Fandom and Assassins Creed

Theory

Henry Jenkins

• fandom refers to a particularly organised and motivated audience of a certain media product franchise
• fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings
• fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully intended by the media product
• may manifest in conventions, fan fiction, etc.
• fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and utilising mass culture images
• e.g Reddit
• audiences are a really important part in the media production and consumption as well as distribution
• particularly fans
• for example
• may send in own ideas about that they would like to see from vloggers
• commenting and sharing
• creating meaning in film trailers
• his theory involves a key phrase which is "textual poaching"
• textual poaching is where audiences take a media product and remake it or rework it to create their own meaning
• for example
• fan made videos
• fan reviews
• fan art
• fan fiction
• fan made websites/blogs
• fan made memes

Clay Shirky

• new media, as in the internet and digital technologies, have had significant effect on the relations between media and audiences
• media consumers can no longer be passive and can only be considered as active
• they create and share content with one another
• this may be through comment sections, internet forums and creating media products such as blogs or vlogs
• believes audience want to interact with the media
• believes this is because technology has changed our expectations and behaviour
• magazine interaction has declined as audiences now like to comment and share posts
• believes audiences like to 'speak back' to the producers of the media