Textual Poaching and Beyond:

Fan Communities and Fandoms in

the Age of the Internet
Michaela D. E. Meyer & Megan H. L. Tucker
Jenkins, III, H. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture.
New York: New York University Press. 279 pp. ISBN 0-8147-4285-8. US$21.00.
Hellekson, K., & Busse, K. (2006). Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the
internet . Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. 290 pp. ISBN 0-7864-2640-3.
US$35.00.
Bury, R. (2005). Cyberspaces of their own: Female fandoms online (Digital Formations;
v. 25). New York: Peter Lang. 242 pp. ISBN: 0-8204-7118-6. US$29.95.
The appearance of Henry Jenkins influential book Textual Poachers (1992) ushered
in a new era of audience research in media studies. Jenkins text positioned fans as
active consumers of media products, constructing their own cultures and
subcultures from popular culture. By challenging the mentality that fans are merely
cultural dupes, Jenkins opened the door for a generation of scholars to study fans
and fan practices as legitimate scholarship. Now, 15 years later, significant changes
in the study of fans and fan communities continue to emerge. Over the past
decade, communication scholarship has applied Jenkins work in a variety of fan
contexts. Scholars took to analyzing fan communities surrounding popular
television series (Bird, 1999; Meyer, 2005; Scodari, 2003; Scodari & Felder, 2000;
Wakefield, 2001) and fan cultures surrounding successful film franchises (Jindra,
1994; Shefrin, 2004). Fan research has expanded our understanding of the
interrelationships between humans and media*in particular, crediting agency to
those who engage with media on a day-to-day personal basis. The recent
publication of three new books on fan culture offers insight into how fan culture
is impacted by gender and sexuality, and interrogates the ways fan cultures are
changing as a result of the Internet.
Michaela D. E. Meyer is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Christopher Newport University.
Megan H. L. Tucker is an undergraduate student at Christopher Newport University. The review was the result
of an independent study project in Fall of 2006. Correspondence to: Michaela D. E. Meyer, 24 Commonwealth
Hall, Department of Communication Studies, Newport News, VA 23606, USA. Email: mmyer@cnu.edu
ISSN 1535-8593 (online) # 2007 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/15358590701211357
The Review of Communication
Vol. 7, No. 1, January 2007, pp. 103116
Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers
Jenkins expands on his original arguments from Textual Poachers in his new book
Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture (Jenkins, 2006b). This
text is a concentrated look at participatory culture, and includes a collection of
academic excerpts relevant to fan culture as well as new material from Jenkins.
Section 1, Inside Fandom, opens with the transcript of an interview between Henry
Jenkins and Matt Hills, a founding editor of Intensities and the author of Fan Cultures
(2002), a book that includes a close reading of Textual Poachers. During the interview,
Jenkins and Hills discuss the evolution of fan studies in terms of three methodological
moments: the ethnographic outsider approach, the ethnographic insider
approach, and the aca-fen approach (pp. 1112). Jenkins locates the beginning
of fan studies in the ethnographic outsider approach, since the first generation of
scholars to study fandom wrote from a disconnected point of view in impersonal or
apologetic language. He then associates himself with the second approach, the
ethnographic insider approach, as a scholar trying to alter the perception of fandom
based on insider knowledge of specific fan communities. The most recent approach
to fan studies Jenkins characterizes as aca-fen or people who are both academics
and fans, for whom those identities are not problematic to mix and combine, and
who are able to write in a more open way about their experience of fandom with the
obligation of defensiveness, without the need to defend the community (p. 12).
In addition to these changes in subject position and methodology, Jenkins and
Hills debate the association of fandom with religious experience. What Jenkins finds
problematic about the religion metaphor is that fandom is not an exclusive
relationship: fans are nomadic and can share multiple texts, unlike the commitment
of religion (one cannot be Muslim and Jewish simultaneously, but one can be a fan of
two different television programs simultaneously). Jenkins elaborates on the history
of religion in fan studies by defining the origin of the word fan as from fanaticus,
which refers to false and excessive worship (p. 17). He argues that if scholars accept
this notion of literal belief (religious), they imply that fans are unable to separate
fiction from reality; thus, this metaphor dismisses fan studies as less credible than
other types of ethnographic research.
