Productivity, Fandom and the Ends of Sleep - AMC1009

Assessment 1: Written draft

Formative feedback will be given verbally in Workshops where students will be able to begin planning their individual presentation (summative assessment 1) as well as subsequently discussing their essay plans (summative assessment 2). Formative seminar feedback will also be given verbally on students’ responses to set readings, prepared in advance.

Written draft

Assessment 1: Presentation

Presentation

Assessment 2: Written Assignment

Written Assignment

On this module you will analyse one of the major areas in which digital culture is analysed: through ideas of productivity and labour. You will be introduced to concepts of productivity and theories of digital labour such as free and immaterial labour and you will consider how these ideas connect to ideologies of creative work. You will develop an understanding of how these concepts relate in particular to social media and fandom.
You will focus on how fans’ productivity and creativity link to consumerism and branding as well as to subcultural identities. You will consider how issues of gender relate to further dimensions of fan identity and productivity. And you’ll consider whether, in an era of ‘mainstreamed’ participatory culture, it’s now important to analyse ‘ordinary’ media participations that no longer necessarily involve fandom. These ideas of productivity in fandom will be connected to broader understandings of the relationship between our normative use of digital technologies and increased labour intensity in all spheres of life.

School of Arts and Humanities

<a href="http://library.hud.ac.uk/my/AMC1003">http://library.hud.ac.uk/my/AMC1009</a>
Booth, Paul (2017) Digital Fandom 2.0 Peter Lang, New York.
De Kosnik, Abigail (2016) Rogue Archives: Digital Cultural Memory and Media Fandom MIT Press, Cambridge and London. 
Gauntlett, David (2011) Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0 Polity Press, Cambridge and Malden.
Gauntlett, David (2015) Making Media Studies: The Creativity Turn in Media and Communications Studies Peter Lang, New York. 
Garduño Freeman, Cristina (2017) Participatory Culture and the Social Value of an Architectural Icon: Sydney Opera House Routledge, London and New York.
Gray, Jonathan, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington (eds) ‘Part V: Fan Labor and Fan-Producer Interactions’ in Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World - Second Edition New York University Press, New York and London.  
Hills, Matt (2002) Fan Cultures Routledge, London and New York.
Hutchins, Amber and Natalie T.J. Tindall (eds) (2016) Public Relations and Participatory Culture: Fandom, Social Media and Community Engagement Routledge, London and New York.
Jenkins, Henry (1992) Textual Poachers Routledge, London and New York.
Linden, Henrik and Sara Linden (2017) Fans and Fan Cultures: Tourism, Consumerism and Social Media Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and London. 
Sandvoss, Cornel (2005) Fans: The Mirror of Consumption Polity Press, Cambridge and London.
Stein, Louisa (2015) Millennial Fandom: Television Audiences in the Transmedia Age University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.
Zhang, Weiyu (2016) The Internet and New Social Formations in China: Fandom Publics in the Making Routledge, London and New York.

Media, Journalism and Film

AMC1009 - Productivity, Fandom and the Ends of Sleep

Productivity, Fandom and the Ends of Sleep

be able to deal with complex theoretical issues raised by productivity in social media and fandom specifically, both systematically and creatively.

be able to understand, to an advanced level, how ‘productivity’ operates in digital culture and social media.

be able to communicate effectively in interpersonal settings, deploying ideas and information in order to formulate arguments cogently for specialist and/or non-specialist audiences, expressing points effectively in oral form.

be able to critically understand the roles which social media can play in contributing to cultural debates and the contesting of power and exploitation in relation to digital labour, evaluating and critiquing current research and/or methodologies in relation to such roles.

be able to understand current issues and developments in the theorising of digital labour, including the ways in which productivity has been celebrated/critiqued.

be able to critically  evaluate established definitions of fan participation and ‘productivity’, how fanproductivity has been celebrated/critiqued, and the limits to a “productivist” view of fandom.

be able to learn in self-directed and independent ways through the analysis of productivity in digital culture and fandom.

be able to apply relevant knowledge to specific examples of productivity in digital culture and social media, showing originality.