• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

ISSN 1653-2244 INSTITUTIONEN FÖR KULTURANTROPOLOGI OCH ETNOLOGI DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY Stories of Significance: The Process and Practices of Sense- Making in the Sherlock Fan Community By Kee Lundqvist 2015 MASTERUPPSATSER I KULTURANTROPOLOGI Nr 54 Stories of Significance The Process and Practices of Sense-Making in the Sherlock Fan Community Abstract Building on professor of psychology Kenneth Pargament‘s claim that people actively seek to establish a sense of significance and strive to minimize its loss, this study argues that fans of fictional works continually create a (subjectively seemingly) coherent interpretation of the source text that both builds upon and supports meaningful themes and phenomena found in the text. This, in turn, generates a subjective (though often communally negotiated) sense of significance. However, such meaningful/meaning-creating interpretations – and thus the sense of significance generated by them – are constantly running the risk of being disturbed by new information or perspectives that contradict them. This risk is particularly high when the source text is still evolving, as in the case of a current book series or TV-show, which necessitates an on-going process of interpretation and coping. In this thesis I examine how a sense of significance is formed and maintained by fans of an evolving text by studying the various interpretative strategies employed by fans of the BBC TV series Sherlock. Combining in-depth interviews with data from a three-month participant observation of fan interactions primarily but not exclusively on the social network platform site Tumblr, this study aims both to deepen the understanding of some of the psychological mechanisms behind the creation, negotiation and transformation of meaning, and to examine its expressions in a specific case. Keywords: coping theory, production of meaning, virtual anthropology, sherlock, tumblr, fan studies, fan psychology. Kee Lundqvist [email protected] 1 Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 1 List of Sherlock Episodes ......................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 5 A Brief Note on Ontology and Truth Claims in the Humanities .............................................................. 8 1. Fans: Who They Are And What They Do ........................................................................................... 10 What’s in a Name? ............................................................................................................................ 12 From Shakespeare to Star Trek ......................................................................................................... 13 Tumblr ............................................................................................................................................... 15 Fan Activities of Today: A Glossary of the Words Fans Use to Describe Their Activities .................. 18 Fandom Research and Fan Studies.................................................................................................... 22 Fan Studies and Anthropology ...................................................................................................... 24 2. Method: Who I Am And What I Did .................................................................................................. 26 Why Sherlock? Why Tumblr? ............................................................................................................ 27 Online Ethnography ........................................................................................................................... 29 Difficulties, Opportunities and Practical Solutions ........................................................................ 30 “A Particularly Curious Fan”: Positionality and Bias ...................................................................... 35 Narrative Theory and Analysis .......................................................................................................... 37 3. Not a Detective Show; A Show About a Detective ............................................................................ 40 A Sherlock Story: I .............................................................................................................................. 40 A Sherlock Story: II ............................................................................................................................. 41 A Sherlock story: III ............................................................................................................................ 43 Eye of the Beholder ........................................................................................................................... 47 A Theory of Significance .................................................................................................................... 49 Kenneth Pargament and the Psychology of Coping ...................................................................... 50 What and Why: The Significance of Meaning ............................................................................... 52 Meaningful Readings ..................................................................................................................... 53 4. Preferences, Perception and Reception ............................................................................................ 56 Mycroft, Moriarty and The Fall ......................................................................................................... 57 Similar Means for Different Goals ................................................................................................. 63 Interlude: On Fans and Self-Reflexivity ............................................................................................. 66 5. Negotiated Significance: The Social Aspect of Sense-Making ........................................................... 69 Resolving Narrative Strangeness, Or Not .......................................................................................... 70 The Pain of Contradiction .................................................................................................................. 72 2 Canon vs. Fanon ................................................................................................................................ 74 The Curious Case of Sebastian Moran ........................................................................................... 77 Extra-Textual Sources in the Sense-Making Process ......................................................................... 79 Sense-Making and Real World Politics .......................................................................................... 88 6. Crises of Meaning .............................................................................................................................. 92 Johnlock, Season Three and Mary Morstan ...................................................................................... 92 Comparing and Contrasting: Mary as Proof of Johnlock ............................................................... 95 Johnlockary: Threesomes Solve Everything .................................................................................. 97 Less Successful Coping Strategies: Bad Writing and Haters .......................................................... 99 7. Conclusions and Reflections ............................................................................................................ 102 Coda ................................................................................................................................................. 106 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 107 APPENDIX A ......................................................................................................................................... 114 APPENDIX B ......................................................................................................................................... 116 3 List of Sherlock Episodes Unaired pilot, available as bonus material on the season one DVD and BluRay boxes. Season 1 (2010) S01E01 ―A Study in Pink‖ (ASiP) S01E02 ―The Blind Banker‖ (TBB) S01E03 ―The Great Game‖ (TGG) Season 2 (2012) S02E01 ―A Scandal in Belgravia‖ (ASiB) S02E02 ―The Hound of Baskerville‖ (THoB) S02E03 ―The Reichenbach Fall‖ (TRF) Seven minute special mini episode ―Many Happy Returns‖ (MHR) (2013) Season 3 (2014) S03E01 ―The Empty Hearse‖ (TEH) S03E02 ―The Sign of Three‖ (TSoT) S03E03 ―His Last Vow‖ (HLV) 4 Introduction In Germany, DoYourResearch1 realizes that her new friend hasn‘t seen Sherlock yet and immediately arranges for them to watch the first episode together. She hopes that her friend will be as moved by the deep, undeniable love between Sherlock and John as she is. Across the Atlantic, Hobbes sits down in front of her computer to plot out a new story about Mycroft Holmes and Greg Lestrade, and timetumbingconsultant nods in approval as she reads a rather heated exchange between several fans discussing the

Load more

  126

Copy Link