The layout of the podcast for this fan fiction production was very similar to a radio program. There was a music intro and occasionally in the background. There were excerpts of speaking from the characters in the Harry Potter movies. The hosts for the show were introduced and they outlined what they would talk about during that episode of the podcast. The episode carried on like a conversation between the three hosts and they displayed something similar to radio personalities with different knowledge on the topics they were talking about (mostly news about HP movies, books, the wizarding world of Harry Potter, etc.)
While informative, the hosts shared their opinions and critiques of the films and fan fiction that resulted from the productions. This was a really long podcast (about 45 minutes) so mine will be a lot shorter, but I think I want to follow this setup with the music and quote excerpts if possible.
I put together a script for the podcast and it is included below:
Intro Music
Hello and welcome to my presentation about fandom- a look at fan participation in the current media. My name is Rachel and I am a senior Communication major in South Bend, IN. Today is April 7th and I am here to tell you about my fandom study. For this study, I look closer at the fandoms associated with Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight and this presentation incorporates research from my senior comprehensive research project and various skills from my Web Communications class.
This slide presentation is supported by Creative Commons and some rights are protected.
For this project, I developed several hypotheses and research questions that are explored in this study. My research questions explore how fans show their participation, looks to define the point at which someone becomes an extreme fan, a deeper exploration of the idea of an “extreme fan” and helps look at trends between age, gender and education and how each of these relate to fandom.
I distributed a survey for this study called “Fandom in Today’s Media” available online at surveymonkey.com. This survey was distributed using the snowball method through Facebook and email. 253 participants took the survey and the mean age was 21.98 years and the participants were 18-64 years old. I divided the participants into adolescent (18-24 years) and mature (25-64 years). I divided the participants so I could see differences in media expression and the different attitudes and practices of fandom.
Research Question #1 explores how fans show their participation in a fandom. We can see through these graphs that both adolescent and mature participants have strong expressions through books, television and films- this could be because of convenience or popularity sake. In both areas, there is a strong presence in the technological media through fan fiction, applications and blogging.
The data supports hypothesis #1- that fans will express themselves through many mediums. There were many other unique ways of expression from the open-ended question- fans replied that they expressed their fandom through undergrad classes, music (such as Wizard Rock affiliated with Harry Potter), museum exhibits, video games and art.
Research question 2 explores the point at which a fan becomes an extreme fan. This is done through looking at when the participant believes they THEMSELVES become extreme fans versus when they believe OTHERS become extreme fans. These graphs show surprising data because most participants show the extreme fan at low levels of participant when society has painted a picture of an extreme fan being the attendee at midnight movie premieres, writers of fan fiction and obsessive individuals.
We can look toward a study completed in 2006 by Gantz, Wang, Paul and Potter to ask: if the word “fan” originally derived from fanatic or fanaticus- already describing an extreme role?
In contrast to these graphs, the self-perception of oneself as a fan may be leading to the distortion of when we believe WE become extreme fans.
This hypothesis isn’t supported- perhaps because many of us do not want to be classified as extreme fans because “extreme fans” were described in a survey open-ended question as “obsessive, passionate and stalkers.” This contradicts what the participants define as extreme- are those that love the movies and books- obsessive and stalkers as well?
Research Question #3 asked what type of relationships a fan would seek out.
This question is answered by showing that fans feel more comfortable around fans of the same thing but do not necessarily seek out those fans when developing interpersonal relationships.
Therefore, fans will incorporate their fandom into their everyday life through interactions with others- hypothesis #3 is supported.
The final research question addresses the relationship between fandom and age, gender and education:
Age doesn’t have an impact on relating to fandom although the mature participants have more extreme feelings toward their fandom than the adolescents.
Gender trends show that female relate more to their fandom than males.
There is an increasing correlation between education and fandom although transition years such as from high school to college and college to post-grad show lags in the curve of fandom. These three areas of age, gender and education would be a great area for expansion to fandom studies.
From these results about education, the final hypothesis cannot be determined from this study.
Major challenges to this study were from the broad participant pool especially in terms of age and gender. Different means of sampling could help improve this study in the future. Also, fandom is such as broad area to explore and hard to define. There are many contributing factors to a fan’s feeling and one’s feelings are hard to isolate from social factors and opinions of others.
(Music begins softly behind text) Hopefully this has given you a bit of knowledge about the study of fandom and I want to thank you for tuning in. This presentation would not have been possible without the help of creative commons artists for the photos and Fairytale (a Creative Commons music source) for the great music. For more information you can visit my website at www.rachelwebcomm.blogspot.com.
Thank you and good night!
*Outro Music concludes
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