Fans rock!

[castalie]

A couple of weeks ago I planned on going to Henry Jenkins' conference about transmedia that was held in Paris. Alas, work got in the way and I had to cancel. Cue the saddest of sadface! I would have been thrilled to see one of the guys whose research I used - and enjoyed - so much when I worked on my sociology of media papers! So it wasn't meant to be but, fortunately, the conference was filmed and I knew it was just a matter of time before the video was uploaded. And lo, it finally has!.

The conference's topic is the transmedia experience and Jenkins uses Fandom to illustrate it; there are so many references that your head will spin! We all watch the tv shows he mentions, we've all visited the websites he refers to - or their likes - we've all shared the viral videos he talks about. We're all immersed in the activities he describes - we watch our shows, use the narratives and play with them and, more importantly, we share, we share and we share some more.

Basically, his conference is about Fandom's cleverness. Or, say, that's how I read it ;-) It's about fans' creativity and our their "logic of engagement and participation"; at one point Jenkins mentions a Logic of Mastery aka the Everyone's an Expert philosophy, which, yes! In Fandom everyone knows their subjects and knowledge is definitely part of fan culture. It also tells the story of fans' transmedia experiment and how important it is for the tv/film/whatever-media industry to learn new ways to interact with them - also, how difficult.

The video is a bit long, maybe, more than an hour but, honestly, I didn't even notice and I'd have listened to the guy talk for much longer! Also, if you don't speak a word of French, don't be scared by the beginning of the video, just skip at 15:50 when Henry Jenkins arrives on stage. And enjoy :-) Well, hopefully.

Speaking of - well, this is a topic that definitely reminds me of classes - I've handed in the last of my papers on Sunday night, as in, late which means that a) I'm d.o.n.e with that part of my Master b) now I "only" have to write my thesis and c) to celebrate a) I've declared this week school-work free and I'm not opening a single book till Monday \o/ I'm enjoying my free evenings and I will be enjoying the hell of my weekend too ♥

Comments

[nicelyobsessed.livejournal.com]

Tu l'as bien mérité cette semaine de battement, un peu de repos!

[castalie.livejournal.com]

C'est bien ce que je pense aussi ;-) Ca fait du bieeen !

[turps33.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a fantastic video.

And congratulations on handing in your papers.

[castalie.livejournal.com]

It truly is! I was nodding and squeeing in equal parts. Like when he described illegal downloaders as people who are basically saying to TPTB "we refuse to watch our shows they way you want us to watch them. We'll watch them on our terms and that's that". We're rebels!

Thank you!

[etakyma.livejournal.com]

Henry Jenkins is always a dynamic speaker. I've seen him twice now, and had a chance to speak with him in person (he was the grad school advisor for a friend of mine) - he is personally a delightful, engaging, charming human being.

I'm sorry you had to miss him in person, but am very glad you got to see him speak anyway!

[castalie.livejournal.com]

You've seen Henry Jenkins twice? Lucky you! And lucky friend who had him as a grad school advisor, imagine that!

I was disappointed that I couldn't see him in person, especially as I'm not sure when he'll come back to Europe, much less France, but at least technology is here to help :-)