‘Celebrating the story the way it is’: cultural studies, corporate media and the contested utility of fandom

‘Never Let Me Down Again’1: Loyal customer attitudes towards ticket distribution channels for live music events: a netnographic exploration of the US leg of the Depeche Mode 2005–2006 World Tour

“…Clearly, the virtual space for music production and consumption that internet technologies have opened up is a contested one, where identities and relationships are currently being re-negotiated. Traditional forms of interaction and established patterns of behaviour between industry and consumer are now being challenged (Murray, 2004;Jones, 2000). Stratagems such as the Depeche Mode pre-sale represent an attempt by the industry to respond to the new marketspace for music consumption.…”

Inviting Audiences In

“…As knowledgeable consumers of television culture, fans serve a productive, industrial function. As Murray (2004) argues, this utility is often channeled into the promotional sector to foster 'grassroots' buzz about television properties. This was the case with Universal's motion picture Serenity, adapted from the short-lived television series Firefly, although it could be argued that some compensation was afforded fan promoters.…”

“…Jenkins (2001) emphasizes the productivity of cultural convergence, arguing that fan-made digital films occupy a middle ground between industry and the avant-garde where amateur production emerges from investment in commercial culture. From an industrial perspective, Simone Murray (2004) argues that fan-based marketing strategies evidence corporate willingness to share intellectual property with audiences if it can drive multiplatformed content schemes. Murray, like Gwenllian-Jones, tempers the tendency to consider fan activities subversive by acknowledging the economic significance of fan networks to corporate planning (p. 9).…”

Mods as Lightning Rods: A Typology of Video Game Mods, Intellectual Property, and Social Benefit/Harm

“…In this framework, modding is self-expression that lets modders tell new stories (Nardi and Kallinikos, 2007; Postigo, 2007, 2010). More strongly, modding and convergence culture in general can be seen as a way people demand the right to participate in culture (Banks and Humphreys, 2008; Jenkins, 2006; Murray, 2004). The most assertive iteration of this argument is that in convergence culture, users are seizing the products of capitalist-produced mass culture (Dyer-Witherford and de Peuter, 2009) and talking back (Consalvo, 2003).…”