Social Media & Comm

Fans/amateurs
The ship of Theseus:
Parts are always falling apart. The story is you take the ship out and keep fixing and
replacing it until eventually, you replace every single piece. Is it a new ship?

What makes a fan/amateur/professional?

Must everything be professionalized?

Convergence culture
Franquicias tipo StarWars o Avengers = fans are loyal and they keep making movies
because #capitalism
Older forms of media
● different than mass media or broadcast culture
○ Owner of intellectual property, make content and audience give them
money. Audience could not make media. Eran purely consumidores. Pero
ahora nos convertimos en prosumidores. Y los owners tenían que deal
with this porque eran un threat to media companies y tenían que ser
mejores. (quality maybe). Now that everyone can do it, how do we
maintain our dominance?

Convergence
● Owner gives different types of content on the same “topic”. Telling a story across
multiple forms of media.
○ Different movies, series, video games even
● They also want to transform audience members into fans and create that
“culture”. They integrate the story into their own identities and rituals.
○ Strategic move by mass media companies. Transform an audience
member into a true believer
○ Putting culture outside of traditional channels

Acc to Jenkins: Convergence culture

● Production vs. consumption
● Professional vs. amateur
● Top-down vs. Bottom-up
● Prohibitive vs. collaborative (you can’t versus you may, to audience members)
If you want to survive in this media environment where people have access to decent
technologies, you have to make sure that your audience members do not create them on
their own. You make them do work but make sure their work is not in competition with
you, instead supporting you.
● Tipo el remake de Haymitch’s hunger games.

Difference between “fan” and “audience member”

There are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses - Raymond
Williams. Fan is more invested.

Folk culture:
everyone is involved in maintenance, dissemination, etc.
Tipo el juego de que cada quien dice una oracion y se la pasan en círculo y h¡van
haciendo una historia.
● Oral storytelling, unreliable

Folk → commercial → fan

Pero cnn disney no se puede participar pq they sue

Media consolidation
In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 companies. In 2011, that same 90% is
controlled by 6 companies: General Electric, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time
Warner, CBS
● Streaming services are not included here yet

Who creates culture? Who governs culture? What institutions govern the relationship
between individuals and society?
Church State Media

Economy = Moral Political Cultural

(informational)

Subject = Penitent Citizen Consumer

(“Target”)

Deviant = Heretic Traitor Pirate

(Unpredictable)

Key:
Dont confuse interactive technology with participatory culture
Interactivity vs participation
Fuchs says Jenkins confuses it. He only talks about interactivity.
● Interactivity: How technologies (and industries) are designed to respond to
consumer feedback
● Participation: cultural and social protocols that emphasize equality, freedom,
autonomy….

Classmate presentations
Bryan:
● Different motives for being a fan and expressing it in different ways
● direct vs indirect fan concept
○ Invested or just spectators
● Categories for being fans: personal involvement, personality/athlete
characteristic & childhood (memories)

Jeanine
● celebrity-fan relationship by following their sns page. closely tied which leads to
positive behaviors
● Theory: parasocial interaction: we consider them our besties and celebrity does
not reciprocate it
○ users show intent to form visual relationships with those similar to
themselves

● Structural factors (same personality, beliefs, language) = Homophily

● Situational factors (engagement) = Context

discussion:
Parasocial theory:
relationships with people that actually feel real to us
● (para= on the side of being social)
● crying when a character dies, etc
Social media gives the ability of interaction.
● Homophily: describes how we make relationships with people that we think are
more like us

Social personal identity is expressed through fan optimism and satisfaction which are
all mediated through involvement to produce behavioral loyalty