I am an anthropology graduate student currently writing my Master thesis on coping and the production of meaning in the online BBC Sherlock fandom. This is my research blog. (When I'm doing regular fangirling rather than research I go by the name of keeloca.) If you do have any questions or concerns (or would like to be party of my study! :D), feel free to contact me. I almost never, ever bite. Keywords: acafan, fan studies, coping, meaning production, discourse analysis,
Stories of Significance: The Process and Practices of Sense-Making in the Sherlock Fan Community
Last year I wrote my Master thesis in anthropology on Sherlock fans and their (our) evolving interpretation of the text. It occurs to me it might be prudent to share the results with any interested parties. You can read it here, if you are so inclined.
Thanks to all my lovely informants. You guys were the most generous, helpful and clever bunch of fans I could ever have hoped for. <3
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
It appears Chatzy is down - I'm not able to connect anyway, neither on my computer nor or my phone. I've created a chatroom for us here instead - not as good a site, but it works: http://www.e-chat.co/room/32924
Group chat about Sally at 7pm GMT today (Wednesday)
Hello!
Sorry to spam the tag, but I just wanted to remind everyone that the group chat about Sally starts here at 7pm GMT (so, in about an hour!). For details, see the read more. (Really; don't join the chat unless you've read it.)
I have more or less concluded my fieldwork, but this week I am doing a bit of additional research by investigating some themes that I will be addressing in my thesis. As part of this, I will attempt to arrange a few group chats, each one dedicated to one specific topic. On Wednesday I’d like to talk about Sally. Whether you love, loathe, are indifferent or anything in between, I’d love to hear your thoughts and theories.
When: Wednesday October 22, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Sally Donovan
Please note that due to daylight saving time, you might be an hour extra ahead or behind GMT; please refer to this site.
If you would like to participate in any (or all!) of these chats, I’d be grateful if you would let me know – but it’s also perfectly possible to just show up in the chatroom at the right date and time. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU SHOULD CHOOSE A RANDOM NICK THAT YOU DO NOT USE ANYWHERE ELSE. This is to protect your integrity. However, please let me know in an ask or e-mail ([email protected]) which nick you have selected – I need to know who you are for my analysis.
I will have prepared a few questions, but don’t hesitate to pose your own or to bring up anything related to the topic that is relevant to you. If you feel shy about doing so yourself, send me an ask or e-mail and I’ll ask your questions for you. If we stray too far away from Sherlock-related matters, I’ll steer us back, but it’s really quite informal – I’ll join in with the discussion too, offering my own opinions. Regarding politeness: I expect everyone who participates to behave in a mature and respectful manner. It is perfectly all right to disagree, but if we want to have a good, proper discussion we need to be willing to not only state our own viewpoint but actually listen to what the other has to say. Don’t be shy about expressing your opinions – just don’t be rude about it.
I do not have a set time table for this – we’ll talk for as long as we have things to talk about. If you have to leave, you have to leave; no hard feelings. It is unlikely we’ll be at it for more than two hours, however.
The other two group chats are:
—-
When: Thursday October 23, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Johnlock in series three
—-
When: Sunday October 26, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: The Fall – did we learn the truth in TEH? Special focus on the roles of Mycroft and Moriarty.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and/or concerns.
Group Chat About The Fall on Sunday - For Science!
EDIT: It appears Chatzy is down - I'm not able to connect anyway, neither on my computer nor or my phone. I've created a chatroom for us here instead - not as good a site, but it works: http://www.e-chat.co/room/32924 Hello!
My name is Kee Lundqvist and am writing Master thesis in anthropology on meaning-making in the Sherlock fan community. For further details, please see this post.
I have more or less concluded my fieldwork, but this week I am doing a bit of additional research by investigating some themes that I will be addressing in my thesis. As part of this, I will attempt to arrange a few group chats, each one dedicated to one specific topic. On Sunday I’d like to talk about The Fall and the explanation about how Sherlock survived we were given in TEH. Did he tell Anderson the truth? Why/why not? If he didn't, what might the truth be? We might focus a bit on Mycroft and Moriarty's roles in the Fall; we'll see.
When: Sunday October 26, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: The Fall – did we learn the truth in TEH? Special focus on the roles of Mycroft and Moriarty.
Please note that due to daylight saving time, you might be an hour extra ahead or behind GMT; please refer to this site.
If you would like to participate in any (or all!) of these chats, I’d be grateful if you would let me know – but it’s also perfectly possible to just show up in the chatroom at the right date and time. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU SHOULD CHOOSE A RANDOM NICK THAT YOU DO NOT USE ANYWHERE ELSE. This is to protect your integrity. However, please let me know in an ask or e-mail ([email protected]) which nick you have selected – I need to know who you are for my analysis.
I will have prepared a few questions, but don’t hesitate to pose your own or to bring up anything related to the topic that is relevant to you. If you feel shy about doing so yourself, send me an ask or e-mail and I’ll ask your questions for you. If we stray too far away from Sherlock-related matters, I’ll steer us back, but it’s really quite informal – I’ll join in with the discussion too, offering my own opinions. Regarding politeness: I expect everyone who participates to behave in a mature and respectful manner. It is perfectly all right to disagree, but if we want to have a good, proper discussion we need to be willing to not only state our own viewpoint but actually listen to what the other has to say. Don’t be shy about expressing your opinions – just don’t be rude about it.
I do not have a set time table for this – we’ll talk for as long as we have things to talk about. If you have to leave, you have to leave; no hard feelings. It is unlikely we’ll be at it for more than two hours, however.
The other two group chats are:
—-
When: Wednesday October 22, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Sally Donovan
—-
When: Thursday October 23, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Johnlock in series three
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and/or concerns.
Group Chat About Johnlock on Thursday - For Science!
Hello!
My name is Kee Lundqvist and am writing Master thesis in anthropology on meaning-making in the Sherlock fan community. For further details, please see this post.
I have more or less concluded my fieldwork, but this week I am doing a bit of additional research by investigating some themes that I will be addressing in my thesis. As part of this, I will attempt to arrange a few group chats, each one dedicated to one specific topic. On Thursday I’d like to talk about Johnlock in series 3. Have your ideas about the ship changed? Why/why not? How do you see the future development of their relationship, both in canon and fanon.
When: Thursday October 23, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Johnlock in series three
Please note that due to daylight saving time, you might be an hour extra ahead or behind GMT; please refer to this site.
If you would like to participate in any (or all!) of these chats, I’d be grateful if you would let me know – but it’s also perfectly possible to just show up in the chatroom at the right date and time. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU SHOULD CHOOSE A RANDOM NICK THAT YOU DO NOT USE ANYWHERE ELSE. This is to protect your integrity. However, please let me know in an ask or e-mail ([email protected]) which nick you have selected – I need to know who you are for my analysis.