Hills and Jenkins continue the debate by engaging the often tumultuous
relationship between fandom and the academy. Jenkins posits that academia
embraces the use of fan studies as a means to chronicle audience response to
particular narratives, and then utilizes this response to inform media producers about
the nature of the audience; however, scholars are far more suspicious when an author
asserts that maybe there are things that academics could learn from fan interpretive
practices (p. 33). The tension between academics as learned and fans as uneducated
continues in fan studies today. As the debate plays out, Jenkins characterizes Textual
Poachers as provisional and tentative, saying: [T]his was the work of some guy
one year out of grad school; yeah, it opened up the field and asked some important
questions, but it wasnt set in stone (pp. 3536). He encourages scholars not to
accept the text at face value, but rather to grow and change with fans.
104 M. D. E. Meyer & M. H. L. Tucker
The end of the interview sets up the rest of this section, which includes three essays
Jenkins feels establish historical moments in fan studies, and includes Jenkins
commentary about the importance of this work in retrospect. Chapter 2 offers a
reprint of Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching
(Jenkins, 1988). Jenkins notes that although the textual poaching metaphor has
been widely adopted by scholars of fan studies, it is the metaphor of the moral
economy in the work that most intrigues him at this moment in fan studies (p. 38).
Chapter 3 offers a reprint of Normal Female Interest in Men Bonking (Green,
Jenkins, & Jenkins, 1998), a dialogue between Jenkins and two other fans of slash
fiction, a form of fan fiction writing that re-writes media narratives by pairing same-
sex characters together in sexual and romantic relationships. Jenkins notes that this
chapter illustrates the struggle he faced trying to integrate his own personal
experience as a fan into scholarly writing; the use of the dialogue helped unlock
that potential. Chapter 4 offers a reprint of Out of the Closet and into the Universe:
Queers and Star Trek (Jenkins, 1995), which Jenkins describes as his first attempt at
intervention analysis intended to capture issues of voice within fan communities.
According to Jenkins, intervention analyses seek not only to describe and explain
existing dispositions of knowledge, but also to change them (p. 92). He observes:
[T]he relationship between readers, institutions, and texts is not fixed but fluid. That
relationship changes over time, constantly shifting in relation to the ever-changing
balance of power between these competing forces (p. 112).
Section 2*Going Digital *includes Jenkins work related to the emergence of
fan communities on the Internet. Chapter 5 offers Do You Enjoy Making the Rest of
Us Feel Stupid? (Jenkins, 1995), an exploration of an online discussion group of the
television show Twin Peaks. Jenkins observes that the series drew a large number of
male fans who utilized the group to discuss moments of character interaction as
clues that might help resolve plot questions and describes them as fascinated with
solving the mystery in the series (pp. 125126). He contrasts this evidence with his
prior observations of female fans who tend to use program materials as a basis for
gossip and justification for drawing on personal experiences to support their
interpretations (p. 126). Chapter 6 offers Interactive Audiences? The Collective
Intelligence of Media Fans (Jenkins, 2002b). He explains this work as his attempt to
move fan studies away from the theoretical framing of Michael de Certeau (1984)
because he is frustrated that despite a growing number of younger scholars writing
about fans, many still operate primarily in relation to the paradigms from the late
1980s and early 1990s (p. 134). Jenkins borrows the concepts of collective
intelligence and cosmopedia from Pierre Levy and applies this to media fandoms
by engaging the complex changes in fan communities following the introduction of
computers and the Internet.
Jenkins discussion of cosmopedia segues into Chapter 7, Pop Cosmopolitanism:
Mapping Cultural Flows in an Age of Media Convergence (Jenkins, 2004). He
explains the inclusion of this essay as his recognition that globalization has
profoundly altered the nature of American popular culture (p. 153). This essay
suggests that current fan scholars must utilize a global framework in order to reflect
Fan Communities 105
the complexities of popular culture, and describes two forces of media convergence:
corporate convergence and grassroots convergence. Jenkins believes that these
two forces create global convergence or the multidirectional flow of cultural
goods around the world (p. 155). The rest of the chapter provides examples of
popular culture in global contexts, such as the popularity of anime in America. The
section concludes with three short pieces all previously published in Technology
Review. Chapter 8, Love Online (Jenkins, 2002c), discusses the world of online
dating via the experiences of Jenkins son; Chapter 9, Blog This! (Jenkins, 2002a),
identifies blogging as a new grassroots opportunity to gain significant visibility in
media; and Chapter 10, A Safety Net (Jenkins, 2001), focuses on the speed with
which media covered the attacks of September 11, 2001.
