coolbeans, 3/8

The presentation in class on fandoms was interesting to me. As someone who is not very familiar with this particular culture I found the presentation to be informative and organized. I liked how the presenter tied in her research with Jenkins’ theories in order to explain the culture of fandoms. It was clear that she had a true passion for the subject matter which was also nice to see. Also, the presentation clarified some things for me that were originally a bit unclear. Originally I was under the impression that when Jenkins talked about participatory culture, he meant that the consumers produce media that the major companies try to claim a ownership of because of the fact that they do not want the media that the consumers create to be in circulation because of copyright infringement. I learned that this is not at all the case. In class, we had been told that the companies actually encourage fandoms because it helps to get their brand/ product/ movie/ book name out in the public eye. I also never really understood why someone would create videos, stories, art based on a film or book that they liked. The presentation allowed me to see how it was just like any other hobby. The presenter had stated that she had learned many skills from creating fan fiction such as how to edit videos and create her own short movies.
Fandoms are truly an example of participatory culture because people who enjoy media use their own creativity and talents in order to create their own media/versions of the original media. They then share their creations with others through media outlets such as youtube or blog sites so that others can see their work and the name of the product gets out. The companies who created the original are able to keep their own ownership of original because everyone will always refer back to the original in order to come up with ideas for the fandoms (according to the presenter, many follow the canon of the original) and everyone will know what happened in the original version and who produced it.