I will have prepared a few questions, but don’t hesitate to pose your own or to bring up anything related to the topic that is relevant to you. If you feel shy about doing so yourself, send me an ask or e-mail and I’ll ask your questions for you. If we stray too far away from Sherlock-related matters, I’ll steer us back, but it’s really quite informal – I’ll join in with the discussion too, offering my own opinions. Regarding politeness: I expect everyone who participates to behave in a mature and respectful manner. It is perfectly all right to disagree, but if we want to have a good, proper discussion we need to be willing to not only state our own viewpoint but actually listen to what the other has to say. Don’t be shy about expressing your opinions – just don’t be rude about it.
I do not have a set time table for this – we’ll talk for as long as we have things to talk about. If you have to leave, you have to leave; no hard feelings. It is unlikely we’ll be at it for more than two hours, however.
The other two group chats are:
—-
When: Wednesday October 22, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Sally Donovan
—-
When: Sunday October 26, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: The Fall – did we learn the truth in TEH? Special focus on the roles of Mycroft and Moriarty.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and/or concerns.
Group Chat About Sally on Wednesday - For Science!
Hello!
My name is Kee Lundqvist and am writing Master thesis in anthropology on meaning-making in the Sherlock fan community. For further details, please see this post.
I have more or less concluded my fieldwork, but this week I am doing a bit of additional research by investigating some themes that I will be addressing in my thesis. As part of this, I will attempt to arrange a few group chats, each one dedicated to one specific topic. On Wednesday I’d like to talk about Sally. Whether you love, loathe, are indifferent or anything in between, I’d love to hear your thoughts and theories.
When: Wednesday October 22, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Sally Donovan
Please note that due to daylight saving time, you might be an hour extra ahead or behind GMT; please refer to this site.
If you would like to participate in any (or all!) of these chats, I’d be grateful if you would let me know – but it’s also perfectly possible to just show up in the chatroom at the right date and time. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU SHOULD CHOOSE A RANDOM NICK THAT YOU DO NOT USE ANYWHERE ELSE. This is to protect your integrity. However, please let me know in an ask or e-mail ([email protected]) which nick you have selected – I need to know who you are for my analysis.
I will have prepared a few questions, but don’t hesitate to pose your own or to bring up anything related to the topic that is relevant to you. If you feel shy about doing so yourself, send me an ask or e-mail and I’ll ask your questions for you. If we stray too far away from Sherlock-related matters, I’ll steer us back, but it’s really quite informal – I’ll join in with the discussion too, offering my own opinions. Regarding politeness: I expect everyone who participates to behave in a mature and respectful manner. It is perfectly all right to disagree, but if we want to have a good, proper discussion we need to be willing to not only state our own viewpoint but actually listen to what the other has to say. Don’t be shy about expressing your opinions – just don’t be rude about it.
I do not have a set time table for this – we’ll talk for as long as we have things to talk about. If you have to leave, you have to leave; no hard feelings. It is unlikely we’ll be at it for more than two hours, however.
The other two group chats are:
---
When: Thursday October 23, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: Johnlock in series three
---
When: Sunday October 26, 7pm GMT
Where: Chatzy chatroom
Topic: The Fall – did we learn the truth in TEH? Special focus on the roles of Mycroft and Moriarty.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and/or concerns.
Sorry for invading your tags yet again - I come, as always, in peace.
Tomorrow - Sunday October 14 - I'm hosting an online season 3 watch-along. This is part of the research for my Master thesis (which you can read all about here) and I will be using the chat transcript for my analysis. Apart from this little fact, this is a watch-along like any other - press play at the right time, watch and chat with other fans. Every Sherlock-fan is very welcome - feel free to spread the word!
Here is the chatroom we'll be using. IMPORTANT NOTE 1: Use a new and unique alias for the chat and e-mail me at [email protected] your Tumblr name and which nickname you've been using in the chat. This is to protect your anonymity, and is especially important if I've interviwed you. If you've taken part in any of the group chats, it might be a good idea to use the nick you've been using in them.
Schedule
4pm GMT: The Empty Hearse
6pm GMT: The Sign of Tree
8pm GMT: His Las Vow
IMPORTANT NOTE 2: Because of summer time, your time zone's relationship to GMT might not be what you think it is (for instance, Sweden is usually +1, but currently we're +2). Refer to this site to check the time.
Well, the response to my hungry plea has been very good so far - a great, big thank you to each and everyone who has liked and/or reblogged the post, and to those who have already volunteered as participants. <3 Don't hesitate to get in touch; I would love to hear from YOU. :D
Looking for Participants in an Anthropological Study on Meaning-Making in the Sherlock Fandom
Hello! My name is Kee Lundqvist (keeloca here on Tumblr) and I am a graduate student at the Department of Anthropology at Uppsala University. I am writing my Master thesis on meaning-making in the BBC Sherlock fandom, and am currently looking for fans who would concede to be interviewed individually via mail, and/or to participate in a chat group discussion, and/or to join in at an online watch-along. (For a lot more information about the focus and aim of the project, please read my project description under the cut.)
The questions for the interviews and group discussions concern involvement with fandom, interpretation of themes and scenes, perceived strengths and flaws of the series, etc. Basically, I want to know what and how you think about Sherlock. J During the watch-alongs I will both observe (and later analyze) the comments made, as well as join in by making comments of my own (this method is called participant observation; see FAQ under the cut for more details).
Interested? Send me a mail as soon as possible at [email protected] and let me know in what way you wish to participate: individual interview via mail, group discussion in a chat room, and/or online watch-along. If you are interested in group discussions and online watch-alongs, please include information about what time zone you’re in and when you are usually available. (And if you HAPPEN to live near Uppsala and would like to meet in the physical world for an interview or the like, that is very, very doable too.)
Even if you don’t want to participate yourself, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could spread the word by reblogging. Thanks and much love!
FAQ and project description below the cut.
FAQ
Are you a Sherlock fan?
God, yes. If you have a look over at my personal blog – keeloca.tumblr.com – you’ll find that I mostly reblog and post Sherlock-related stuff. I am a major Moriarty fangirl, and ship Sheriarty, MorMor and Johmlock. I write fic sometimes, and you can find those at http://archiveofourown.org/users/RageSeptember/works
I also run the small project Interview With A Sherlock Fan Fic Writer, and have hosted a small Sherlock convention in my hometown of Uppsala.
But what exactly are you studying?
Please see the project description below the cut.
What does your research consist of?