In Section 3, Columbine and Beyond, Jenkins explores the supposed inter-
relationship between media culture and youth violence. Chapter 11, Professor
Jenkins Goes to Washington, provides his impressions of and reactions to testifying
to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee about youth and media violence. Chapter
12, Coming Up Next!: Ambushed on Donahue describes Jenkins reactions to being
caught off-guard on public television. Under the guise of appearing to discuss video
game culture, Jenkins describes being ambushed by the producers, guests, and host of
the show, despite trying to find middle ground in the debate. Chapter 13, The War
Between Effects and Meanings: Rethinking the Video Game Violence Debate,
outlines educational models underlying arguments for the use of computers and
video games to teach science and history, as well as arguments that these technologies
do not teach children to kill. Chapter 14, The Chinese Columbine: How One
Tragedy Ignited the Chinese Government: Simmering Fears of Youth Culture and the
Internet, chronicles how the burning of a Beijing Internet cafe and the shootings at
Columbine produced similar media discourses, yet differed in terms of framing.
Jenkins observes that the American response to Columbine tended to blame media
influences for the shooters actions, while Chinese discourses explained the arsonists
motivation in terms of dramatic and rapid social change.
The final chapter*Chapter 15, The Monsters Next Door: A FatherSon
Dialogue about Buffy, Moral Panic, and Generational Differences *is the first
co-authored work between Jenkins and his son, Henry G. Jenkins IV. The essay is
presented as a dialogue interrogating the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer as
a contemporary allegory of adolescent life. The dialogue highlights the polysemic
nature of the Buffy narrative, which in part contributed to the shows loyal fan base.
In the episode Band Candy, the adults in Sunnydale eat cursed candy and begin
acting like adolescents; Jenkins III claims the episode suggests that adults may
actually desire the freedom and license they would deny their children. Teachers want
to cut classes. Mothers want to make out and drink Kahlua with their boyfriends
(p. 235). Jenkins IV disagrees with his fathers interpretation: [W]hen the adults
revert back into teenagers, they dont actually become mirrors of their children. They
become mirrors of the way they see their children (p. 235). He goes on to explain
that Buffys mothers behavior in the episode reflects her perceptions of her daughters
behavior; she does not become a caricature of her daughter. These moments of
106 M. D. E. Meyer & M. H. L. Tucker
polysemy in the essay offer an insight into generational differences in television
viewing and subject positioning.
Fan Fictions and Fan Communities
Jenkins call for new theories of and methods to examine fan cultures is answered, in
part, by the next two books. Editors Karen Hellekson and Kristina Busse delve into
the world of fan fiction through a series of essays dedicated to new theoretical
approaches to fan communities and fan fiction on the Internet. The 12 essays in the
text cover many topics spanning the fan fiction spectrum, including sexuality,
relationships, genre types, narratives, and technology. Hellekson and Busse introduce
the text as Work in Progress by sharing online social experiences that ultimately
shaped their text. The Work in Progress metaphor emphasizes the evolution and
continual cycle involved in writing. In fact, discussing fan fiction communities as
spaces where Work in Progress is acceptable ultimately challenges academic
objectification of fan practices. In accordance with Bourdieu (1992), who argues that
academia prefers muddled, cloudy, works reconstituted in their finished state
(p. 219), Hellekson and Busses text confronts the tension between the objective and
subjective in written experience.
The Introduction provides a concrete and extensive academic literature review of
scholarly work on fan fiction and fan practices. Hellekson and Busse introduce
readers to specific terminology used by fan communities online and limit the scope of
the text to online fandoms: [T]echnological tools affect not only dissemination and
reception, but also production, interaction, and even demographics. The history
of fan fiction makes clear that technology is complicit in the generation of fan texts
(p. 13). The collection of essays presented operates from what the editors define as
autoethnography, which they appropriate in a manner different from the
commonly assumed meaning in communication studies, where it is taken to be an
extension of ethnographic methodology. Although the essays are not autoethno-
graphic in this sense, the editors frame them as such to draw attention to subject
positions that are multiple and permit us to treat the academic and fannish parts as
equally important (p. 24). They conclude the Introduction with an extensive
bibliography of critical scholarly work on fan fiction and include Francesca Coppas
(2006) brief history of media fandom. Coppas discussion of fandom from pre-1950s
to today provides a concise and cogent overview for readers unfamiliar with the
history of fan fiction.
