fan studies

Fan studies is an academic discipline that analyses fans, fandoms, fan cultures and fan activities, including fanworks. It is an interdisciplinary field located at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, which emerged in the early 1990s as a separate discipline, and draws particularly on audience studies and cultural studies. Definition and scope Fan studies analyses fans, fandoms, fan cultures and fan activities, and provides a theoretical framework for investigating audience responses and fan-created works. It is an interdisciplinary field located at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, which draws particularly on audience studies and cultural studies, but is also informed by diverse fields including literary theory, communication studies, anthropology, ethnography, psychology, media studies including feminist media studies, film studies, television studies, internet studies and queer theory, as well as the study of legal issues around copyright and fair use. In its broadest definition, fan studies encompasses the study of fan culture and community, and associated fan activities, across a range of fandom types including media fandoms, music and celebrity fandoms, and sports and games fandoms, and covers both Western sources, such as Star Trek, Doctor Who and Star Wars, and non-western sources, such as anime, J-Pop and K-Pop. Some definitions focus on media fandom, and much study is limited to Western Anglophone sources, especially television and film. Fan activities of interest cover a wide range including joining fan clubs, attending fan conventions, visiting locations, exchanging spoilers, collecting and cosplay, as well as the creation of fanworks, such as fan fiction, fanzines, fan art, podcasts and fan vids. Fan studies also addresses common tropes in fanworks such as slash, hurt–comfort and Mary Sues. History Fan studies grew out of cultural studies research examining the reception of popular media by fans during the 1980s and early 1990s, drawing on work by Stuart Hall, John Fiske and others. The emphasis shifted towards examining works created by fans. The earliest academic publications in fan studies appeared in the mid-1980s; these include "Romantic myth, transcendence, and Star Trek zines", by Patricia Frazer Lamb and Diane Veith (1985 or 1986), and "Pornography by women, for women, with love", by Joanna Russ (1985).