Suchergebnisse

Abstract
As part of the Journal of Fandom Studies exploration of the field more than 20 years after the publication of Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers (which has been widely cited as one of the first major works paving the way for this area of study), this piece looks back at Textual Poachers' approach to studying fandom, examines the dialogue that has taken place within fan studies over the past six years, and raises areas of consideration for fan studies to consider in the years ahead. In particular, the piece advocates for the need to continue to evolve the types of fandoms explored by fan studies scholars; to challenge ourselves to examine the field's tendency to prioritize some forms of active audience engagement over others based on the media format or level of technical mastery the audience uses or the type of media text on which the engagement is focused; and to further explore what more widespread interest in, acceptance of, and adoption of the model of engagement from fandom means for our field.

For decades, fans of U.S. soap operas have formed social networks surrounding their shows, and they did so even before the concept entered the vernacular. Soap fans, who started on a geographically local scale and built their communities through grassroots efforts, have found a variety of venues to connect with one another over the past several decades. This study looks at the pre-Internet development of these social networks to show how that trajectory relates to the current online community of soap opera fans. Although several scholars have studied soap opera fandom, few have taken an historical approach at understanding the trajectory of soap fandom, a view especially necessary in an era where online social networks are at the center of audience studies and where cornerstone U.S. soap operas are struggling to retain relevance and audience. To fill this gap, I argue that understanding fan networks today requires looking back to previous methods of fan networking. Soaps' longevity (the youngest U.S. soap is more than 20 years old) and frequency (all U.S. daytime soaps are daily) make them crucial texts in demonstrating how the roots of fan social networks in a pre-Internet era helped shape that fandom's transition onto the Internet, and they also illustrate the continued evolution of these networks as fans move online.

US-based reporting jobs are increasingly concentrated within a small number of major metropolitan areas, driven by digital journalism outlets, according to research over the past few years from media analysts like Joshua Benton at Harvard's Nieman Lab and Jack Shafer and Tucker Doherty of Politico. As for cities where journalism jobs still flourish, New York City is atop that list. According to a 2015 analysis by Jim Tankersley in The Washington Post, the number of reporting jobs in New York basically held steady in the years between 2004 and 2014, while the number of reporting jobs outside that city, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., dropped by 25 percent in the same time period. However, the proliferation of new, often unstable digital journalism hiring booms in the largest city in the US has masked just how dire the situation is for local reporting. Paul Moses illustrated this aptly in a 2017 piece for The Daily Beast, based on research for the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism's Urban Reporting Program, highlighting a lack of any dedicated reporter covering Queens County courts (which would be the nation's fourth largest city if it stood on its own). He wrote, "The problem for local news coverage is the simple fact that a story aimed at a national audience is likelier to generate heavy web traffic than a local one. Original local news reporting is threatened not only by layoffs but by the transfer of jobs to writing on whatever is of interest to a national web audience." This common concern for the troubling state of local news in New York City led the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, and WNYC to convene an off-the-record roundtable discussion focused on The Future of Local News on February 9, 2018, at the Columbia University School of Journalism. The goal of the discussion was to bring together a select group of journalists, publishers, academics, funders, public-sector representatives, and other experts to discuss how to reverse the crisis in poorly resourced New York local media and work toward innovative solutions to ensure a sustainable future for local news. The half-day roundtable took place in the morning and comprised a closed discussion built around three major questions: 1) What is the state of local journalism in New York City at the beginning of 2018? 2) What trends and emerging business models in local news across the US and internationally might we be able to learn from? 3)Where do we go from here? What are possible futures for local media in New York?

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: -- Part I. How Do We Imagine a Better World -- 1 Rebel Yell: The Metapolitics of Equality and Diversity in Disney's Star Wars -- 2 The Hunger Games and the Dystopian Imagination -- 3 Spinning H. P. Lovecraft: A Villain or Hero of Our Times -- 4 Family Sitcoms' Political Front -- 5 "To Hell with Dreams": Resisting Controlling Narratives through Oscar Season -- Part II. How Do We Imagine the Process of Change -- 6 Imagining Intersectionality: -- 7 Code for What -- 8 Tracking Ida: Unlocking Black Resistance and Civic Imagination through Alternate Reality Gameplay -- 9 Everyone Wants Peace? -- Part III. How Do We Imagine Ourselves as Civic Agents -- 10 Learning to Imagine Better: -- 11 Black Girls Are from the Future: -- 12 "Dance to the Distortion": -- 13 Changing the Future by Performing the Past: -- 14 Mirroring the Misogynistic Wor(l)d: -- 15 Reimagining the Arab Spring: From Limitation to Creativity -- 16 DIY VR: -- Part IV. How Do We Forge Solidarity with Others with Different Experiences Than Our Own -- 17 Training Activists to Be Fans: -- 18 Tonight, in This Very Ring . . . Trump vs. the Media: -- 19 Ms. Marvel Punches Back: -- 20 For the Horde: -- 21 Communal Matters and Scientific Facts: -- 22 Imagining Resistance to Trump through the Networked Branding of the National Park Service -- Part V. How Do We Imagine Our Social Connections with a Larger Community -- 23 Moving to a Bollywood Beat, "Born in the USA" Goes My Indian Heart? -- 24 "Our" Hamilton: -- 25 Participatory Action in Humans of New York -- 26 A Vision for Black Lives in the Black Radical Tradition -- Part VI. How Do We Bring an Imaginative Dimension to Our Real-World Spaces and Places -- 27 "Without My City, Where Is My Past?" -- 28 Reimagining and Mediating a Progressive Christian South -- 29 Tzina: Symphony of Longing: -- 30 What's Civic about Aztlán? -- References -- Index -- About the Contributors