After this, the book is divided into four sections with three individual essays in
each section. Part 1, Different Approaches: Fan Fiction in Context, seeks to address
the production, dissemination, and consumption of fan fiction by exploring what
constitutes fan fiction and analyzing the context in which it originated (p. 26). This
section contains articles written by Abigail Derecho, Catherine Driscoll, and Elizabeth
Woledge. Derechos article, Archontic Literature: A Definition, a History, and Several
Theories of Fan Fiction, resituates fan fiction as an artistic practice rather than as a
cultural phenomenon. Derecho calls the literature she studies archontic, or
Fan Communities 107
expanding and never completely closed (p. 61). The author asserts that fan fiction
is a constant cycle of artistic practice: [T]here is a constant state of flux, of shifting
and chaotic relation, between new versions of stories and the originary texts: the fics
written about a particular source text ensure the text is never solidified, calcified, or at
rest (p. 7677).
Similarly, Driscolls article, One True Pairing: The Romance of Pornography and
the Pornography of Romance, discusses how fan fiction ultimately connects the
genres of romance and pornography. She suggests that fan fiction is often represented
as immature because of its undiscriminating and excessive investment in popular
culture (p. 85). However, it can also be represented as a substitute for sexual
relationships, both sexual and romantic, thus making it amateur porn (p. 85).
Ultimately, she examines the gendered dichotomy of romance and pornography as
genres, claiming: [T]he inseparability of sex and gender in practice is one of the
things that romance genres make obsessively visible, and one of the ways in which
romance itself is pornographic (p. 94).
Woledges chapter expands the exploration of genre into slash fiction, relating it to
romance as well as mainstream equivalents (p. 97). She defines intimatopia as a
particular fantasy world in fan fiction which produces stories committed to exploring
intimacy between protagonists. She contrasts her work to Driscolls prior chapter by
arguing that intimatopia connects both sex and intimacy, unlike romance novels and
pornography which separate them (p. 99). By making this distinction, she classifies
intimatopia as particular kinds of fan fiction using Star Trek, The Sentinel , and
Highlander as examples (p. 103), ultimately arguing that intimatopic works should be
categorized as their own genre.
Part 2, Characters, Style, Text: Fan Fiction as Literature, shifts the discussion to
textual analysis of fan fiction, and treats fan fiction texts as works of literature. Each
chapter focuses on some aspect of intertextuality within fan fiction. This section
contains contributions from Mafalda Stasi, Deborah Kaplan, and Ika Willis. Stasis
article analyzes slash, asserting that slash cannot be read and analyzed on its own, but
must be read in connection to the source of the fiction (e.g., the show, novel, or
characters). By exploring intertextuality and the slash canon, she claims that authors
and readers have a thorough knowledge of the initial setting and characters of a text
(p. 120). Stasi finds that slash uses complex references and symbolism, which places
the writing within contemporary postmodern textuality (p. 129).
Likewise, Kaplans article Construction of Fan Fiction Character Through
Narrative focuses on the ways in which fan fiction writers develop characters within
their texts, given that these characters are already complex creations complete with
physical descriptions, histories, personalities, and rich fan interpretations (p. 135).
She conducts case studies of X-Files, Star Trek: Voyager, and Highlander fan fiction
texts, observing that narrative techniques in these works produce an interpretation
of character both wholly within its own text and in dialogue with the extratextual
knowledge of the source text and the fanon accessible to the reader (p. 151).
Finally, Willis analyzes her own fan fiction about Harry Potter for emotional,
political, and intellectual investments. Willis argues that while Harry is portrayed
108 M. D. E. Meyer & M. H. L. Tucker
exclusively as heterosexual in the text, the writing of the series provides for
homoerotic desire between Harry and several male characters, including the potions
teacher Snape. By examining some of her own work, Willis highlights the delicate
negotiation needed between personal interest in providing an alternative queer world
and the heterosexual intention of the text. In particular, Willis notes that queer
writers run the risk of seeming to speak from a position of authority, of attempting
to prove [their] reading of a text, rather than attempting simply to circulate it as one
among many readings, taking pleasure in multiplicity itself (pp. 167168).
