– A report by Saskia Dreßler –
The fourth installment in the FanLIS symposium series (see our reports on the first, second and third events) built a bridge between the subject areas of fan activities and AI as well as the connection between fan studies and information science. The symposium – organized by CityLIS – took place online on May 23rd and the presentations ranged from the application of AI in fan research to the use of data for research. All presentations, talks and the corresponding chat history are now available online. This year’s title was “Building Bridges II”. As Ludi Price, co-organizer of the event, explained in her opening address, AI can be used by fans as well as by researchers to evaluate fan data. In the area of fan documentation we can see the trend that fans are returning to traditional physical documentation, which was also discussed in one of the presentations. In addition to this new topic, another theme was revisited that had already been in the spotlight in 2021: the interaction of fan research, fan information practice and information science. Three years later, new insights can now be drawn, for example in the generation and use of metadata. The presentations were divided into two sections based on these two topic areas.
The first panel focused on AI and the metaverse. To start the panel off Tom Ue and Callum McNutt explained in their presentation “Do Androids Dream of Bad TV?” how AI influences the originality of art. AI is inherently derivative because it uses the reprocessing of existing works for its creations – while non-AI art creates new works. This means that well-known narratives and stereotypes are repeatedly recycled. But is that always a bad thing? This question is discussed in connection with the film “Voyagers”, because there seems to be a tendency among viewers to watch trash TV and enjoy bad films. The presentation also discussed the well-known narrative and visual aspects of “Voyagers”, as well as the ethical aspects of whether script management by AI is justifiable or costs the authors their work.
Next, Naomi Jacobs talked about “Archiving the ephemeral in digital space” and a new way to archive fan products. Since fan activity can be a game that can run online on different platforms at the same time, there is often a problem with archiving the resulting fan products. For example, fans use various social media platforms to create fan products or to talk about the fan object. An example of such a playful fan activity is collaborative storytelling, in which several fans create fan fiction together (sometimes on different platforms). An example of this are the fan fictions from the film “Blow the Man Down”, in which the story and puzzles have evolved across the platform. Such scattered activities pose problems for researchers. These can occur if the platform is no longer accessible, or fan conversations have not been archived. This creates the problem that many fan products can get lost. In her presentation, Jacobs explained how the method of speculative and critical design can be used to devise possible methods for archiving. Using the example of archiving fan data in the Metaverse, Jacobs came up with various options. These always have to do with a specific place, which should also be represented online as physically as possible, and platforms like Gather can help you with precisely that. Such a platform can be used for various fan activities, such as collaborative fan fiction writing and simultaneous archiving (e.g. by including fans in the process of story development and data processing by AI). With her presentation, Jacobs shows one possibility of what the future of archiving fan data could look like and what technical means can be used for this.
The topic of the third presentation – “Fanfic! in the Library: What can be learnt from how readers search for fics?” – by Rowan Smith was how fanfiction readers acquire the specific language (fanfiction specific language, FSL) of fanfiction (e.g. terms in the area of pairings, etc.) and whether it would be useful to use this language in library catalogs, to make searching for media easier. The first thing to note is that there are two options when searching for fanfiction: either you search for keywords (in words or as phrases) or with filters. Both describe the fanfiction in different detail and also use special vocabulary, such as OC for own character, which describes a character in the story that does not appear in the canon of the original medium but was invented by the authors. Smith’s survey suggests that more readers read fanfiction than use library catalogs. A direct comparison of the search options on fanfiction websites and library catalogs makes it clear that for many respondents it is easier to orientate themselves on a fanfiction website. The respondents would also like to see certain aspects of fanfiction platforms in library catalogs (e.g. content notes, subgenres, filtering by topic), but a general inclusion of fanfiction in library catalogs would not encourage greater use of them. Instead, there was a clear distinction among respondents between reading fanfiction (as a private pleasure) and using a library (as a public act). As Smith shows, the language of fanfiction is learned by oneself and supplemented by information from the community and friends.
In the final presentation on this panel, Ethan Milne talked about “Fanfiction: When Copyright Violation Benefits Brands”. The focus was on how brands can benefit from fan fiction as a possible copyright-infringing phenomenon. Based on the two benefits of fanfiction for brands – increasing purchase intent through fanfiction and fanfiction production rates can be used as an estimation tool for TV viewership – Milne examined how brands can grow through fanfiction. It is essential that copyright protection is waived, and fanfiction authors are supported. The assumptions were tested using three real data sets and it became clear that both assumptions cannot be verified. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how brands deal with fanfiction and what this will mean for fan products.
