Bloomsbury Seeing Fans: Representations of Fandom in Media and Popular Culture

Split into four sections, Seeing Fans analyzes the representations of fans in the mass media through a diverse range of perspectives. This collection opens with a preface by noted actor and fan Orlando Jones (Sleepy Hollow), whose recent work on fandom (appearing with Henry Jenkins at Comic Con and speaking at the Fan Studies Network symposium) bridges the worlds of academia and the media industry. Section one focuses on the representations of fans in documentaries and news reports and includes an interview with Roger Nygard, director of Trekkies and Trekkies 2. The second section then examines fictional representations of fans through analyses of television and film, featuring interviews with Emily Perkins of Supernatural, Robert Burnett, director of the film Free Enterprise, and Luminosity, a fan who has been interviewed in the New York Magazine for her exemplary work in fandom. Section three explores cultural perspectives on fan representations, and includes an interview with Laurent Malaquais, director of Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony. Lastly, the final section looks at global perspectives on the ways fans have been represented and finishes with an interview with Jeanie Finlay, director of the music documentary Sound it Out. The collection then closes with an afterword by fan studies scholar Professor Matt Hills. Review At a time when fansas cosplayers, Comic Con attendees, consumers, practitioners as well as financiers of crowdfunding projectsare permeating the media and public consciousness, this collection arrives at a critical moment to examine how fans are being represented by various stakeholders, from the perspectives of aca-fans, media practitioners and fan producers themselves. This excellent collection will undoubtedly add to the richness and expansion of the field of fan studies. --Bertha Chin, Lecturer of Communication, Swinburne University of Technology, AustraliaThe publication of this engaging collection, thirty years after Saturday Night Live aired a sketch with William Shatner telling the nerdy, obsessive Trekkies to get a life, could not be more timely. The chapters, a refreshing combination of critical analyses and interviews, explore representations of media fans in a range of genres and texts across cultures. The takeaway is that actors, content producers, fan scholars and fans themselves continue to grapple with negative stereotypes while refusing to be limited by them. --Rhiannon Bury, Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies, Athabasca University, Canada About the Author Lucy Bennett is a researcher at JOMEC, Cardiff University, UK. Her work on fan cultures appears in journals such as New Media & Society, Journal of Fandom Studies, Transformative Works and Cultures, Social Semiotics, Continuum, Cinema Journal, Celebrity Studies and Participations. She is the co-founder/chair of the Fan Studies Network and co-editor of Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics and Digital Society (2015).Paul Booth is Professor of Communication at DePaul University, USA. Booth’s research interests include fandom, new technologies and media, popular culture, and cult media. He is the author of Time on TV (2012), Digital Fandom (2010), and Playing Fans (2014). He has edited Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who (2013), and has published numerous articles on fans, social media, and technology. He is currently enjoying a cup of coffee.