Apart from individual and group interviews and watch-alongs in which I join in as a participant observer, I spend a lot of time following discussions and tracking tags here on Tumblr. I read lots of meta and fan fic, I watch fan videos. (You can find more details in the project description under the cut.)
What is participant observation?
According to Wikipedia (who does get it right), “participant observation is one type of data collection method typically done in the qualitative research paradigm. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology […]. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time. […] Such research involves a range of well-defined, though variable methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, analysis of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off or online, and life-histories.”
Basically, the aim is to study people in ‘their natural habitat’. The method is often coupled with formal in-depth interviews.
Will you use my real name/username in your thesis?
Everyone who participates will be anonymized in the thesis, meaning that not only will all names be changed, all potentially revealing details (such as age, location etc) will be changed as well. The only exceptions are if and when I include direct quotes from public posts or fic (since changing someone’s username would be pretty pointless in those cases).
When will the thesis be finished?
Hopefully I will present it in the beginning of January (which marks the end of the Swedish fall semester). The primary phase of research/fieldwork will be concluded at the end of September, and I will spend October and November writing the first draft. This draft will then be sent out to all informants – and potentially posted on Tumblr as well – to give everyone a chance to offer feedback and opinions. Once the final draft is completed, it will be made available for everyone on my research blog.
A Story of Significance. The Creation of Meaning in the Sherlock Fan Community.
Background
Healthy human beings are in constant and relentless pursuit of meaning. Not only do we want to know what is happening; we want to know why it is happening and what it means. Meaning can seemingly be found in the most random of things – in the alignment of distant stars when we leave our mothers’ wombs, in the wearing of the colours sported by an eleven man gang of grown men kicking a ball, in the stories we tell ourselves before we drift off to sleep.
It can also, as I will suggest in my thesis, be found in the interpretations of a popular TV show as articulated by the interactions and creations of fans online. A large part of the blogs on the social media platform Tumblr is dedicated to such activities, and one of the most lively fandom communities there today is the one dedicated to the BBC TV series Sherlock, a modern adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective stories. Several thousands of Sherlock fans, primarily women between 15-30[1], discuss theories, express opinions, post pictures and gif sets as well as fan fiction and fan art. Many of them do spend many hours every day doing so, these activities and the discourse on the source material (the actual TV series) it shapes are seemingly deeply meaningful to them.
This, then, is the focus of my study. On the one hand, I wish to study this particular community (both on- and offline) since as a culture it is of interest on its own, but on the other I hope to – as many anthropologists are wont to do – be able to draw some general conclusions from a very particular case and so through my studies shed more light on the stories of significance and the nature of the human creation of meaning.
Overall Research Question
How is text-related meaning created, negotiated, sustained and shared in the Sherlock fandom, both on- and offline?
Operationalising Sub-Questions
In what – if any – sense can the interpretations/stories told and shared by fans be said to be meaningful?
What are the contents of the potentially meaningful interpretations/stories told and shared by the fans?
How is this content created, shared and negotiated (on- and offline)?
How does an individual’s meaningful interpretations relate to various discourses in and outside of the community?
What ‘crises of meaning’ can be identified in the fan’s interactions/discourse?
How are these crisis points dealt with?
The Field and Methodology
Time was when the only people you would interact with were the ones you could actually see or hear[2]. This was, admittedly, a very long time ago, but even after the invention of techniques and devices that enabled communication with those outside of one’s immediate physical surroundings – e.g. writing, radio, the telephone – the immediately reciprocal social and cultural interactions (in contrast to the one-way communication of mass media, for instance) were still largely based on a shared physical space. This is no longer true; today many of our social and cultural interactions take place online, and a great many communities exists primarily, or even only, in digital form. Once dubbed as sub-cultures, these online communities are now arguably one of the most important platforms for social interaction and are as such of great interest to anthropologists. Yet, most of the scholarly interest that has been paid to these communities have not been anthropological – the field of digital anthropology occupies itself more (though certainly not exclusively) with human-technology interactions than with the social ones enabled by said technology. It seems to me a strange and sad lack, though I am confident that it is one that will be dealt with in due time.
Not only are online communities and cultures of interest for anthropologists in and of themselves; they also provide an excellent field for certain kind of thematic studies of cultural creation and sharing (as well as discourse analysis) because the interaction and content is all there on the computer screen – in the gifsets and text posts and drawings – to be seen and followed and traced[3]. However, it also presents unique difficulties, as there is no obvious way to conduct participant observation in such a milieu.
As with physical spaces, the popularity and demographic of digital spaces vary. Ten to five years ago, most ‘fangirls’ would discuss and celebrate their favourite movies, books and TV-shows on the blog platform LiveJournal, but these days the majority of such activities takes place on the microblogging platform and social networking site Tumblr. With 184 million blogs as per May 1:st 2014, Tumblr is structured similarly to Twitter, but allows the posting of longer text posts and multimedia. Content can be tagged, as on Twitter, and by ‘going into the tag’ one can see all posts marked with, for instance, ‘Sherlock BBC’. You can follow other blogs, and the content posted on them will appear on your dashboard.
In a sense, this is a field I entered almost two years ago when I created my very own Tumblr blog – mainly to be a part of the Sherlock community and access the fan creations offered by it. However, participation only makes up one half of the method ‘participant observation’, and so I won’t enter the field properly until I do so with a clear research goal and strategy in mind. Ideally, I will do so in July and spend two months gathering data by tracking relevant tags, observing and participating in discussion, and interviewing fans. The last point is particularly important as the content posted on Tumblr is often fragmented (i.e. a gif set) and the significance (if any) it holds to the creator or others is not available without a more in-depth discussion of it.
But even though a large part of the interactions between fans takes place online, not all does, and so I am meeting fans offline as well, for interviews, group discussions and watch-alongs.
Theoretical Approaches: Fan studies is a fairly young field, but has already produced rather extensive theoretical works, of which I will particularly utilize Henry Jenkin’s works. Favouring a broad cross-disciplinary approach[4], I will combine theories from sociology, psychology, evolutionary neurobiology, philosophy and – of course – anthropology. My starting point for the analysis is Kenneth Pargament’s theory of coping, potentially mixed up with a bit of Gregory Bateson’s thoughts on evolutionary change (if I can make that work), and for my method I will rely largely but not exclusively on discourse and narrative analysis.
Update: What I Have Done So Far
As of September 1:st I have been conducting field work for little over a month – although, in all fairness, quite some time has been spent trying to figure out just how to conduct participant observation on a platform such as Tumblr. Online I have been following, the discussions and fan works production there, tracking relevant and popular tags such as ‘johnlock’, ‘tjlc’ and ‘mary morstan’. I am currently looking for new informants to interview, individually and in groups (via e-mails and chats), and for people to join online watch-alongs.