The second panel was about the other topic of the FanLIS symposium: building bridges between fan studies and information science. In addition to the first lecture from the cooperation between the JVMG project and the GOLEM project about the topic “Utilizing metadata from heterogeneous sources within the framework of the JVMG and GOLEM projects to identify patterns in anime-based fandoms on AO3” (see the presentation slides at the end of this blogpost), three further presentations followed, which primarily focused on the collection, processing and evaluation of fan data.
The second presentation by Billy Tringali and Vibu Logendran was titled “From Fan Blogs to Fruits Basket: Documenting the Recommended Resources of Anime Studies” and discussed the associated project. The study examined the research guides of 25 libraries to find out which resources the libraries list on Japanese entertainment media and recommend to fans who want to study anime and manga on a scholarly level. It became clear that there are few resources that are recommended by several or all libraries. These include, for example, the Mechademia publications. Moreover, most of the resources come from the Arts and Humanities research areas. Manga that are recommended in the resources usually have an anime release, so it can be concluded that anime releases can be used as an indication of a recommendation. Older releases are particularly recommended, such as “Fruits Basket”, “Cowboy Bebop”, “Fullmetal Alchemist” or older films from Studio Ghibli, such as “My Neighbor Totoro”. Tringali and Logendran’s project will conclude with the creation of a “Research Guide for Anime Studies.” The outcome of the project can be followed with interest.
Katie Wampole talked about the different data collected by fans and, in contrast, data created by researchers in her presentation: “Does this Count? Creation of Data and Information Resources in the MXTX Fandom”. Fans create different types of data in their free time. These include, for example, tables in which popularity ratings of characters are collected, sewing instructions with patterns and videos for cosplays or the mapping of locations from the fictional story to real places. These are three of the examples that Wampole listed and showed in her presentation using the example of the fandom of the author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. This fandom began with three stories on online platforms – “The Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System”, “The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” and “Heavan Official’s Blessing” – and now has various adaptations as series and manhua. It is clear from the presentation that fans spend a lot of time collecting data and making it available as open access. The data is so detailed that it can also be useful in research. How this data can be used and what it says about fans and their fan practices needs to be further researched.
In the last presentation for this FanLIS, Kimberly Kennedy talked about “Fanbinding, Preservation, and Local Archives: Un-Digitizing Trends and Media Ownership in Fandom Information Practices”. Fanbinding is when fans print out fan products online, collect them, and physically archive them. Fanbinding can be observed, for example, in fanfiction. Fans print out the fan fiction and bind it as a book so that they can always access it. The reason for fanbinding is that fans like to have the fan products physically in their hands so that they always have access to the product and fandom, because in the online area there is the possibility that fan products are not archived or can no longer be accessed. The exciting thing about this fan practice is that fans make the fan products their own property in their local archive. In doing so, they are following the trend of “un-digitizing”, where it can be observed that despite the possibilities of online media, physical media ownership is becoming increasingly important. For researchers, however, fanbinding also means that they cannot access this data as easily as they can online.
FanLIS concluded with a roundtable discussion. This was a reflection on what we take away from the fandom. The central idea was that fans do the work of librarians. They collect and prepare data, which they then make available and archive. At the same time, they are also interested in research, which becomes clear, for example, at Cons where scientific presentations are given. Researchers can benefit from this and use the data and work with the communities – as is already happening in the JVMG project. In addition to this positive development for research, the discussion also highlighted negative trends: Due to the privatization of the Internet, fandoms are becoming increasingly closed and becoming closed communities. Fan activities migrate to Discord servers and the like, to which researchers do not always have access. This development raises questions about how closed communities should be researched (e.g. how is the data generated?) and whether research can take place (ethical aspects). Ludi Price ended FanLIS with the positive outlook that there are always new research topics at the intersection between fan studies and information science and that we as researchers have an interesting field of research ahead of us.
As in the last FanLIS events, the positive atmosphere should be emphasized again here. In addition to the presentations, constructive ideas and comments emerged both in the chat and in the discussions. The tips on different fandoms should not be underestimated. Overall, this mix of presentations, academic discussions and private recommendations and comments on fandoms creates an entertaining and open atmosphere, which is also part of the appeal of the event.
A huge thank you to Ludi Price and Lyn Robinson for once again organizing such a stimulating and welcoming event, and to all the presenters and participants for providing so much exciting new intellectual stimulus for further contemplating the many intersections between fan studies, library and information science, and fan information behavior.