Course Description
Fandom is a community of fans who share same interests in common media content. It became a significant social phenomenon with the emergence of electronic media such as television, because it enables to gather people’s attention together to specific content in a wider geographical area simultaneously than before. For example, the most notable fandom in the world is trekkies, the fandom of Star Trek from the seventies. In recent years, fandom emerges as an important subject of study, as it becomes a fundamental element of entertainment industry for promotion. At the same time, fandom has expanded to diverse genres and people interconnecting globally.
The development of globalized communication systems, such as the Internet and International broadcasting networks, upgrades fandom culture to a new level, where audiences in different culture and region start to communicate and share their experiences of enjoying the same content. Their activities are not limited to online but sometimes materialize in offline events such as concerts and fan meetings. Fandom connects people in every possible way and builds a new cultural community around globe. Fandom is also critical to media business as it provides loyal audiences that media companies covet in the age of multimedia, multi-platform competition.
The course aims to understand fandom phenomenon in the era of globalization with theories and examples from various points and media. It is composed of reading/studying part and researching/sharing part. The first part is to study the cases and the characteristics of fandom in a global context. The second part is for students to find the cases of interest and to research on their own. It can be the cases around Venice or in the Internet. Cases studied will be later shared in presentations and discussions.

Learning Outcome
- To understand significances of fandom in contemporary society
- To learn characteristics of fandom as a globalized network
- To learn basics of audience researches

Teaching & Evaluation Methods
- Lectures and discussion
- Student field research
- Team project and presentation

Bibliography
Andrejevic, M. (2008). Watching television without pity: The productivity of online fans. Television & New Media, 9(1), 24–46.
Bacon-Smith, C. (1992). Enterprising women: television fandom and the creation of popular myth (Vol. 2). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Beck, C. S. (1995). You make the call: The co-creation of media text through interaction in an interpretive community of “Giants’’ fans".” EJC/REC, 5(1), 7–46.
Bennett, L. (2014). Tracing Textual Poachers: Reflections on the development of fan studies and digital fandom. Journal of Fandom Studies, 2(1), 5–20.
Booth, P. (2010). Digital fandom: New media studies. New York: Peter Lang.
Galuszka, P. (2015). New Economy of Fandom. Popular Music and Society, 38(November), 25–43.
Pearson, R. (2010). Fandom in the Digital Era. Popular Communication, 8(1), 84–95.
Porter, D. (1997). Internet culture (Vol. 11). New York: Routledge.
Wood, M. M., & Baughman, L. (2012). Glee fandom and Twitter: Something new, or more of the same old thing? Communication Studies, 63(3), 328–344.
Zhang, W. (2018). The Internet and New Social Formation in China: Fandom Publics in the Making. Routledge.