Samantha Jones | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Samantha Jones
Title: Fandom Contextualized: Fan Culture, Consumerism, and Community
Major: History
Advisor: Jeff Roche

In this paper I determine that culturally significant fandoms are created when fans and media producers harness technological innovations effectively to develop their means of communication and means of community. I perform an analysis on historical context of culturally significant fandoms, mainly Star Trek and 90s boy bands, to reveal the impact of social, cultural, and technological factors on the fandom’s development over time. Each chapter in this paper focuses on establishing the historical context of the chosen fandom through both primary and secondary sources specific to the topic. I prioritized primary sources produced by fans, the media consumers, or by the media producers. These first-hand accounts by fans are needed to really understand the sense of community that the fans created through new technology and media. I wanted to get a glimpse at how these groups interacted in the moment to understand how and why fans formed and expressed their identities. I utilize old online forum posts where fans communicated in earnest, as well as fan produced content for other fans like fanzines. I conclude that establishing a historical context of the development of a fandom can lead to a greater understanding of economic, social, and technological factors that led or hindered the success of the fandom in the first place. Popular culture is inherently part of the lived experiences of individuals, and historians looking to get a deeper understanding of the cultural history of periods should certainly be looking at fandom and fan expression.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.