Part 3, Readers and Writers: Fan Fiction and Community, focuses on the
interaction between writers and readers, emphasizing the importance of reception
and production. This section contains contributions from Angelina Karpovich, Eden
Lackner, Barbara Lynn Lucas, Robin Anne Reid, and editor Kristina Busse.
Karpovichs article introduces the concept of beta readers and studies beta
reading*the practice of releasing a story to a selected (and trusted) fellow writer
or other member of the fan fiction community before making it available to the
general readership (p. 172). As somewhat akin to peer reviewers in academic
publishing, beta readers hold significant power potentially to shape the resulting
story, and beta readers are generally acknowledged for their contributions to revisions
(p. 177). Karpovich argues that the appearance of beta reading seems to be a result of
the Internet medium because it responds to the acceptance of a huge, ever-growing
number of new and diverse members in fan communities; part of becoming a fully
fledged member of the community involves learning about and participating in the
community practice of beta reading (p. 186).
The next two chapters explore different aspects of sexuality in fandoms. Lackner,
Lucas, and Reid focus on Lord of the Rings slash fiction and readers responses to it on
LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com). The authors situate their essay in queer theory,
challenging the way slash fan fiction has been characterized as a product of straight
women writing about gay men. Instead, they ask how differences among women in
fandom can be read within the complex matrix of queer theory (p. 189), and claim
that characterizing slash writers as straight women is problematic because the
construction of those fans (even if it was once accurate) may not apply to later
generations (p. 191). By resituating the practice of writing slash fiction as queer, the
authors challenge the heterosexual/homosexual binary implicit in contemporary
definitions of slash fiction.
Busses chapter builds on this argument by examining real person slash (RPS) on
LiveJournal as a site for online performative identity and discusses fannish displays
of affection, mock queerness, and concerns about the political implications of such
behavior (p. 207). Unlike slash fiction about characters from media, RPS co-opts a
celebrity identity and attempts to write a story from their lived reality. Busse offers an
example of RPS about the members of the popular boy band
+
NSYNC to illustrate
how RPS communities negotiate rules and regulations about fan writing*concerns
that are not present for writers focusing on mediated texts.
Finally, Part 4, Medium and Message: Fan Fiction and Beyond, veers away from
textual analysis and genre, turning its attention to the more performative aspects of
Fan Communities 109
fandom, particularly how authors control creative license in fan fiction. This section
contains essays by Francesca Coppa, Louisa Ellen Stein, and Robert Jones. Coppas
chapter, Writing Bodies in Space: Media Fan Fiction as Theatrical Performance,
argues that fan fiction develops in response to dramatic, not literary, modes of
storytelling and therefore can be seen to fulfill performative rather than literary
criteria (p. 225). By utilizing the lens of performance studies, she interrogates three
aspects of fan fiction: (1) Why does fan fiction seem to focus on bodies? (2) Why
does fan fiction seem so repetitious? and (3) Why is fan fiction produced within the
context of media fandom? (p. 230). Ultimately, Coppa connects fan fiction to
theatre, claiming that fandom is community theatre in a mass media world; fandom
is what happened to the culture of amateur dramatics (p. 242).
The last two articles of the text focus on new media channels used in the
contemporary production, distribution, and reception of fan fiction. In This
Dratted Thing: Fannish Storytelling Through New Media, Stein links three areas of
thought relating to online fandoms: (1) the point of interaction between a user and a
computer at the level of the software; (2) genre theory; and (3) the conceptualization
of the active fan (p. 246). Thus, Stein explains that online diary/journal based
networks such as LiveJournal utilize a particular software platform that make them
ideal for fan fiction, including as they do the ability to create threaded comments,
real-time interaction, and the process of friending which restricts access to certain
information. Although this type of structure is similar to online role-playing games,
the author characterizes fan fiction communities as a process of storytelling
interactive fiction (p. 251). She utilizes case studies of Harry Potter and The Sims as
examples of these interactive processes.
Finally, Joness chapter, From Shooting Monsters to Shooting Movies: Machinima
and the Transformative Play of Video Game Fan Culture, examines 3D gaming
environments and how players manipulate the video game medium. He examines
machinima or animated filmmaking within a real-time 3D environment (p. 262).
