Re(a)d wedding: A case study exploring everyday information behaviors of the transmedia fan

Abstract

As practitioners of new forms of consumption and production, fans represent an important area for research. Specifically, fans of "transmedia systems"media-hopping networks of intertextualities that extend the narrative world of an original productionemploy unique tactics for negotiating a complex information space. The study of such tactics provides valuable insights on the everyday information behaviors of modern post-digital readers and media consumers that could benefit literacy and community engagement. Despite this, fans have received little attention in the information behavior literature. Therefore, this paper seeks to contribute new empirical understandings of the transmedia fan to the information behavior domain. The author undertook a pilot case study of the Game of Thrones transmedia fandom. Using a grounded theory approach, the qualitative coding of 400 online user comments revealed four types of tactics employed by fans to negotiate the transmedia system: sentimental, reasoned, relational and comic. A discussion of these tactics and the ways in which fans use them results in a preliminary definition and information behavior cycle model for the transmedia fan. The study's findings offer key observations about the everyday information behavior of fans and about reading and media consumption practices in general.

When the world ends: Study of #fakewesteros twitter fan community during the final season of game of thrones

“…The activity of #FakeWesteros members aligns with previous findings on the negotiation of narrative information (Forcier, ). However, the multimedia content members produced and interactions they continue to have moves beyond the information behavior model developed in previous research.…”

“…This concern was expressed universally among members in their tweets, from earnest expressions of mourning for fallen characters and fear that real friendships might fade to entreaties that fellow members stay in touch after the end of the series. The use of humor and pastiche, involving the intertextual layering of information found in previous research (Forcier, ), served to “soften” what, for many members, was a deeply emotional experience.…”

Word‐building and world‐stealing: Taking, making, and playing across fictional and material borders

“…It can encompass emotional, embodied, and other aspects of information use that go beyond seeking or skills and behaviours (Bruce, Davis, Hughes, Partridge, & Stoodley, 2014, p. 8). Fiction and fandom have been identified as an understudied and emerging area in this realm (Doty & Broussard, 2017;Forcier, 2017;Price & Robinson, 2017). Creative engagements with fictional worlds can be examined with a consideration for their materiality.…”

Narratives of Fact and Fiction: Examining Studies of Information Experience and the Interpretation of Data.

“…The pilot study I discuss in this paper is situated in the research area of information behaviour and experience in LIS. Within that realm, fiction and fandom are an understudied and emerging area (Doty & Broussard 2017, Forcier 2017, Price & Robinson 2017. The topic of fiction and information behaviour could be analyzed through frameworks of serious leisure, such as those discussed by Stebbins (2009) and Hartel (2003).…”

“…The topic of fiction and information behaviour could be analyzed through frameworks of serious leisure, such as those discussed by Stebbins (2009) and Hartel (2003). Information behaviour, as it pertains to fiction, has been investigated through studies of information seeking in the contexts of book selection and access (Mikkonen & Vakkari 2016, 2017Moyer 2007;Ooi & Liew 2011;Saarinen & Vakkari 2013); through the information found when reading, intentionally or incidentally, (Ross 1999, p. 794-795); negotiation of sexual identities (Rothbauer 2004b(Rothbauer , 2004a; how fiction serves as a "roadmap" to inform real life situations (Broussard & Doty 2016, Doty & Broussard 2017; or more generally, how fiction reading serves other educational, recreational, or personal outcomes (Moyer 2007, Stobbs 2014. The study of fiction and information can add to the bodies of literature on serious leisure and information behaviour, but it can also expand and connect to discussions of information experience more broadly.…”