This is the last post of my vlog, and I will focus on the potential benefits and controversial issues governing amateur vs. professional productions. We will also look at the future of digital fan-film making.

Potential benefits of fan culture span across a few dimensions, from cultural benefits to economic benefits. Culturally, fan participation encourages grassroots culture, enabling people to take part in expanding a narrative universe, and perhaps to also give the original authors an impression of what appeals to the masses. Through fan film making, writing fan fiction etc, media industries are able to localise the interests of the public and perhaps develop a narrative universe catered to public interests.

Hi guys!! This is my second video post. I'm sorry for the late post!! And thanks for watching.

Synopsis:
This episode brings to us the doujinshi phenomenon in Japan. Members of the Japanese Student Society JAPSSOC and the Anime Club in UWA explains to us what doujinshi is and tells us why doujinshi is good, although many of us might think that writing fan fiction is a complete waste of time and energy. We will also look at some spoof movies inspired by Star Wars and The Matrix. Producers make use of cultural phenomenon such as these to convey messages to the public, and at the same time motivating people to create change.

Holidays and travel have long been associated with time away from your life back home-an alternate universe where real life stops and new adventures begin. People are often braver and more willing to try new things because even if they fail or make fools of themselves it is amongst strangers, not people who know them.

Before the advancements in technology that we have today, it was safe to assume that what happened overseas, stayed overseas. Not anymore. These days this would be considered a risky assumption as with the World Wide Web and all its resources, nothing is secret anymore. Holiday snaps and embarrassing videos can be now uploaded onto the internet for all to see at any point of the journey, by anyone.

Some of the footage shown in the second episode of this Vlogovists series certainly falls in line with Tom Coates notion of “the mass-amateurization of everything”. 1 However, despite their amateurish appearance, video blogs are arguably a valuable means of social commentary and political activism.

Sam Howard-Spink’s in his article “Grey Tuesday, online cultural activism and the mash-up of music and politics” argues favourably for this kind of grassroots activism:

the emergence of digital technologies and networks that made bedroom mash–ups and their distribution possible has paved the way for a blending of cultural activity and political activism, which is symbolised by Grey Tuesday and expanded by groups such as Music For America. 2

Last week’s video blog ended with Christina coining the term “malleable memory”. She meant it in response to the idea that distributing a narrative across a digital network – one that is always upgradeable should it ever run out of memory – seems to render the narrative not in a kind of suspended animation but in a mode of perpetual flux. I argue here that “malleable memory” is in truth a symptom of the reader’s (the user’s) plane of experience. The concept that the coherency of the narrative is lost when you transpose it into a different format is one with its roots in the science and experience of reading. To wit, it is worth exploring Henry Jenkins’ (2003) idea of Transmedia Storytelling for its analogous and fundamental question; is ‘control over the narrative an enhancement of the creative process or a distraction or corruption?’

The Impact of Technology – Mobile Phones

The mobile phone originated from the invention created by Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone. It is a wireless, portable device used for mobile communication. In the early development of the mobile phone, only voice transmission was available, like a normal land line telephone. However, mobile phones today have many other additional functions such as short message service that is text only (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) to send and receive images and video clips.

The positive side of this technological device is that it creates a closer social network and accessibility around the world. Distance is no longer a factor when calling a loved one overseas via a mobile phone and communication is instantaneous. Sending images, which were taken with the in-built camera functions of the phone via MMS, can be done in real time. Impromptu outings are possible, by simply calling interested parties on the go.

The previous text post talked about doujinshi in Japan and the debates that Star Wars brought about. This week’s text post will discuss how the internet fan culture has influenced mainstream media, and how it brought about private uses of cyberspace, paying attention to fan erotica. Lastly, we will explore the issues brought about by fan participation in the game industry.

To begin with, let us look at some of the advantages that fan culture might bring us.

“What I love about fandom is the freedom we have allowed ourselves to create and recreate our characters over and over again. Fan fic rarely sits still. It's like a living, evolving thing, taking on its own life, one story building on another, each writer's reality bouncing off another's and maybe even melding together to form a whole new creation.... I find that fandom can be extremely creative because we have the ability to keep changing our characters and giving them a new life over and over. We can kill and resurrect them as often as we like. We can change their personalities and how they react to situations. We can take a character and make him charming and sweet or cold-blooded and cruel. We can give them an infinite, always-changing life rather than the single life of their original creation.”