Offline I have staged several viewing sessions, where I and between three and four others have watched the series together. I have both participated and observed the comments made and the discussions sparked during the viewings, which have been followed by group interviews. I am also meeting several people (some of whom have been part of the viewings) for individual in-depth interviews (one of these individuals is a professional magician, and I’ll be going to Stockholm to watch his show, which is in part inspired by the series).
In the next few weeks, I will continue to host viewings, interview people both on- and offline and hopefully find a way to participate (rather than just observe) the discussions and fan interactions on Tumblr. I will be attending a fan studies conference in Prague to present a short paper based on my fieldwork in November; this paper is due September 26:th.
I have also done a fair bit of reading, mostly the theoretical works of various fan studies scholars, but also some anthropological method.
Litterature (exceedingly tentative list):
Broker, Will. Using the Force.
Coleman, Gabriella. Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media.
Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington. Fandom.
Hill, Matt. Fan Cultures.
Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Intersect.
Pargament, Kenneth. The Psychology of Religion and Coping.
Pearce, Celia. Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds
Wilson, Samuel M & Leighton C. Peterson. The Anthropology of Online Communities.
Staigert, Janet. Media Reception Studies.
Strage, Fredrik. Fans.
[1] These statistics need checking as they are currently based only on my own experience, but I believe them to be fairly accurate.
[2] This is, perhaps, a claim that needs to be modified and elaborated on, but in this very short thesis project description it will have to do.
[3] Of course there are some complications and problems with this, but I’ll save that for the actual thesis – this is already getting long.
[4] I maintain that rather than strict and exclusive use of theories shaped by and for anthropologists, the hallmark of anthropology is a, the method of participant observation, b, the study of human beings in their cultural and social context, and c, the focus on making general claims based on very particular cases (the latter is admittedly not a focus shared by all anthropologists).
Looking for Participants in an Anthropological Study on Meaning-Making in the Sherlock Fandom
Hello! My name is Kee Lundqvist (keeloca here on Tumblr) and I am a graduate student at the Department of Anthropology at Uppsala University. I am writing my Master thesis on meaning-making in the BBC Sherlock fandom, and am currently looking for fans who would concede to be interviewed individually via mail, and/or to participate in a chat group discussion, and/or to join in at an online watch-along. (For a lot more information about the focus and aim of the project, please read my project description under the cut.)
The questions for the interviews and group discussions concern involvement with fandom, interpretation of themes and scenes, perceived strengths and flaws of the series, etc. Basically, I want to know what and how you think about Sherlock. J During the watch-alongs I will both observe (and later analyze) the comments made, as well as join in by making comments of my own (this method is called participant observation; see FAQ under the cut for more details).
Interested? Send me a mail as soon as possible at [email protected] and let me know in what way you wish to participate: individual interview via mail, group discussion in a chat room, and/or online watch-along. If you are interested in group discussions and online watch-alongs, please include information about what time zone you’re in and when you are usually available. (And if you HAPPEN to live near Uppsala and would like to meet in the physical world for an interview or the like, that is very, very doable too.)
Even if you don’t want to participate yourself, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could spread the word by reblogging. Thanks and much love!
FAQ and project description below the cut.
FAQ
Are you a Sherlock fan?
God, yes. If you have a look over at my personal blog – keeloca.tumblr.com – you’ll find that I mostly reblog and post Sherlock-related stuff. I am a major Moriarty fangirl, and ship Sheriarty, MorMor and Johmlock. I write fic sometimes, and you can find those at http://archiveofourown.org/users/RageSeptember/works
I also run the small project Interview With A Sherlock Fan Fic Writer, and have hosted a small Sherlock convention in my hometown of Uppsala.
But what exactly are you studying?
Please see the project description below the cut.
What does your research consist of?
Apart from individual and group interviews and watch-alongs in which I join in as a participant observer, I spend a lot of time following discussions and tracking tags here on Tumblr. I read lots of meta and fan fic, I watch fan videos. (You can find more details in the project description under the cut.)
What is participant observation?
According to Wikipedia (who does get it right), “participant observation is one type of data collection method typically done in the qualitative research paradigm. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology […]. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time. […] Such research involves a range of well-defined, though variable methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, analysis of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off or online, and life-histories.”
Basically, the aim is to study people in ‘their natural habitat’. The method is often coupled with formal in-depth interviews.
Will you use my real name/username in your thesis?
Everyone who participates will be anonymized in the thesis, meaning that not only will all names be changed, all potentially revealing details (such as age, location etc) will be changed as well. The only exceptions are if and when I include direct quotes from public posts or fic (since changing someone’s username would be pretty pointless in those cases).
When will the thesis be finished?
Hopefully I will present it in the beginning of January (which marks the end of the Swedish fall semester). The primary phase of research/fieldwork will be concluded at the end of September, and I will spend October and November writing the first draft. This draft will then be sent out to all informants – and potentially posted on Tumblr as well – to give everyone a chance to offer feedback and opinions. Once the final draft is completed, it will be made available for everyone on my research blog.
A Story of Significance. The Creation of Meaning in the Sherlock Fan Community.
Background
Healthy human beings are in constant and relentless pursuit of meaning. Not only do we want to know what is happening; we want to know why it is happening and what it means. Meaning can seemingly be found in the most random of things – in the alignment of distant stars when we leave our mothers’ wombs, in the wearing of the colours sported by an eleven man gang of grown men kicking a ball, in the stories we tell ourselves before we drift off to sleep.
It can also, as I will suggest in my thesis, be found in the interpretations of a popular TV show as articulated by the interactions and creations of fans online. A large part of the blogs on the social media platform Tumblr is dedicated to such activities, and one of the most lively fandom communities there today is the one dedicated to the BBC TV series Sherlock, a modern adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective stories. Several thousands of Sherlock fans, primarily women between 15-30[1], discuss theories, express opinions, post pictures and gif sets as well as fan fiction and fan art. Many of them do spend many hours every day doing so, these activities and the discourse on the source material (the actual TV series) it shapes are seemingly deeply meaningful to them.
This, then, is the focus of my study. On the one hand, I wish to study this particular community (both on- and offline) since as a culture it is of interest on its own, but on the other I hope to – as many anthropologists are wont to do – be able to draw some general conclusions from a very particular case and so through my studies shed more light on the stories of significance and the nature of the human creation of meaning.
Overall Research Question
How is text-related meaning created, negotiated, sustained and shared in the Sherlock fandom, both on- and offline?
Operationalising Sub-Questions
In what – if any – sense can the interpretations/stories told and shared by fans be said to be meaningful?
What are the contents of the potentially meaningful interpretations/stories told and shared by the fans?
