In today’s lecture we got to touch on audience a little, which was good for me and my PB4 group because that’s the topic assigned to us. It was toward the end of the lecture, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it, but what Brian did say was quite useful. First off, we talked about what audiences are – active audiences being participants of media consumption, from fans and fandoms to ‘mass’ audience (though Brian assures us that term is a little outdated now).

I think the element of that demographic that stuck out for me the most was fans and fandoms – which I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider myself a fan of at least one Media platform (I am a teenage girl after all).

Fandoms interest me a lot, when I consider them from the outside rather than as just a subjective participant in one. There’s a lot of elements of fandoms that are like a sub-culture – a group of people with one common interest, who band together to create something unique and special to them. Fandoms host hoards of talent – from writers (fan-fictions) to artists (fan-art). Fandoms grow and develop together, from the very beginning of something – say a show pilot – to the very end. Some fandoms go on for years after something has become dormant, this is most true in the Harry Potter fandom, which continues to be a major online platform for millions of different people around the world.

Fandomania (puns, puns, puns!) is something that has struck probably everybody my age – you’d have to be truly embarrassed to say you don’t belong to a fandom. Because really, fandoms are everywhere – think about the 60’s and the Beatles – that was its own fandom minus the internet component. There are different levels of intensity of course, like, my mum watches Escape to the Country but that doesn’t mean she goes on her laptop to an online community to discuss the latest cottage shown on the show. No, the very depths of fandoms tend to be reserved for content aimed at teenagers and young adults – things like bands, One direction for example, and movie series’ like Marvel and DC.

I think Fandom culture is something very new and should be explored, especially in relation to media producers and audiences in this day and age.