Fandom Research

This list will be added to as situations arise. For now, here are some questions I imagine might come up.

I’m an academic, and I want you to post my questionnaire/study/survey, but I don’t want to show you my human participants research ethics protocols.

Come back when you have some. Ideally, you’ll have the phone number of your university’s office of research ethics, so that when I call them (and I will) to check if you’re legit, things will be twice as easy for me.

Can you upload my questionnaire with a contact form that sends directly to me?

Possibly. But I don’t know how, yet, and I don’t want to risk seeing answers that are intended solely for you, therefore invalidating your research and wasting your time.

Is it okay if my study is old and/or finished?

Yes. We would like to hear from you, especially any perspective you might have gained from the process. Please describe your study in detail so that we all can learn from it. In addition, please hand-code your formatting and provide it in an easily-read format, like .RTF or .TXT.

I’m a corporation, and I want your data on fan practises.

This would violate my (and my associates’) afore-mentioned research ethics. Like any good researcher, I assured my participants confidentiality. It would tarnish my and my university’s reputation if I shared raw data with you. You can read my reports if and when they are published. If you wish, you can engage me or any of the other researchers found here in a consulting capacity. But I (and they) will still be bound not to share data.

I’m a creator whose work has been re-mixed. I’m not sure how I feel about this.

Each creator feels differently about it. Many know there is fan-craft of their work, but choose not to spend any time looking at it. (Some have no choice about this, as they are far too busy with their next project.) Some demand request that their fans not re-mix, poach, appropriate, etc. (This is usually met with some backlash.) However you feel about this issue probably has something to do with the way that you think about authorship and originality in general. Being a creative person, you probably think about these things all the time, so understanding how they fit into your process as an artist will probably come as second nature.

Is all this fan-craft new?

Only in part. Constance Penley and Janice Radway were doing fan studies in the 1970’s, when fanzines still existed in print form, and were circulated from person to person via mail. But the arrival of the internet has made all these processes faster and more accessible, and thus easier (and more interesting) to study.

However, some crafts are new. Fanvids, AMV’s, fansubbing, scanlating, machinima, and game modding charted upward with advancements in communication and media technology, and the availability of same among younger fans who became early adopters of editing software.

I don’t recognize any of the terms you just mentioned.

That’s okay. You’re new. 

Have there been studies of _______?

Quite possibly. I suggest you query Google. Or JSTOR. Or TWC. There’s a chance that I know the answer, but the probability is much greater that I don’t, and cannot give you one (or might give you an incorrect one). This why we use tags and categories here, so that you can click them and see who’s researching what and when.

I posted my questionnaire, but no one’s answering!

We’ve all been there. It sounds like it’s time to re-think your research methods. Theorize why they didn’t work this time in the concluding portion of your paper/thesis/dissertation. Turn the negative into a positive, and benefit your community in the process.

Are you guys fans?

Why else would we be so interested in protecting our own?