How is this content created, shared and negotiated (on- and offline)?
How does an individual’s meaningful interpretations relate to various discourses in and outside of the community?
What ‘crises of meaning’ can be identified in the fan’s interactions/discourse?
How are these crisis points dealt with?
The Field and Methodology
Time was when the only people you would interact with were the ones you could actually see or hear[2]. This was, admittedly, a very long time ago, but even after the invention of techniques and devices that enabled communication with those outside of one’s immediate physical surroundings – e.g. writing, radio, the telephone – the immediately reciprocal social and cultural interactions (in contrast to the one-way communication of mass media, for instance) were still largely based on a shared physical space. This is no longer true; today many of our social and cultural interactions take place online, and a great many communities exists primarily, or even only, in digital form. Once dubbed as sub-cultures, these online communities are now arguably one of the most important platforms for social interaction and are as such of great interest to anthropologists. Yet, most of the scholarly interest that has been paid to these communities have not been anthropological – the field of digital anthropology occupies itself more (though certainly not exclusively) with human-technology interactions than with the social ones enabled by said technology. It seems to me a strange and sad lack, though I am confident that it is one that will be dealt with in due time.
Not only are online communities and cultures of interest for anthropologists in and of themselves; they also provide an excellent field for certain kind of thematic studies of cultural creation and sharing (as well as discourse analysis) because the interaction and content is all there on the computer screen – in the gifsets and text posts and drawings – to be seen and followed and traced[3]. However, it also presents unique difficulties, as there is no obvious way to conduct participant observation in such a milieu.
As with physical spaces, the popularity and demographic of digital spaces vary. Ten to five years ago, most ‘fangirls’ would discuss and celebrate their favourite movies, books and TV-shows on the blog platform LiveJournal, but these days the majority of such activities takes place on the microblogging platform and social networking site Tumblr. With 184 million blogs as per May 1:st 2014, Tumblr is structured similarly to Twitter, but allows the posting of longer text posts and multimedia. Content can be tagged, as on Twitter, and by ‘going into the tag’ one can see all posts marked with, for instance, ‘Sherlock BBC’. You can follow other blogs, and the content posted on them will appear on your dashboard.
In a sense, this is a field I entered almost two years ago when I created my very own Tumblr blog – mainly to be a part of the Sherlock community and access the fan creations offered by it. However, participation only makes up one half of the method ‘participant observation’, and so I won’t enter the field properly until I do so with a clear research goal and strategy in mind. Ideally, I will do so in July and spend two months gathering data by tracking relevant tags, observing and participating in discussion, and interviewing fans. The last point is particularly important as the content posted on Tumblr is often fragmented (i.e. a gif set) and the significance (if any) it holds to the creator or others is not available without a more in-depth discussion of it.
But even though a large part of the interactions between fans takes place online, not all does, and so I am meeting fans offline as well, for interviews, group discussions and watch-alongs.
Theoretical Approaches: Fan studies is a fairly young field, but has already produced rather extensive theoretical works, of which I will particularly utilize Henry Jenkin’s works. Favouring a broad cross-disciplinary approach[4], I will combine theories from sociology, psychology, evolutionary neurobiology, philosophy and – of course – anthropology. My starting point for the analysis is Kenneth Pargament’s theory of coping, potentially mixed up with a bit of Gregory Bateson’s thoughts on evolutionary change (if I can make that work), and for my method I will rely largely but not exclusively on discourse and narrative analysis.
Update: What I Have Done So Far
As of September 1:st I have been conducting field work for little over a month – although, in all fairness, quite some time has been spent trying to figure out just how to conduct participant observation on a platform such as Tumblr. Online I have been following, the discussions and fan works production there, tracking relevant and popular tags such as ‘johnlock’, ‘tjlc’ and ‘mary morstan’. I am currently looking for new informants to interview, individually and in groups (via e-mails and chats), and for people to join online watch-alongs.
Offline I have staged several viewing sessions, where I and between three and four others have watched the series together. I have both participated and observed the comments made and the discussions sparked during the viewings, which have been followed by group interviews. I am also meeting several people (some of whom have been part of the viewings) for individual in-depth interviews (one of these individuals is a professional magician, and I’ll be going to Stockholm to watch his show, which is in part inspired by the series).
In the next few weeks, I will continue to host viewings, interview people both on- and offline and hopefully find a way to participate (rather than just observe) the discussions and fan interactions on Tumblr. I will be attending a fan studies conference in Prague to present a short paper based on my fieldwork in November; this paper is due September 26:th.
I have also done a fair bit of reading, mostly the theoretical works of various fan studies scholars, but also some anthropological method.
Litterature (exceedingly tentative list):
Broker, Will. Using the Force.
Coleman, Gabriella. Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media.
Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington. Fandom.
Hill, Matt. Fan Cultures.
Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Intersect.
Pargament, Kenneth. The Psychology of Religion and Coping.
Pearce, Celia. Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds
Wilson, Samuel M & Leighton C. Peterson. The Anthropology of Online Communities.
Staigert, Janet. Media Reception Studies.
Strage, Fredrik. Fans.
[1] These statistics need checking as they are currently based only on my own experience, but I believe them to be fairly accurate.
[2] This is, perhaps, a claim that needs to be modified and elaborated on, but in this very short thesis project description it will have to do.
[3] Of course there are some complications and problems with this, but I’ll save that for the actual thesis – this is already getting long.
[4] I maintain that rather than strict and exclusive use of theories shaped by and for anthropologists, the hallmark of anthropology is a, the method of participant observation, b, the study of human beings in their cultural and social context, and c, the focus on making general claims based on very particular cases (the latter is admittedly not a focus shared by all anthropologists).
Looking for Participants in an Anthropological Study of Meaning-Making in the Sherlock fandom
Hello! My name is Kee Lundqvist (keeloca here on Tumblr) and I am a graduate student at the Department of Anthropology at Uppsala University. I am writing my Master thesis on meaning-making in the BBC Sherlock fandom, and am currently looking for fans who would concede to be interviewed individually via mail, and/or to participate in a chat group discussion, and/or to join in at an online watch-along. (For a lot more information about the focus and aim of the project, please read my project description under the cut.)
The questions for the interviews and group discussions concern involvement with fandom, interpretation of themes and scenes, perceived strengths and flaws of the series, etc. Basically, I want to know what and how you think about Sherlock. J During the watch-alongs I will both observe (and later analyze) the comments made, as well as join in by making comments of my own (this method is called participant observation; see FAQ under the cut for more details).
