Fandom and Mainstream Press and Media Attention

Fandom:	Pan-fandom
Dates:	early 20th century-present
See also:	Fandom and Visibility, Fandom and the Internet, Category:News Media, Category:Academic Commentaries
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Fandom has often had the eye and attention of mainstream press and reporters.

These attentions include the press promoting fannish things in a basic mostly non-biased way, giving factual information about clubs and conventions.

The press explains fans and fandom in often clumsy and not very knowledgeable articles. This includes ignorance while explaining fandom and fanworks to a mainstream audience. This type of reporting also includes attempts to portray fans and fandom in an aggressively hostile fashion; reporters who utilize the "look at the freak show, at these oddities" as a hook. One classic example is to attend a con and focus on the fans wearing Spock ears or adults playing with action figures. Or to point out some of the more "far-out" examples of fanfiction as an example of weirdness or danger , or fans in public acting in unexpected ways. Another example is the public reading of fanfic and meant to embarrass everyone, see Caitlin Moran's Fic Stunt (2013).

In a 2007 discussion about the proposals to create Organization for Transformative Works and Archive of Our Own, a fan posted:

FF.net is where just about every journalist "researching" the next article on fan fiction writers, aka "who are these weird people?", starts his or her enquiries [sic]. Unfortunately, because of the limited time they have for said research, it is also often as far as they get. Which is a shame, because though there is excellent stuff on that site you have to wade through an enormous amount of dross to find it. Many journalists, I fear, give up before getting anywhere near the good stuff.

In 2015, a fan asked:

Do fans have a phrase or word that describes these clueless press articles meant to amaze the clueless, the “oh my goodness, can you believe there is such a thing as fan fiction out there?” sort of thing journalists have been writing for decades? It seems like these articles get a little more sophisticated centimeter by centimeter (and there are a handful of good ones out there), but they mainly are hammered out via template. There must be a fannish word for these wide-eyed, look-it things." Some responses were: "mugglesplaining," “Come, let’s visit the zoo!”, "Maybe we should coin it “pressplaining” since “fuckwittery” is a little vague?"

Heightening Visibility

Many fans were supportive of high visibility for their fan works and activities, but only to other fans and only to the "right" fans. The internet complicated visibility and audience and made perceived control more tricky.

From Stinky Links, a 2009 blog post on the highly visible site, Firefox News:

You wrote something. And it's been linked. Maybe it's been linked by someone doing a dissertation on slash as the modern face of online feminism. It could just be put on a list of stories enjoyed by misogynistic jerks. May all that's holy help you if it gets quoted in the mainstream media. (Dr. Merlin has long had a ticklish relationship with the BBC. Frickin' Harry Potter making fanfic trendy ever year or so.) But it's out there, in a place where you never expected to find it, and you kinda wish the people there hadn't found it either, not least because you have this sinking feeling the next person who reads the post is going to be your mom and when she finds all the gay porn you've been writing, holiday dinners are just going to be even more awkward than usual this year.

Slash and Same-Sex Fanworks Intensified Attentions

The 1996 article The Boob Tube, and Then Some is an example of the usual explainers by mainstream press of the subculture of slash writing and "look at the weirdos."

An exasperating situation occurred at OktoberTrek in 1992 where reporters and a planted shill attendee caused a lot of confrontation.

The The Great Australian 1985 Radio Show Fiasco.

The Go-To Sources

Reporters tend to tap into the same sources for their articles and presentations.

Some of these spokespeople are BNFs and readily available for quotes.

One of the most prolific was Bjo Trimble, a mainstream press go-to person for Star Trek.

In the late 1970s, Roberta Rogow's TrexIndex had a lot of mainstream press attention. Some of this attention later caused Rogow to become somewhat of a Trek fan spokesperson, see Editor (1988 New Yorker article).

In the mid-1990s/early 2000s, it was acafans Henry Jenkins and Camille Bacon-Smith. Other fans quoted in the news were Heidi Tandy and other fans associated with Harry Potter.

Another fan was Stephanie A. Wiltse who in the late 1980s, promoted herself as the Beauty and the Beast (TV) fandom spokesperson. [need more examples].

Henry Jenkins: An Early Go-To Guy for Reporters

Henry Jenkins, an early acafan became the mainstream press go-to guy.

In 1993, Jenkins commented on frustrations he had with how mainstream press and industry voices tended to go for the easy, the shrill, the simplistic quotes, interviews, and descriptions of fans and that topics were simplified and pushed through a very small, biased filter). He was optimistic that his work and that of UCSB film studies professor Constance Penley were, hopefully, broadening some horizons. At a panel in 1993 at the Escapade convention, Jenkins said:

Constance and I were talking about, yesterday, this Lingua Franca piece, that really made both of us look rather silly — or, that was the intent; in practice it made the writer look rather silly — we've gotten tremendous numbers of letters and phone calls, people who've said, I could tell it was a lousy article, but what you're writing about seemed interesting and important. The message gets out even imperfectly, when you deal with the press. And it's very important to me that... There are certain spokespersons against television in our society — you know, Neil Postman is one, and is quoted everywhere — who have access to the media, and will be quoted extensively. If people like Constance and I don't also go out there and aggressively engage with it, those are the only voices that are going to be heard, and we're going to be told over and over television destroys literacy, we have no common cultural capital today, television produces passivity, there are no such things as television fans, I mean, I've heard a range of statements by people who have the authority to speak to the press, asserting things that are diametrically opposite of the experience that people in this room have had of the media.

His cunning plan may have worked a little too well. A fan commented wryly about a Jenkins quote in an article:

And of course it won't surprise you to find Mr Rent A Quote himself Henry Jenkins in there. I'd love to know how much lecturing he gets to do in between his media appearances!

In 2002, another fan referred to the professor's ubiquitous presence as a quotable commentator:

OK, now the Aussies are getting in on the act. And they still manage to track down Henry Jenkins for a quote. The day man lands on Mars, the good Dr J will be there with a quote for the bemused Martians, no doubt!

Changing Attitudes, Visibility and Reporting

fans becoming more entwined with journalism

the lines between "mainstream reporting," blogs, and fannish platforms blurring and sometimes becoming eradicated all together

changing attitudes about fans and fandom, more visibility, more respect - See Fannish Activities More Visible to Mainstream.

the OTW effect

From a fan in 2007:

Fanfic’s stigma seems to be receding: Some fan writers have snagged lucrative contracts, either for original works or for books based on older literary classics not protected by copyright. At least one well-known mainstream author has “come out” as a fan writer: Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries) has disclosed that as a college student she wrote stories based on Anne McCaffrey’s fantasy novels. Still, fanfic remains a bastard child in the literary family, its very right to exist still in dispute in some quarters.

Further Reading and Meta

• Oh, for the days when Star Trek was smaller... is a 1984 newspaper article by Jonathan Karp for "The Birmingham News."
• Ficcer pride by kattahj (2003)
• The Carpet Book, a 2007 Harry Potter controversy