In essence, fans hack the video game in order to obtain images to produce their
own animated films. Machinima grew out of the first-person shooter (FPS) video
game genre, which is male-dominated; thus, Jones argues that this particular type of
fan practice is a potential masculine corollary to fiction which is seen as
predominantly feminine. He ultimately suggests that this type of transformative
play has become a defining quality of the modern video game which offers both
the opportunity and the invitation to drastically change the medium (p. 277).
Female Fandoms Online
While Hellekson and Busses text offers a variety of insights into media fandoms,
Rhiannon Burys work Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online (2005)
offers an in-depth, insightful discussion of how women construct and participate in
online fan communities. The Introduction to the text discusses the formation of
women-centered cyberspaces, as well as theories of online gender performance,
community making, and the production of space. The author claims that as a distinct
110 M. D. E. Meyer & M. H. L. Tucker
subculture of a burgeoning online media fandom, women-only and women-centered
fandoms are ripe for scholarly investigation (p. 3). Utilizing ethnographic methods,
she analyzes two female-based online communities dedicated to the television shows
The X-Files and Due South. Bury operates as a participant observer invested in the
knowledge production of these communities: Although steps can be taken to
(re)negotiate the researcher/researched binary, it is important to acknowledge that it
can never be erased (p. 30). Bury organizes the text into five chapters; the first two
chapters provide ethnographic overviews of the online communities studied, while
the second two examine the use of language online, leaving the final chapter to
interrogate some of the theoretical connections her research demonstrates.
In Chapter 1, Feminine Pleasures, Masculine Texts: Reading The X-Files on the
David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade, the author examines how the interplay of
normative feminine and feminist discourse appears in the collective sense-making of
primary and secondary texts (p. 34). The David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade Research
Project (DDEBRP) involved a one-year collection of data from 19 active members of
a listserv designated as a women-only space that discussed the actor David Duchovny
as well as his popular television character, Mulder, on The X-Files. Bury analyzes
forum posts through Jenkins lens of the active fan. In particular, Bury categorizes
her work as an extension of Jenkins, claiming that Jenkins observations about
gendered fan practices stops short of explaining why boys and girls would be offered
different narratives in the first place (p. 42). As a result, Bury claims that many fan
scholars focus on pairings of texts and fans that coalesce along cultural gender norms
(e.g., Radways 1984 work on women who read romance novels) rather than diverge.
Thus, she frames her discussion of The X-Files as stories for boys appropriated by a
group of educated women. Participants discussed the notion of romantic fantasy and
lust, exhibiting a closer connection to lust and desire for the main character (David
Duchovny) than to the notion of romantic love between Mulder and his partner,
Scully. While Bury read Scullys role in the series as second fiddle to Mulder, the
participants of the group made it clear that Scully was Mulders equal by stressing
the feminine aspects of the quest in terms of shared emotional investments (p. 44).
The participants discourse surrounding Mulder placed a strong value on his
performance of feminine qualities and expressed disapproval of more normative
masculine behaviors even when they were justified under the circumstances of the
series. The conversations that participants engaged in extended beyond The X-Files,
suggesting a blurring of expectations for Mulder as a television character and for
Duchovny himself, who Bury claims is representative of the new man (p. 37). Fans
acted both as critics of the television series and as promoters of Duchovny as an
actor/person, illustrating that women involved in the community solidified identity
through their discussions.
In Chapter 2, When Fraser Met RayK: Reading, Writing and Discussing Slash
Fiction, Bury explores another female fan site focused less on gender identity and
more on sexuality. The Militant RayK Separatists listserv was devoted to the series
Due South, originally produced by Canadian-based Alliance Atlantis in conjunction
with CBS. When CBS cancelled the series, production continued in Canada, but one
Fan Communities 111
of the main characters, Ray Vecchio, was replaced with Ray Kowalski. The listserv
grew from the separation of the RayK fans from those who preferred RayV. The
MRKS list participated in the creation of slash fiction, utilizing the main characters
from the Canadian series. Examples of Due South slash are woven throughout the
chapter, followed by participant responses to the genre of slash fiction. Bury is no
longer convinced that slash is merely a response to problematic gender relations,
noting that several participants identified feminist motivations for writing slash (e.g.,
There are no pre-existing sexual politics or power issues they make the relation-
ship as they go. Thats exciting; p. 77). Thus, Bury opts to employ queer theory in
reading her participants responses, illustrating that members of the community were
open to queer identities and subject positions, but did not necessarily identify
themselves with queer politics. In addition, Bury chronicles her participants
experiences of being outed as slash readers/writers. Despite the genres focus on
sex between men, Bury argues that part of the womens pleasure in reading these texts
resulted from a well crafted story or sex scene. As many of the women who
participated in the forum were well educated, Bury claims, If slash is a highly
nonnormative practice in terms of sexuality, a concern for quality is highly normative
in terms of class (p. 99), and that the women tended to uphold community
standards based on bourgeois aesthetics (p. 105).