Interested? Send me a mail as soon as possible at [email protected] and let me know in what way you wish to participate: individual interview via mail, group discussion in a chat room, and/or online watch-along. If you are interested in group discussions and online watch-alongs, please include information about what time zone you’re in and when you are usually available. (And if you HAPPEN to live near Uppsala and would like to meet in the physical world for an interview or the like, that is very, very doable too.)
Even if you don’t want to participate yourself, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could spread the word by reblogging. Thanks and much love!
FAQ and project description below the cut.
FAQ
Are you a Sherlock fan?
God, yes. If you have a look over at my personal blog – keeloca.tumblr.com – you’ll find that I mostly reblog and post Sherlock-related stuff. I am a major Moriarty fangirl, and ship Sheriarty, MorMor and Johmlock. I write fic sometimes, and you can find those at http://archiveofourown.org/users/RageSeptember/works
I also run the small project Interview With A Sherlock Fan Fic Writer, and have hosted a small Sherlock convention in my hometown of Uppsala.
But what exactly are you studying?
Please see the project description below the cut.
What does your research consist of?
Apart from individual and group interviews and watch-alongs in which I join in as a participant observer, I spend a lot of time following discussions and tracking tags here on Tumblr. I read lots of meta and fan fic, I watch fan videos. (You can find more details in the project description under the cut.)
What is participant observation?
According to Wikipedia (who does get it right), “participant observation is one type of data collection method typically done in the qualitative research paradigm. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology […]. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time. […] Such research involves a range of well-defined, though variable methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, analysis of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off or online, and life-histories.”
Basically, the aim is to study people in ‘their natural habitat’. The method is often coupled with formal in-depth interviews.
Will you use my real name/username in your thesis?
Everyone who participates will be anonymized in the thesis, meaning that not only will all names be changed, all potentially revealing details (such as age, location etc) will be changed as well. The only exceptions are if and when I include direct quotes from public posts or fic (since changing someone’s username would be pretty pointless in those cases).
When will the thesis be finished?
Hopefully I will present it in the beginning of January (which marks the end of the Swedish fall semester). The primary phase of research/fieldwork will be concluded at the end of September, and I will spend October and November writing the first draft. This draft will then be sent out to all informants – and potentially posted on Tumblr as well – to give everyone a chance to offer feedback and opinions. Once the final draft is completed, it will be made available for everyone on my research blog.
A Story of Significance. The Creation of Meaning in the Sherlock Fan Community.
Background
Healthy human beings are in constant and relentless pursuit of meaning. Not only do we want to know what is happening; we want to know why it is happening and what it means. Meaning can seemingly be found in the most random of things – in the alignment of distant stars when we leave our mothers’ wombs, in the wearing of the colours sported by an eleven man gang of grown men kicking a ball, in the stories we tell ourselves before we drift off to sleep.
It can also, as I will suggest in my thesis, be found in the interpretations of a popular TV show as articulated by the interactions and creations of fans online. A large part of the blogs on the social media platform Tumblr is dedicated to such activities, and one of the most lively fandom communities there today is the one dedicated to the BBC TV series Sherlock, a modern adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective stories. Several thousands of Sherlock fans, primarily women between 15-30[1], discuss theories, express opinions, post pictures and gif sets as well as fan fiction and fan art. Many of them do spend many hours every day doing so, these activities and the discourse on the source material (the actual TV series) it shapes are seemingly deeply meaningful to them.
This, then, is the focus of my study. On the one hand, I wish to study this particular community (both on- and offline) since as a culture it is of interest on its own, but on the other I hope to – as many anthropologists are wont to do – be able to draw some general conclusions from a very particular case and so through my studies shed more light on the stories of significance and the nature of the human creation of meaning.
Overall Research Question
How is text-related meaning created, negotiated, sustained and shared in the Sherlock fandom, both on- and offline?
Operationalising Sub-Questions
In what – if any – sense can the interpretations/stories told and shared by fans be said to be meaningful?
What are the contents of the potentially meaningful interpretations/stories told and shared by the fans?
How is this content created, shared and negotiated (on- and offline)?
How does an individual’s meaningful interpretations relate to various discourses in and outside of the community?
What ‘crises of meaning’ can be identified in the fan’s interactions/discourse?
How are these crisis points dealt with?
The Field and Methodology
Time was when the only people you would interact with were the ones you could actually see or hear[2]. This was, admittedly, a very long time ago, but even after the invention of techniques and devices that enabled communication with those outside of one’s immediate physical surroundings – e.g. writing, radio, the telephone – the immediately reciprocal social and cultural interactions (in contrast to the one-way communication of mass media, for instance) were still largely based on a shared physical space. This is no longer true; today many of our social and cultural interactions take place online, and a great many communities exists primarily, or even only, in digital form. Once dubbed as sub-cultures, these online communities are now arguably one of the most important platforms for social interaction and are as such of great interest to anthropologists. Yet, most of the scholarly interest that has been paid to these communities have not been anthropological – the field of digital anthropology occupies itself more (though certainly not exclusively) with human-technology interactions than with the social ones enabled by said technology. It seems to me a strange and sad lack, though I am confident that it is one that will be dealt with in due time.
Not only are online communities and cultures of interest for anthropologists in and of themselves; they also provide an excellent field for certain kind of thematic studies of cultural creation and sharing (as well as discourse analysis) because the interaction and content is all there on the computer screen – in the gifsets and text posts and drawings – to be seen and followed and traced[3]. However, it also presents unique difficulties, as there is no obvious way to conduct participant observation in such a milieu.
As with physical spaces, the popularity and demographic of digital spaces vary. Ten to five years ago, most ‘fangirls’ would discuss and celebrate their favourite movies, books and TV-shows on the blog platform LiveJournal, but these days the majority of such activities takes place on the microblogging platform and social networking site Tumblr. With 184 million blogs as per May 1:st 2014, Tumblr is structured similarly to Twitter, but allows the posting of longer text posts and multimedia. Content can be tagged, as on Twitter, and by ‘going into the tag’ one can see all posts marked with, for instance, ‘Sherlock BBC’. You can follow other blogs, and the content posted on them will appear on your dashboard.
In a sense, this is a field I entered almost two years ago when I created my very own Tumblr blog – mainly to be a part of the Sherlock community and access the fan creations offered by it. However, participation only makes up one half of the method ‘participant observation’, and so I won’t enter the field properly until I do so with a clear research goal and strategy in mind. Ideally, I will do so in July and spend two months gathering data by tracking relevant tags, observing and participating in discussion, and interviewing fans. The last point is particularly important as the content posted on Tumblr is often fragmented (i.e. a gif set) and the significance (if any) it holds to the creator or others is not available without a more in-depth discussion of it.
But even though a large part of the interactions between fans takes place online, not all does, and so I am meeting fans offline as well, for interviews, group discussions and watch-alongs.
