Digital Fandom: New Media Studies

by Paul Booth

This book re-evaluates the way we examine today’s digital media environment. By looking at how popular culture uses different digital technologies, Digital Fandom bolsters contemporary media theory by introducing new methods of analysis. Using the exemplars of alternate reality gaming and fan studies, this book takes into account a particular «philosophy of playfulness» in today’s media in order to establish a «new media studies».
Digital Fandom augments traditional studies of popular media fandom with descriptions of the contemporary fan in a converged media environment. The book shows how changes in the study of fandom can be applied in a larger scale to the study of new media in general, and formulates new conceptions of traditional media theories.

Genres: Nonfiction, Fandom

231 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2010

About the author

Paul Booth (1981-) is a Professor of Media and Cinema Studies & Communication Technology in the College of Communication at DePaul University, in downtown Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009. He researches New Media, Technology, Popular Culture, and Cultural Studies. He teaches classes in media studies, television narrative, convergence and digital media, popular culture, social media, communication technology, and participatory cultures. He is the editor of Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who, and the author of Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games, Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age, Time on TV: Temporal Displacement and Mashup Television and Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. He has also published in the books The Languages of Doctor Who, Remake Television, Transgression 2.0, American Remakes of British Television, and Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. He is currently enjoying a cup of coffee.

Reviews

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a considered book about how digitized fandom has transformed media studies. While some of the arguments are lagged and dated, there is attention to the radical and profound transformation of 'the producer' and 'the consumer.'