Burys observations about the role of class in the participation of listserv
members causes her to shift focus in Chapters 3 and 4 to particular communicative
strategies women use in these online communities. Chapter 3, The Write Stuff:
Language Use and Humor On (the) Line, discusses the use of language by members
of online communities. Bury gives a short history of the development of proper
language usage spanning from the 1500s to today, and borrows Pierre Bourdieus
(1977) concept of linguistic capital as a form of cultural capital, which
underscores how language determines social status and class identity (p. 109). Bury
is able to demonstrate that some online participants value the use of proper
language within their communities, and utilize linguistic capital in order to mark
those who may be undesirable for the community. She engages a subtopic called
From Hybridity to Verbal Hygiene, which illustrates how women in these
communities would often utilize language constructions that mimic oral speech
patterns in their online text (e.g., uh-huh, hey, yeah, you know), as well as
slang and colloquialisms (e.g., cool, that really sucks). They also utilize text
symbols, or glyphs, which are more commonly called emoticons (p. 111). The use of
emoticons, which tend to be typed physical gestures (e.g., the smiley face :)) or
shortened oral speech (e.g., lol for laughing out loud, or IMHO for in my
humble opinion), is commonplace in online communities and chat forums. Bury
asserts that these occurrences should not be confused with a lack of attention to
accurate and effective language use, oral or written (p. 112). While most banter in
forums contributes to group bonding, some posters with less extroversion could feel
insignificant because of their inability to post often or cleverly enough. Therefore,
forum discussions frequently focus on a specific investment in cultural and linguistic
capital [that] might seem excessive, obsessive even, but it is perfectly understandable.
112 M. D. E. Meyer & M. H. L. Tucker
In performing normative class identities, members are able to write off any deficit in
cultural capital created by their investments in popular media fandom (p. 130).
Thus, the insistence on proper language is part and parcel of the investment in a
form of what cultural theorist may consider low culture in an attempt to elevate
actions to high culture status (see Gans, 1999).
In Chapter 4, Nice Girls Dont Flame: Politeness Strategies On (the) Line, Bury
explores how etiquette online, or netiquette, becomes an important practice between
listserv members. Building on the sociological observation that girls and women
carefully link their utterances to the previous speakers contribution and develop
each others topics, asking questions rather for conversational maintenance than for
information or challenge (Gal, 1989), Bury explores how these socially constructed
cues play out in online communities. She explains that in accordance with the history
of politeness, online communities regulate politeness by monitoring flamers, or
individuals who express anger through insults after a specific comment or
conversation. Theoretically speaking, it is easier to flame online than in face-to-
face interaction because individuals are safely tucked away behind the computer
screen and cloaked in anonymity. Bury examines the communicative strategies her
participants used to flame and how others responded to flaming. In both groups,
Bury found: Typical of all-female face-to-face interaction, members of the DDEBRP
and MRKS did not flame, and for the most part limited swearing; worked to avoid,
minimize or mitigate disagreement; and supported others turns (p. 135). Bury
observes that members of the lists monitored their language by regulating swearing
(in accordance with the investment in linguistic capital from Chapter 3), provided
numerous qualifiers when proposing what might be perceived as a controversial
opinion (use of IMHO and Just my 2 cents), and negotiated conflict by focusing
on support for members of the group rather than argumentation.