Theoretical Approaches: Fan studies is a fairly young field, but has already produced rather extensive theoretical works, of which I will particularly utilize Henry Jenkin’s works. Favouring a broad cross-disciplinary approach[4], I will combine theories from sociology, psychology, evolutionary neurobiology, philosophy and – of course – anthropology. My starting point for the analysis is Kenneth Pargament’s theory of coping, potentially mixed up with a bit of Gregory Bateson’s thoughts on evolutionary change (if I can make that work), and for my method I will rely largely but not exclusively on discourse and narrative analysis.
Update: What I Have Done So Far
As of September 1:st I have been conducting field work for little over a month – although, in all fairness, quite some time has been spent trying to figure out just how to conduct participant observation on a platform such as Tumblr. Online I have been following, the discussions and fan works production there, tracking relevant and popular tags such as ‘johnlock’, ‘tjlc’ and ‘mary morstan’. I am currently looking for new informants to interview, individually and in groups (via e-mails and chats), and for people to join online watch-alongs.
Offline I have staged several viewing sessions, where I and between three and four others have watched the series together. I have both participated and observed the comments made and the discussions sparked during the viewings, which have been followed by group interviews. I am also meeting several people (some of whom have been part of the viewings) for individual in-depth interviews (one of these individuals is a professional magician, and I’ll be going to Stockholm to watch his show, which is in part inspired by the series).
In the next few weeks, I will continue to host viewings, interview people both on- and offline and hopefully find a way to participate (rather than just observe) the discussions and fan interactions on Tumblr. I will be attending a fan studies conference in Prague to present a short paper based on my fieldwork in November; this paper is due September 26:th.
I have also done a fair bit of reading, mostly the theoretical works of various fan studies scholars, but also some anthropological method.
Litterature (exceedingly tentative list):
Broker, Will. Using the Force.
Coleman, Gabriella. Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media.
Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington. Fandom.
Hill, Matt. Fan Cultures.
Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Intersect.
Pargament, Kenneth. The Psychology of Religion and Coping.
Pearce, Celia. Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds
Wilson, Samuel M & Leighton C. Peterson. The Anthropology of Online Communities.
Staigert, Janet. Media Reception Studies.
Strage, Fredrik. Fans.
[1] These statistics need checking as they are currently based only on my own experience, but I believe them to be fairly accurate.
[2] This is, perhaps, a claim that needs to be modified and elaborated on, but in this very short thesis project description it will have to do.
[3] Of course there are some complications and problems with this, but I’ll save that for the actual thesis – this is already getting long.
[4] I maintain that rather than strict and exclusive use of theories shaped by and for anthropologists, the hallmark of anthropology is a, the method of participant observation, b, the study of human beings in their cultural and social context, and c, the focus on making general claims based on very particular cases (the latter is admittedly not a focus shared by all anthropologists).
Looking for Participants in an Anthropological Study on Meaning-Making in the Sherlock fandom
Hello! My name is Kee Lundqvist (keeloca here on Tumblr) and I am a graduate student at the Department of Anthropology at Uppsala University. I am writing my Master thesis on meaning-making in the BBC Sherlock fandom, and am currently looking for fans who would concede to be interviewed individually via mail, and/or to participate in a chat group discussion, and/or to join in at an online watch-along. (For a lot more information about the focus and aim of the project, please read my project description under the cut.)
The questions for the interviews and group discussions concern involvement with fandom, interpretation of themes and scenes, perceived strengths and flaws of the series, etc. Basically, I want to know what and how you think about Sherlock. J During the watch-alongs I will both observe (and later analyze) the comments made, as well as join in by making comments of my own (this method is called participant observation; see FAQ under the cut for more details).
Interested? Send me a mail as soon as possible at [email protected] and let me know in what way you wish to participate: individual interview via mail, group discussion in a chat room, and/or online watch-along. If you are interested in group discussions and online watch-alongs, please include information about what time zone you’re in and when you are usually available. (And if you HAPPEN to live near Uppsala and would like to meet in the physical world for an interview or the like, that is very, very doable too.)
Even if you don’t want to participate yourself, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could spread the word by reblogging. Thanks and much love!
FAQ and project description below the cut.
FAQ
Are you a Sherlock fan?
God, yes. If you have a look over at my personal blog – keeloca.tumblr.com – you’ll find that I mostly reblog and post Sherlock-related stuff. I am a major Moriarty fangirl, and ship Sheriarty, MorMor and Johmlock. I write fic sometimes, and you can find those at http://archiveofourown.org/users/RageSeptember/works
I also run the small project Interview With A Sherlock Fan Fic Writer, and have hosted a small Sherlock convention in my hometown of Uppsala.
But what exactly are you studying?
Please see the project description below the cut.
What does your research consist of?
Apart from individual and group interviews and watch-alongs in which I join in as a participant observer, I spend a lot of time following discussions and tracking tags here on Tumblr. I read lots of meta and fan fic, I watch fan videos. (You can find more details in the project description under the cut.)
What is participant observation?
According to Wikipedia (who does get it right), “participant observation is one type of data collection method typically done in the qualitative research paradigm. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology […]. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, sub cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time. […] Such research involves a range of well-defined, though variable methods: informal interviews, direct observation, participation in the life of the group, analysis of personal documents produced within the group, self-analysis, results from activities undertaken off or online, and life-histories.”
Basically, the aim is to study people in ‘their natural habitat’. The method is often coupled with formal in-depth interviews.
Will you use my real name/username in your thesis?
Everyone who participates will be anonymized in the thesis, meaning that not only will all names be changed, all potentially revealing details (such as age, location etc) will be changed as well. The only exceptions are if and when I include direct quotes from public posts or fic (since changing someone’s username would be pretty pointless in those cases).
When will the thesis be finished?
Hopefully I will present it in the beginning of January (which marks the end of the Swedish fall semester). The primary phase of research/fieldwork will be concluded at the end of September, and I will spend October and November writing the first draft. This draft will then be sent out to all informants – and potentially posted on Tumblr as well – to give everyone a chance to offer feedback and opinions. Once the final draft is completed, it will be made available for everyone on my research blog.
A Story of Significance. The Creation of Meaning in the Sherlock Fan Community.
Background
Healthy human beings are in constant and relentless pursuit of meaning. Not only do we want to know what is happening; we want to know why it is happening and what it means. Meaning can seemingly be found in the most random of things – in the alignment of distant stars when we leave our mothers’ wombs, in the wearing of the colours sported by an eleven man gang of grown men kicking a ball, in the stories we tell ourselves before we drift off to sleep.
