Mediatized Fan Play

Addressing fans' digital practices, this book places fans' play at the centre of a networked mainstream culture that seems to increasingly cater to, amalgamate with, and adapt to fans' mediatized play.

Autorentext

Line Nybro Petersen, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen. She researches online fandom, mediatization and play. She has published several articles on fandom and mediatization, including Sherlock Fans Talk: Mediatized Talk on Tumblr. This is her first monograph.

Klappentext

Addressing fans' digital practices, this book places fans' play at the centre of a networked mainstream culture that seems to increasingly cater to, amalgamate with and adapt to fans' mediatized play. Through case studies of the fan communities of the Hamilton musical, and Norwegian streaming hit SKAM, along with examples from many other online fan communities, the book dives into how fans navigate and create play rules as part of their community-building in a networked digital landscape and how they use the digital affordances of social media to engage in language play. It analyses the role of mediatized fan play in the context of political culture and identifies processes of fanization as fans' play moods and modes are integrated into politics. Finally, the book discusses the role of fan play in the context of the global conspiracy theory, QAnon, as those instigating the conspiracy and those who are fans of the movement engage in dark play and deep play, respectively. The book suggests that we might understand fan communities as pioneer communities in the sense that there is increased value placed on fans' mood work and fan play is integrated into other societal domains. This is an engaging book for scholars and students studying media studies and cultural studies, particularly courses on fan studies, film studies, television studies and mediatization.

Inhalt

Introduction: fans just wanna have fun

Part 1: Play Moods

1. Fandom as mediatized play

2. Play moods in digital fandom

Part 2: Play Modes

3. Play rules in transmedia participation: SKAM fandom

4. Language play on social media: the digital room where it happens

Part 3: Fanization, Dark and Deep Play

5. The playful fanization of political culture

6. Dark and deep play: QAnon as transmedia conspiracy

7. Conclusion: the role of fan play in networked culture