Category: Fandom
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Why Is Sense-Making Methodology Methodological?
This is from a class paper I wrote for Brenda Dervin in 2006 at Ohio State University. The most efficient and useful way I can conceive of answering this question is by exploring it in relation to my phenomenon of interest, fandom. Fandom has been studied using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, as a…
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Transjective Media Studies and Reciprocal Determinism
Yep, that’s right — I’m being one of those academics. Engaging in neologisms to make a name for myself. But what I am working through here is an idea for a book project, and I’d love peoples’ comments to help me to do so. Redefining Media Studies A medium is a technology for the storage,…
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Meet the PWSJ and PCSJ
The Professional Wrestling Studies Association announces the first issue of the Professional Wrestling Studies Journal from editor Matt Foy. This online, open access journal can be reached at https://www.prowrestlingstudies.org/professional-wrestling-studies-journal. The first issue contains scholarly essays and reviews from different disciplines, all considering various aspects of professional wrestling. Issues include how professional wrestling relates to the…
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A Communication Toolbox for Communication Literacy
The following is an excerpt from my book Fractured Fandoms: Contentious Communication in Fan Communities. To read all of the information, you will need to get the book, either from a seller or your local library. [Do not cite this blog post as it is an abridged version of what appears in the book. All…
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Call for Proposals: Mental Health and Fandom
Before the concretization of fan studies as an academic discipline, fans would routinely be labeled and treated as “fanatics” or people with excessive love for something or someone that could lead them to engage in maladaptive, even dangerous, behavior. In a sense, public discourses positioned fandom as a mental health issue. Along with being problematic…
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Trauma and Fractured Fandom
This blog post contains my presentation at MPCA/ACA 2019 from our panel on mental health and fandom. This presentation is the first step in a deeper analysis of my fractured fandom work to understand the traumatic experiences fans expressed in their self-interviews. “fear fearfearfearfear feeling hella unsafe”: The Trauma of Fractured Fandoms As a brief…
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Discussing Weird Al’s Staying Power
In a first, the forty-ninth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast finds friend of the podcast Noelle Lynn Blood joining Christopher Olson and I to discuss the importance of Weird Al Yankovic to pop culture and nerds. In this episode, the trio examine how Weird Al has adapted himself to different eras in pop…
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San Diego Comic Con
In a first, the forty-eighth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast finds friend of the podcast Joan Miller (@a_wild_acafan) joining Christopher Olson and myself to discuss the importance of the grand-daddy fan convention, San Diego Comic Con. In this episode, the trio discuss how SDCC came to be the pop cultural juggernaut that it…
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Academic Thoughts on Hentai
And hentai texts serve as ways to reaffirm this dominion of man. Hentai women are created for the sole purpose of male survey. They are true fantasy, existing nowhere but in the imagination of man and his subsequent depictions of his imagination – she is simulacrum. Being man’s creations, they are to serve man’s desires,…
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Work In Progress: Applying SMM to Fan Studies
This draft comes from a presentation given at the 2018 MPCA/ACA conference in Indianapolis. Introduction Communication scholar Brenda Dervin created the Sense-Making Methodology as a methodological approach for conducting interviews that draws on metatheoretical concepts such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and the humanistic approach to psychology. Since its formulation, Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) has been utilized across…
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