins also takes a look at the narrative structure of slash fiction.

Fan Music Video and the Poetics of Poaching

This chapter opens with another reference to Michael de Certeau and his idea on the art of consumption. Jenkins continues to discuss important topics mentioned in earlier chapters. "Fans are poachers who get to keep what they take and use their plundered goods as the foundations for the construction of an alternative cultural community." During the time this book was initially published, most fans used video tape recorders or copy-cords to make videos from found footage to express their own outlook of a program, editing certain screen shots or video clips to music so the video fulfills some emotional response for the one who made the video or for other fans. Jenkins points out that MTV used a similar method with borrow images for their own videos. At this point in time, the only way for fans to get their music video to each other was to deliver them in person.

Filk Music, Folk Culture and the Fan Community

"Filk music" refers to fan music making. "Filking, like fan fiction, may be a vehicle for building or commenting upon pre-existing media texts, a way of pulling to the surface marginalized characters or subplots. Fans often write songs from the perspective of fictional characters, singing in their voices, and expressing aspects of their personalities." Filk music also shares similar elements to folk music as well as following some folk traditions. Jenkins explains his definition of the folk culture, pointing out how his view is opposite of John Fiske's.