Foucault and Fandom: How Fanfic Changes the Discourse of...
Foucault and Fandom: How Fanfic Changes the Discourse of Popular Texts
Fanfiction - the unauthorized creation of transformative works based on popular media texts - is the fastest growing form of writing in the world. Its impact on the discourse and ideology of popular texts has been much studied, but accounts thus far have lacked a consistent methodology accounting for both cultural and technological contexts. In this paper, discourse theory adapted from Foucault is utilized to establish that discursive formations from a popular source text can be de- and re-constructed, sometimes consolidating canon’s constructions, but at other times, altering Othered characterizations and criticising statements from the canon. The example demonstrated will be race and colour and in the globally popular cult TV show Supernatural and its online fandom, charting the construction and deconstruction of a dangerous cultural narrative concerning the failed civilisation and ‘inherent’ savagery of Black men. The original methodology utilizes some techniques from network analysis to chart the impact of fan-statements in an innovative fashion, using both quantitative and qualitative measures, whilst retaining insights from discourse theory to account for the specificity of fiction as a particular form of writing. In this way, the strength of statements, discursive boundaries, and techniques for alteration can be observed. The author’s monograph on the applications and implications of this method will be published by Amsterdam University Press in 2016.