Article Summary
Just a few of the many fandoms Can you spot the Star Wars fandom?
Fandoms exist for just about everything; however, one might argue that no fandom is as widespread as the one that is obsessed with a galaxy far, far away. As I’ve discussed before, the Star Wars fandom is one that has seemed to take over the online space whether it be through Facebook Star Wars groups, Instagram pages, or Wookieepedia. The article “Being in a knowledgeable space: Information behavior of cult media fan communities,” written by L. Price and L. Robinson (2017) explores the information behaviors of fan communities, specifically online. While these authors don’t explore the Star Wars community in specific, the study that they’ve conducted still sheds light on the information behaviors of the Star Wars community. L. Price has her PHD in Information Science from City University London. Specifically, her focus is on fan communities on the internet. Price currently works at City LIS’ Center for Information Science. Her research interests include the following: participatory culture, fan culture, fan tagging, social metadata, and convergence culture (Price, 2021). L. Robinson has her PHD in Information Science from University College London. She’s published 86 academic, peer reviewed articles that focus on a range of topics from information science in the medical field to information behaviors of online communities. She’s currently head of the Information Science department at City LIS (City University of London, 2021). The purpose of Price and Robinson’s study is to “examine the information behavior of fans from a library/information science perspective” since they believe this is an area of study that is lacking a bit from the LIS perspective (2017, p. 649). The study has three aims: to consider how fan information behavior relates to existing information behavior models, to look at how fans “consume, create, remediate, disseminate, promote, describe, access, and preserve” cultural products related to their fandoms, and to see if and how “fan information behavior can inform theory and practice with other domains” (2017, p. 650). Price and Robinson have broken down the study into three different sections which include a literature review, a Delphi study, and an analysis of social media tags (2017, p. 650). As far as the methodology of the study, Price and Robinson used the Delphi method. This method, according to them, “facilitates the negotiation of consensus between a group of experts, via questionnaires and moderator-controlled opinion feedback” (p. 656). The study was done in three rounds and used “a panel of fans of cult media, or of some media franchise, and included a mix of ‘regular’ fans and ‘acafans'” (2017, p. 656). All of these rounds included questions pertaining to where fans go to get their information. Overall, Price and Robinson found that participants mostly agreed with the fact that other fans play a role in how information is retrieved amongst fandoms: “there is a focus on the role of other fans, or groups of fans, as resources, providers and gatekeepers of fan information.” (2017, p. 659). What’s important about this discovery is that it really “highlights the collaborative nature of information resource creation and dissemination, and the favouring of informal channels of news and information” (2017, p. 659). Something else that there was a strong consensus about is the fact that participants strongly agreed that the internet had positive effects on communities in terms of bringing fans together and “creating a platform for community growth, the publishing of fanworks and the sharing of fan-related materials” (2017, p. 660). It’s clear from the study that the information behavior of fans is “collaborative, information and generous” (2017, p. 660).
Insights
There was so much to take away from this article. One of the more interesting sections, that can be applied to the Star Wars community, is the section titled “Fan communities.” In this section, Price and Robinson touch on virtual, online communities, which (apparently) is a very contested concept. Price and Robinson pull from two authors, Armstrong and Hagel, who distinguish four types of virtual communities. These communities are as follows: “communities of transaction, communities of interest, communities of fantasy, and communities of relationship” (2017, p. 652). For Price and Robinson, all four of these types of virtual communities are relevant to fans “who build online communities through shared interests, use them to play out fantasy, to forge relationships with like-minded people, and to structure the resulting networks through the transaction of material or digital artefacts and informational goods” (2017, p.653). Here are where the four types of communities align with the Star Wars community:
Communities of Transaction: Etsy is a platform people use within the Star Wars community. These artists create Star Wars merchandise of all sorts (shirts, pins, stickers, bags, prints, etc.) and sell them to other fans. A lot of times, these creators take off on Instagram first and their Instagram pages link out to their Etsy’s.
Communities of Interest: This category seems obvious in relation to the Star Wars community. Obviously, all of us in the community have a very strong interest in the world of Star Wars. Enough of an interest to join Facebook groups, make TikToks, create cosplays, go to conventions, and make Youtube videos (the list goes on and on).
Communities of fantasy: This category was a bit harder to figure out when it comes to the online Star Wars community. However, part of this category is that people get together online and roleplay by performing tasks and missions, so it made me think of the game Battlefront, which is a shooter game that takes place in the world of Star Wars. In this game, fans get together and work as a team to complete certain missions. I feel like this category also really applies to the cosplay community; however, the roleplaying that comes with the cosplay community mainly takes place in person at conventions.
Communities of relationship: I think it’s safe to say, now more than ever, it’s easy to foster relationships online with fellow fans. Personally, I’ve been able to create a lot of awesome friendship thanks to Star Wars Facebook groups as well as Instagram.
As far as what the study revealed about fans information behaviors, I’d say that it very much falls in line with those in the Star Wars community. At least within my chosen community, it’s clear that getting and receiving information is a collaborative effort and that those within the community look to other fans for information. For example, famous Youtuber Star Wars Theory is often a source of information for fans; however, just like us, he’s just a fan and doesn’t work for Lucasfilm. The only danger that this sort of collaboration can have is that it creates gatekeeping and it’s also a sure-fire way that rumors are bound to spread within the community. Despite the pitfalls, the type of collaboration the community shares when it comes to seeking and sharing information is quite incredible.
References
City University of London. (2021). Dr. Lyn Robinson. https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/lyn-robinson
Price, L. (2021). About. The Fan LIS Scholar. https://blogs.city.ac.uk/ludiprice/about/
Price, L., & Robinson, L. (2017). ‘Being in a knowledge space’: Information behaviour of cult media fan communities. Journal of Information Science, 43(5), 649–664. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551516658821
Hey Jessica,
You did a really great job summarizing this article. So much so that it has prompted me to look it up myself (as I think it pertains to the Harry Potter Fans as well!) You should look at the article that I used because I think it would be useful for you too. It pretty much covered why people partake in serious leisure, like what feelings they experience or what prompts them to search for information on their topic. I think fandom qualifies as serious leisure, especially because it becomes like a second job for some people! Haha. For our end project though, it might be helpful for you to check it out!
-Jenna Griffith