It can also, as I will suggest in my thesis, be found in the interpretations of a popular TV show as articulated by the interactions and creations of fans online. A large part of the blogs on the social media platform Tumblr is dedicated to such activities, and one of the most lively fandom communities there today is the one dedicated to the BBC TV series Sherlock, a modern adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective stories. Several thousands of Sherlock fans, primarily women between 15-30[1], discuss theories, express opinions, post pictures and gif sets as well as fan fiction and fan art. Many of them do spend many hours every day doing so, these activities and the discourse on the source material (the actual TV series) it shapes are seemingly deeply meaningful to them.
This, then, is the focus of my study. On the one hand, I wish to study this particular community (both on- and offline) since as a culture it is of interest on its own, but on the other I hope to – as many anthropologists are wont to do – be able to draw some general conclusions from a very particular case and so through my studies shed more light on the stories of significance and the nature of the human creation of meaning.
Overall Research Question
How is text-related meaning created, negotiated, sustained and shared in the Sherlock fandom, both on- and offline?
Operationalising Sub-Questions
In what – if any – sense can the interpretations/stories told and shared by fans be said to be meaningful?
What are the contents of the potentially meaningful interpretations/stories told and shared by the fans?
How is this content created, shared and negotiated (on- and offline)?
How does an individual’s meaningful interpretations relate to various discourses in and outside of the community?
What ‘crises of meaning’ can be identified in the fan’s interactions/discourse?
How are these crisis points dealt with?
The Field and Methodology
Time was when the only people you would interact with were the ones you could actually see or hear[2]. This was, admittedly, a very long time ago, but even after the invention of techniques and devices that enabled communication with those outside of one’s immediate physical surroundings – e.g. writing, radio, the telephone – the immediately reciprocal social and cultural interactions (in contrast to the one-way communication of mass media, for instance) were still largely based on a shared physical space. This is no longer true; today many of our social and cultural interactions take place online, and a great many communities exists primarily, or even only, in digital form. Once dubbed as sub-cultures, these online communities are now arguably one of the most important platforms for social interaction and are as such of great interest to anthropologists. Yet, most of the scholarly interest that has been paid to these communities have not been anthropological – the field of digital anthropology occupies itself more (though certainly not exclusively) with human-technology interactions than with the social ones enabled by said technology. It seems to me a strange and sad lack, though I am confident that it is one that will be dealt with in due time.
Not only are online communities and cultures of interest for anthropologists in and of themselves; they also provide an excellent field for certain kind of thematic studies of cultural creation and sharing (as well as discourse analysis) because the interaction and content is all there on the computer screen – in the gifsets and text posts and drawings – to be seen and followed and traced[3]. However, it also presents unique difficulties, as there is no obvious way to conduct participant observation in such a milieu.
As with physical spaces, the popularity and demographic of digital spaces vary. Ten to five years ago, most ‘fangirls’ would discuss and celebrate their favourite movies, books and TV-shows on the blog platform LiveJournal, but these days the majority of such activities takes place on the microblogging platform and social networking site Tumblr. With 184 million blogs as per May 1:st 2014, Tumblr is structured similarly to Twitter, but allows the posting of longer text posts and multimedia. Content can be tagged, as on Twitter, and by ‘going into the tag’ one can see all posts marked with, for instance, ‘Sherlock BBC’. You can follow other blogs, and the content posted on them will appear on your dashboard.
In a sense, this is a field I entered almost two years ago when I created my very own Tumblr blog – mainly to be a part of the Sherlock community and access the fan creations offered by it. However, participation only makes up one half of the method ‘participant observation’, and so I won’t enter the field properly until I do so with a clear research goal and strategy in mind. Ideally, I will do so in July and spend two months gathering data by tracking relevant tags, observing and participating in discussion, and interviewing fans. The last point is particularly important as the content posted on Tumblr is often fragmented (i.e. a gif set) and the significance (if any) it holds to the creator or others is not available without a more in-depth discussion of it.
But even though a large part of the interactions between fans takes place online, not all does, and so I am meeting fans offline as well, for interviews, group discussions and watch-alongs.
Theoretical Approaches: Fan studies is a fairly young field, but has already produced rather extensive theoretical works, of which I will particularly utilize Henry Jenkin’s works. Favouring a broad cross-disciplinary approach[4], I will combine theories from sociology, psychology, evolutionary neurobiology, philosophy and – of course – anthropology. My starting point for the analysis is Kenneth Pargament’s theory of coping, potentially mixed up with a bit of Gregory Bateson’s thoughts on evolutionary change (if I can make that work), and for my method I will rely largely but not exclusively on discourse and narrative analysis.
Update: What I Have Done So Far
As of September 1:st I have been conducting field work for little over a month – although, in all fairness, quite some time has been spent trying to figure out just how to conduct participant observation on a platform such as Tumblr. Online I have been following, the discussions and fan works production there, tracking relevant and popular tags such as ‘johnlock’, ‘tjlc’ and ‘mary morstan’. I am currently looking for new informants to interview, individually and in groups (via e-mails and chats), and for people to join online watch-alongs.
Offline I have staged several viewing sessions, where I and between three and four others have watched the series together. I have both participated and observed the comments made and the discussions sparked during the viewings, which have been followed by group interviews. I am also meeting several people (some of whom have been part of the viewings) for individual in-depth interviews (one of these individuals is a professional magician, and I’ll be going to Stockholm to watch his show, which is in part inspired by the series).
In the next few weeks, I will continue to host viewings, interview people both on- and offline and hopefully find a way to participate (rather than just observe) the discussions and fan interactions on Tumblr. I will be attending a fan studies conference in Prague to present a short paper based on my fieldwork in November; this paper is due September 26:th.
I have also done a fair bit of reading, mostly the theoretical works of various fan studies scholars, but also some anthropological method.
Litterature (exceedingly tentative list):
Broker, Will. Using the Force.
Coleman, Gabriella. Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media.
Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington. Fandom.
Hill, Matt. Fan Cultures.
Jenkins, H. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture
Jenkins, H. Convergence Culture: Where New and Old Media Intersect.
Pargament, Kenneth. The Psychology of Religion and Coping.
Pearce, Celia. Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds
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[1] These statistics need checking as they are currently based only on my own experience, but I believe them to be fairly accurate.
[2] This is, perhaps, a claim that needs to be modified and elaborated on, but in this very short thesis project description it will have to do.
[3] Of course there are some complications and problems with this, but I’ll save that for the actual thesis – this is already getting long.
[4] I maintain that rather than strict and exclusive use of theories shaped by and for anthropologists, the hallmark of anthropology is a, the method of participant observation, b, the study of human beings in their cultural and social context, and c, the focus on making general claims based on very particular cases (the latter is admittedly not a focus shared by all anthropologists).
