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Fandom Discussion: Knowledge, Intersections, and Tensions of Self, Community, and Social Justice

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Fandom Discussion: Knowledge, Intersections, and Tensions of Self, Community, and Social Justice by Adrienne E. Raw A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English and Education) in The University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Megan Sweeney, Chair Professor Anne Gere Associate Professor David Gold Professor Lisa Nakamura Adrienne E. Raw [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7642-8906 © Adrienne E. Raw 2020 Dedication To my family: Mama, Papa, and Brendon, your love and support made this possible ii Acknowledgements I am profoundly grateful for the mentorship and support of my doctoral committee: Melanie Yergeau, whose compassion, breadth of insight, and unflagging encouragement made it possible for me to do this project; Megan Sweeney, whose insight and interest made my engagement with my data so much richer and deeper than it otherwise could have been; David Gold, whose questions helped me figure out the kind of project I actually wanted to do; Lisa Nakamura, who helped me ground this project in the many fields I wanted to speak to; and Anne Gere, whose insights at the final stages helped me elevate this project immensely. My conversations with all of you have been invaluable and this project would not have been possible without your support and guidance. My committee has been one part of the valuable support structure in the Joint Program in English and Education (JPEE) and at the University of Michigan. Thank you to my amazing cohort, Emily Wilson and Casey Otemuyiwa, for the friendship, support, and encouragement. Part of what drew me to JPEE was both of you; I met you and thought, “I could do my PhD with these people,” and our weekly lunches for encouragement and support have made this program a delight. Thank you also to all my JPEEple; the close community in this program was an essential support to this project. Special thanks to Merideth Garcia and James Hammond, whose interests in fandom and fannish things helped convince me that I could find my people in this program, and to Michelle Sprouse, Bonnie Tucker, Elizabeth Tacke, Meg Garver, Anna Knutson, and Ann Burke, who read parts of this project as chapter drafts and project proposals. Thank you also to my graduate student colleagues across the university Katharine Campbell, Elizabeth Collins, Marisol Fila, Nadav Linial, iii Yael Kenan, Ashley Moon, and Raquel Parrine who read pieces of this dissertation as part of interdisciplinary writing groups; your perspectives helped me communicate my work beyond the bounds of my specialist audience and helped me look at my questions in new and important ways. The Joint Program in English and Education made this work possible and has been my much-loved home for the last five years. Many thanks to Anne Gere for the many opportunities to grow as a scholar and to Anne Curzan for helping me to always think about who my work was touching. Thank you both for welcoming me to the program. This program would not run without the immense work and kindness of Jeanie Laubenthal; thank you for always brightening my day. Thank you to my wonderful family and friends for your support. Mom, Dad, Brendon, thank you for always believing I could do this and encouraging me when I decided to set out on this adventure. Thank you for always listening to me ramble about my work, even when it didn’t make sense. Thank you for being there when I was stressed, when I was excited, and every when in between. To Kristina, a cheerleader when I needed it, who asked the right kind of questions to make me realize the things I assumed where “obvious” where actually really cool ideas from my data that I could write about, thank you for your support and friendship. To Jess and Dinh, thank you for always making time to get together and for your friendship. And lastly, this dissertation would not have been possible without the incredible support, generosity, and willingness to share from the fans who participated in my study. When I started collecting data for this project, I expected to get maybe a hundred responses, if I was lucky. The number of you who took the time and energy to respond and who shared such thoughtful and personal reflections blew me away. I always knew my community was amazing, but I am humbled by your willingness to be part of this research and to be so open. I have more data than I could use in a decade, but I hope I’ve done justice to a tiny part of it with this dissertation. iv Table of Contents Dedication ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................ viii List of Appendices...................................................................................................................................... ix Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1: Introduction: Fandom Discussion as Entanglement of Self, Community, and Social Justice ........................................................................................................................................... 1 Fandom as Community and Ecology of Writing ................................................................................... 6 Fandom as Community ......................................................................................................................... 7 Fandom as an Ecology of Writing ....................................................................................................... 12 Fandom Discussion 101 ....................................................................................................................... 16 Digital Writing Lives: A Literature Review .......................................................................................... 21 Writing Online Remains Socially Situated ........................................................................................... 24 Knowledge-Making Online .................................................................................................................. 25 Studies of Fandom and Fandom Discussion ....................................................................................... 32 Contextual Framework: Platform Studies and Tumblr ....................................................................... 34 Theoretical Framework ......................................................................................................................... 39 Mediation ............................................................................................................................................ 39 Feminist Queer Digital Humanities ...................................................................................................... 47 Ethics of Care ..................................................................................................................................... 52 Overview of Dissertation ...................................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 2: Methods ................................................................................................................................... 62 Study Design ......................................................................................................................................... 63 Autoethnographic Reflections ............................................................................................................. 64 Surveys and Interviews ....................................................................................................................... 66 Site Selection: Tumblr as a Fandom Research Site ........................................................................... 68 Data Collection ...................................................................................................................................... 70 Survey Publication and Distribution..................................................................................................... 71 Survey Responses .............................................................................................................................. 72 Interview Participant Selection ............................................................................................................ 72 Conducting Interviews ......................................................................................................................... 75 Data Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 76 Participant Data ..................................................................................................................................... 80 v Survey Respondent Demographics ..................................................................................................... 81 Interview Participant Profiles ............................................................................................................... 87 Research Ethics ...................................................................................................................................
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