Project: Online Anime Fan Community Research: Summary of Projects 1, 2, and 3

Posted: April 29th, 2009 | Author: MB | Filed under: Uncategorized |

The online anime fan community provides a social network and creative outlet for many devote fans. In the preliminary research for my project, I found that few resources existed that either accurately reflected the current status of the community or provided a comprehensive framework for its analysis. Therefore, with my three projects this semester I have attempted to create a methodology for analyzing the online anime fan community. The first two projects took the form of an extended paper that applied numerous theories to the fan communities, while the final project was a survey of three forums in the online fan community and two physical fan groups. I have summarized here the theories in which the projects cumulated.

Why produce fan works? What does their production signify? Why are people involved in the online community?

Benefits of Fandom-Project One

-Lines of commodity exchange, such as card games, can be lines of socialization as well: participants can extend or restrict social involvement

-Brand-like qualities, Familiarity but variation: Franchises are akin to economic capital but are also a psychological force. Fandom gives comfort and a sense of own power in an exclusive world

-Characters almost like friends, family.

-Community formed around product can also be like family.

-Fandom provides access to information

-Tendency to try to fully understand story, fill in missing scenes and interactions- media as community resource

Fandom and Textuality-Project Two

What about a franchise or series makes fandom appealing?

- Following up on fandom as community resource: endlessly deferred narrative, Grand non-narrative ending, hyperdiegesis- all promote fan involvement in fleshing out universe

- creator-auteur

- Dressing up allows individual to inhabit the world

- Characters can directly reference real life audience

- Japaneseness could be considered text as well, is incorporated into fan works almost as character flaw, setting quality

Project Three: Survey

-The survey indicated that the sense of community and connections between individuals are a critical part of the fan community.

-The survey also indicated the greater importance of expanding upon characters or the universe over a sense of connection to the characters. These results might have been skewed, however, because the survey was not oriented towards a group devoted solely to fanfiction.

-The survey also indicated the importance of physical interactions with other members of the fan community. Interestingly, it rebutted one of my assumptions, which was that significant friendships were frequently made and sustained in online fan communities. Instead, this seems to require personal connection.

What role does Japaneseness have and why do Japanese motifs circulate in the anime fan community?

History of Japanese media in US- Project One

-America was once dominated by Disney style animation and narratives

-Pokemon was the first brand to really crash into the American media market, owners refused to compromise its aesthetics

-Over time, Consumers have become familiar with the items that were once airbrushed out, like rice balls, and the Japanese aspects of the narrative are altered less frequently

-American fascination with Japan, Japanese items have become fetishized

Fandom and Japanese Culture Education 2006- Project Two

- Majority of Japanese students interested due to anime

-76% of anime fans have some interest in learning Japanese

- The Japanese origin of something indicates that it is somehow inherently Japanese and can provide a window onto Japanese culture

- Authenticity is a central concern- dubbing/subbing. Direct translations and items directly from Japan are considered more authentic

- Fan communities as much a celebration of Japan and Japaneseness as Franchises.

Project Three: Survey

-The survey strongly rebutted my assumption that Japaneseness was highly fetishized in America, thus drawing viewers. Instead, the primary way that fans seem to have gotten involved in anime was through series that were on TV. Despite this, it was important to many fans that the original Japanese qualities of a work be preserved.

-The survey indicated that many fans value the Japanese narrative style for its greater complexity and attention to characters than Western media. It also indicated the importance subtitles have for many fans in retaining authenticity. Numerous fans mentioned that the Japanese qualities of an anime are important to their enjoyment of the series.

-The survey thoroughly rebutted the idea that anime fans first become interested in anime because they see it as educational, offering insight into Japanese culture. Instead, this often works in the exact opposite direction; fans become interested in Japanese culture and the Japanese language because of their involvement with anime.

Structure of the fan community:

The Fan Network- Project One

- The online anime community can be defined as a network, with the correspondingly relatively unlinked minor websites, some connected communities, and hubs, which have many sites linked to them. Most websites are linked to the hubs, which ultimately organize the network.

-What are the hubs of the fan community? Largely sites where numerous fans contribute their work, such Fanfiction.net, Deviantart.com, and EvaGeeks.org

-Webrings have a horizontal arrangement, as they connect to equivalently little-linked sites.

-Links to reality: business cards handed out at conventions contain hyperlinks to the individuals’ work, and personal relationships form at conventions that continue to exist online. Thus, anime fan communities in real life are linked to the online network.

Problems- Although smaller scale organizations exist, they do not uniformly link to higher levels; thus, some hubs cater to a specific audience instead of simply expanding. Hubs often do not link to homepages immediately but display works connected to information about the author, thus, authors seem to constitute the links. Authors contribute works to sites, no matter the prominence of their own website as a hub. This does not correspond to Barabasi’s system, where representation is dependent on the number of links to the website.

Fan communities as assemblage- Project Two

-Smaller units of organization relate to form a larger structure: webpage to website to webring to hub to network.

- Behavior promotes homogeneity. Webites in the same subunit address the same series and have similar products and intentions.

-Connection with the network theory: smaller parts of a larger system are vital for the functioning of the entire system. Thus, the horizontal organization may take the form of a series of forums, where information is released by the highest, corporate level to maintain fan interest. This is known as “just-in-time fandom” (Hills).

-Thus, DeLanda’s theory works well with Barabasi’s. Websites can be defined as functioning subsets of a larger organization. This allows for the interactions of a governing structure with sites to be considered links. Thus, a governing or organizing website, such as Fanfiction. Net, can be considered both a part of the assemblage and a hub.

Problems- The online community does not neatly fit into the class or hierarchy categories afforded by DeLanda. Additionally, there is no consistent mechanism at different levels of the online anime network, so the ability to reduce it is limited. Additionally, despite DeLanda’s claim, online communication does not destabilize, but leads to the creation of virtual space as compensation and maintains the identity and activities of the fan network.

Project Three: Survey

-The survey largely confirmed these theories about the online community. The majority of websites people mentioned had been accessed through google, a major hub of the internet. One of these websites, the animenation forum, was shown to have numerous links to other websites; thus, it also constitutes a hub. Not all of the forums I surveyed could be considered hubs in the strictest sense.

-The survey confirms the proposition that people could be considered links. Many of the respondents indicated that they accessed certain websites through profile links or word-of-mouth, thus not relying on internet hubs.

-This result also links the online anime community to physical social structures. Friends met in person will recommend sites, indicating that connection between different section of the online community is due to social interaction. This introduced the idea of physical hubs.

-The enumerate responses indicating torrent sites used to download anime confirm Marion’s argument that a major part of the online anime community is structured around downloading material illegally.

-If the survey were expanded to a larger pool of respondents on online hubs, questions five and six could be used to create a map of the online anime community. This map would organize links between sites based on method of access and purpose for use. I would then like to distribute the map to the online anime community, as a way of encouraging a community identity, and preserve the map as a representation of the community’s current form.

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