Finally, in Chapter 5, Cyberspace as Virtual Heterotopia, Bury connects her data
to theoretical discussions of social and spatial relationships. Working from Michel
Foucaults (1980) claims that disruption of the public/private binary allows for the
establishment of historical knowledge, Bury sees her study as contributing historical
sources for glimmers of the alternative orderings and in-between spaces created by
women (p. 167). Discussing womens progress from private to public spheres, Bury
observes that womens progress was not simply due to entering the workforce, but
attributed to the fact that they worked collectively and had access to other non-domestic
spaces (p. 171, emphasis in original). Bury notes that many of her participants
accessed the forums through computers in their places of employment, and that
typically they read and wrote posts during work time, citing relational and family
obligations as reasons for fewer posts on weekends. Bury also cites the importance of
the cultural origin of media texts, noting that the U.S. series The X-Files differed
dramatically from Due South at all stages of production and reception. Thus, fan
communities can appropriate cultural codes and constructs from the culture of origin
of the text and reproduce these communicative codes in online interactions and
fiction. Bury concludes the text with thoughts on fan communities as a whole and the
definition of fan, noting that the category itself is best understood as strategic, not
Fan Communities 113
essential. To this end, it continues to serve a vital function to distinguish those who
have a more intense emotional investment in a text than that of the casual reader
(p. 208). Moreover, Bury makes the case that poststructuralist theory allows
researchers to explore virtual identity, community, and space. She illustrates that
there is a distinct difference between real life identity and online identity, and that
while both real life and Internet communities require interaction with others,
the context and situations differ (p. 211). Bury concludes with suggestions for future
research, encouraging scholars and students to pursue further cyberculture and
Internet studies.
Conclusion
All three texts reviewed above offer important insights for the field of communication
studies. Although each text can stand on its own, each contributes to our larger
understanding of the evolution and history of fan scholarship. Jenkins text is a nice
introduction to the history and body of his work, but could be difficult to understand
for those who have not yet read Textual Poachers. In addition, Jenkins observations
in the latter half of the text coincide with his other recent text, Convergence Culture
(Jenkins, 2006a). Scholars thinking about using Jenkins text should consider reading
or assigning all three of his books to appreciate the depth and scope of his changes in
the scholarly interrogation of fan communities. Hellekson and Busses text is most
appropriately used to illustrate the benefits that numerous lenses can bring to a
particular topic in fan studies (fan fiction in their case). As written, the collection
probably appeals more to literary theorists and critics, although the observations
on performance and identity are easily transferable to a communication setting.
Burys text is an in-depth study that builds on early fan research and methods. Her
observations about the strategic use of language and face management are directly
related to a variety of communication courses, particularly gender, intercultural
communication, and rhetoric. The text serves as a solid example of online
ethnography, although additional readings in theory and method would be needed
to direct students specifically toward this type of project.
Collectively, these texts question the assumptions made by communication
scholars over the past few decades*assumptions about divisions between the
quality and type of communication employed in face-to-face vs. computer mediated
interactions, assumptions that fan behaviors are an attempt to resist hegemonic
control in the media industry, gendered assumptions about communicative strategies
and motivations, and assumptions about the role that sexuality plays in fan
communities. Each text illustrates that new and innovative methods will be required
to study fans and fandom in the wake of the Internet. In a tangible sense, we have
moved beyond simple theoretical explanations of email lists and discussion forums as
places of anonymity and safety. If anything, we are entering an age where the Internet
brings visibility, not anonymity. Current trends in social networking websites,
including the popular Facebook and MySpace, show that fans are no longer seeking
to remain anonymous. MySpace serves as a means of exposure for new musical artists
114 M. D. E. Meyer & M. H. L. Tucker
without the financial capital to run their own label; Facebook offers college students a
way to link their real life friends and classmates in a virtual environment. The
participants in Burys study illustrate this visibility, using similar communication
strategies to those that would be employed in face-to-face interactions.
As scholars seek to develop more integrated theoretical approaches to media and
reception, the metaphor of textual poaching needs to shift as well. While some fans
certainly do position their acts as sites of resistance, others simply express a deep
affection or desire for particular media texts. All three texts highlight some aspect of
play in fandom*those who describe themselves as fans are also in the process of
playing with and adapting the medium to suit their interests, as evidenced by
the authors in Hellekson and Busses text. More work must be done from a qualitative
perspective that addresses how fans utilize, participate in, and enjoy their respective
fandoms. Fan research is still marginalized in favor of more quantitative measures of
effects, and scholars studying fandom are often told to get a life, paralleling the
famous Saturday Night Live sketch about Star Trek fans. All three of these texts
illustrate that fan communities are complex, socially constructed systems*their
participants have real lives, and fandom is a part of those lives.
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