Exploring Fan Culture: From Fanatics to Active Producers

Theme 6: Fan Culture

Fan is an abbreviated form of the word 'fanatic'. In its more literal sense it means 'belonging to the temple, a temple servant, and a devotee', but it quickly assumed more negative connotations, 'of person inspired by orgiastic rites and enthusiastic frenzy'.

The 'trekkies' were depicted as nerdy guys with glasses and rubber Vulcon ears. They are brainless consumers who will buy anything associated with the program or its cast. They devote their lives to the cultivation of worthless knowledge and they are described as misfits, desexualized, immature, and unable to separate fantasy from reality. 'Star Trek' is written on the assumption that speaking as a fan is a defensible position within the debates surrounding mass culture.

According to Bordieu, those who 'naturally' possess appropriate tastes have a privileged position within the institutional hierarchy and do the greatest benefit from the educational system, while the tastes of others are seen as underdeveloped.

Respecting Certeau’s opinion, people are not just passive consumers but 'users' and they can be very creative in their forms of behavior. He distinguished between: strategies, linked to structures of power and control; and tactics, associated with what people do in everyday life. As regards fans, Certeau’s model says they constitute a particular active and vocal community of consumers whose activities direct attention onto this process of cultural appropriation. However, Jenkins disagrees with Certeau, saying that television and film fans are active producers. According to Jenkins, for the fan, watching the series is the beginning of the process of media consumption, and in order to become a fan, you have to learn community-preferred reading practices.

The circulation of media content depends heavily on consumers' active participation. The term 'participatory culture' contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship. They are participants who interact with each other according to a new set of rules that none of us fully understand.

Participatory culture is the one which shares these characteristics: low barriers to artistic expression, strong support for creating and sharing creations, some type of informal mentorship, has members who believe that their contribution matters, and has members who feel some degree of social connections with one another.