Convergence and Fandom

I really enjoyed reading this week’s Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture. Ch 5: “Why Heather Can Write: Media Literacy and the Harry Potter Wars” article, especially because it illustrated a kind of boundlessness of fan culture, exemplifying the potential of youth to participate in fan culture, develop their own fiction and create worlds in which fan interactivity and support could produce content and readership accessible to all ages. Like Renee, after reading this article, I developed an interest in how fans have not only appropriated televisual texts, but have continued and shaped the production of these texts through their participation and avid fandom. Like Veronica Mars, shows such as Star Trek: The Original Series, Family Guy, Futurama, Jericho, Cagney & Lacey, Firefly, Roswell, Friday Night Lights, Designing Women, and Quantum Leap were also once on the brink of cancellation but were saved by their fanbase, as noted in the article titled “Top 10 Protests that Saved TV Shows from Cancellation.

Shows that did not yet experience a “cut-off” and have continued to run such as Doctor Who and Sherlock have also been influenced by fans in the actual development of fan content, where fans have contributed to various plot twists, integration of characters, and the choices made by the show’s characters (although as this article from The Guardian notes, may be at the expense of general audience viewership in its targeting of and paying homage to the show’s specifically obsessive fans).

In addition to my interest in fan participation and involvement in the production of content, I have also questioned how the convergence of technological media forms have acknowledged outlets of fan participation, commentary, and the ways in which television shows have developed a conversation between their shows and social media outlets through which the shows could interact with and accumulate feedback from their fans. One particular show that runs on E! (which I am ashamed to say I have watched on a few occasions while waiting for my favorite shows to air) is Rich Kids of Beverly Hills which relies almost entirely on the promotion of its characters’ social media usage through the characters discussing their posts on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, the use of hashtags sporadically within their conversations, the actual display of hashtags running along the screen throughout the show and the recording of the characters posts on their social media accounts. One of the show’s reality stars, Morgan Stewart, has her own blog, Boobs and Loubs through which she was recognized, further promoting an interactivity and commentary between the fans and the stars of the show. Because of the show’s constant discussion of social network postings, the show brings attention to the actual Instagram/Facebook/Twitter accounts of the shows characters, further promoting fan interactivity, commentary, and the development of new content which could very likely be a means for the characters of the show to gossip and create drama over in a future episode. For your enjoyment, I have provided a clip of the characters discussing their social media choices: