David Kocik, P. Berge, Camille Butera, Celeste Oon, Michael Senters
{"title":"\"Imagine a place:\" Power and intimacy in fandoms on Discord","authors":"David Kocik, P. Berge, Camille Butera, Celeste Oon, Michael Senters","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2497","url":null,"abstract":"With over 300 million users, the voice, video, and text chat application Discord has been steadily emerging as a dominant site of fan communities and practices. As the platform continues to grow and to court audiences beyond the site's gaming origins, fans have flocked to the site. To critically consider how fandom has developed on Discord, we analyze how power structures and intimacies between and across fandoms are constructed across three levels on the platform. At the smallest scale, rules, roles, and fan practices within individual Discord servers afford the explicit hierarchization of fans and the regulation of fan discourses. Next, Discord's subscription services encourage economic and cultural competition across and between servers of the same fan text. Finally, fan practices and discourses stretch across the entire Discord platform, connecting seemingly disparate fandoms through a variety of fan activities. By examining how fan practices and the platform's affordances constitute power structures and intimacies across these three levels, we provide a primer on the affordances and critical sites of inquiry on the ever-expanding Discord platform.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"26 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140243509","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Players, production and power: Labor and identity in live streaming video games","authors":"Irissa Cisternino","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2453","url":null,"abstract":"Thousands flock to sites like Twitch or YouTube to create new, transformative media by playing video games. Streaming is a massive, monetized industry and practice, with a spectrum of streamers: hobbyists, full-time creators, and celebrities. I orient streaming as a type of fannish production, both commercial and noncommercial, that allows gamers to create new media products and make money doing so. Broadening understandings of fannish labor to include streaming provides new opportunities for insight that benefit the field. I review current trends in streaming research, discussing potential new research directions beneficial to cross-disciplinary fan studies. I focus on studies that foreground power and inequality (rarer, to date), arguing that intersectional research, methodological diversity, and increased attention to power hierarchies is imperative. Focusing on the relationship between power and streamers' lived experiences complements existing attention to power in fan cultures.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"62 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140242272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analyzing an archive of allyish distributed mentorship in \"Speak\" fan fiction comments and reviews","authors":"Amber Moore","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2505","url":null,"abstract":"Young adult sexual assault narrative Speak (1999), by Laurie Halse Anderson, has inspired a small yet significant fandom, especially across two key platforms: Archive of Our Own (AO3) and FanFiction.net (FFN). The responses to fan fiction inspired by Speak demonstrate compelling discourses—celebratory, critical, vulnerable, and pedagogic—that also show evidence of significant allyish distributed mentorship in the Speak fandom archive. These comments and reviews demonstrate how digital spaces can be generative sites for feminist consciousness building around the topic of sexual trauma and rape culture, precisely because Speak fans produce, rewrite, and connect testimonies, both real and fictive.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"18 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140242498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Censorship on Japanese anime imported into mainland China","authors":"Jionghao Liu, Ling Yang","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2493","url":null,"abstract":"Japanese anime experiences a bumpy road on mainland China's online platforms, with constant removals and edits. This has led audiences to express dissatisfaction and scholars to call on the government to develop a systematic censorship system. However, the need for improved censorship measures is not limited to the government. At least three types of subjects are involved in the censorship process of Japanese anime on online platforms. Taking Bilibili, a Chinese video platform, as a case study, we classify censorship on Japanese anime into government censorship, public censorship, and self-censorship. As the case study shows, these three types of censorship demonstrate dynamic relationships of opposition, coordination, and unity, instead of a unilateral act of government pressure, and there is no simple antagonistic relationship between the subjects. We propose advice for each subject, expecting to alleviate the current conflicts and establish more reasonable interactions between the three parties for introducing and censoring Japanese anime.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140243094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"Darkness never prevails\": Doctor Who Covid-19 videos as keystones for pandemic engagement","authors":"Rachel Loewen","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2625","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2625","url":null,"abstract":"An analysis of three Doctor Who Covid-19 videos featuring Jodie Whittaker and a discussion of how fans may have used these videos as optimistic keystones for pandemic engagement.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140244996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Putting forward platforms in fan studies","authors":"Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, Lesley Willard","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2685","url":null,"abstract":"Editorial for \"Fandom and Platforms,\" edited by Maria K. Alberto, Effie Sapuridis, and Lesley Willard, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 42 (March 15, 2024).","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"14 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140244394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The differences between author’s notes on FanFiction.net and AO3","authors":"Martyna Szczepaniak","doi":"10.3983/twc.2024.2543","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2024.2543","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents the quantitative differences in the content of author's notes, treated as an act of communication, in Polish Harry Potter fan fiction on FanFiction.net and Archive of Our Own. It shows the influence that additional communication mediums and tagging systems have on the fan fiction, as well as on users' habits, story length, the visibility of archive tools, and rules.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"11 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140244324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"Representing kink: Fringe sexuality and textuality in literature, digital narrative, and popular culture,\" edited by Sara K. Howe and Susan E. Cook","authors":"Maria K. Alberto","doi":"10.3983/twc.2023.2289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2289","url":null,"abstract":"Sara K. Howe and Susan E. Cook, editors, Representing kink: Fringe sexuality and textuality in literature, digital narrative, and popular culture. Washington, DC: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019; paperback, $39.99 (194p), ISBN 9781498590877; hardcover, $95 (194p), ISBN 9781498590853.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126311301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regeneration and trans possibility in Doctor Who","authors":"Damien Hagen","doi":"10.3983/twc.2023.2281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2281","url":null,"abstract":"In the long-running BBC series Doctor Who (2005–), the iconic character of the Doctor is able to avoid death through a process of regeneration. Long before the ability of the Doctor to change gender during regeneration was made canonical by the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, transgender fans had interpreted the Doctor's regenerations through a trans imaginary. Trans fans of Doctor Who have been drawn to the series by its heavy thematic utilization of movement, change, liminality, and transformation. Trans fans of Doctor Who have utilized the series as a tool for imagining trans possibility, self-exploration, and viewing gender affirmation and euphoria as possible. The series offers trans fans a way of being in which transformation can be not only possible but lifesaving.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"68 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130277789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perverse polyjuice: Trans Harry Potter spitefic as a response to J. K. Rowling’s TERF wars","authors":"B. Cromwell","doi":"10.3983/twc.2023.2441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2023.2441","url":null,"abstract":"In the years since Rowling's controversial anti-trans tweets and statements, both the creation and consumption of trans Harry Potter fan fiction has exploded, ironically leading to more trans representation within the Harry Potter fandom than ever before. This paper examines features of trans Harry Potter fan fiction and how it has developed since the \"TERF Wars\" publication. It concludes that writing and reading trans Harry Potter fan fiction is a more meaningful and authentic form of protest than abandoning the fandom altogether.","PeriodicalId":230010,"journal":{"name":"Transformative Works and Cultures","volume":"5 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133052709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}