Fanfiction, the unauthorised adaptation and re-writing of media texts, is the fastest growing form of writing in the world (Mirmohamadi 2014, p. 5). Fanfic is typically freely shared, makes no money and, though it has an analogue history, now exists primarily on the internet. Early academic interest in the subject tended to be quite utopian, seeing fandoms as a democratic and socially progressive response to increasingly homogenized and corporate media industries. Gray et al. called this the ‘Fandom is Beautiful’ phase of academia (2007, p. 1). It is generally now accepted that fanfic is neither automatically transformative of media texts,...

A great deal of previous work on fandom takes Pierre Bourdieu’s work on socio-cultural capital as its theoretical grounding. For Bourdieu, participation in culture is a matter of distinction and habitus: in demonstrating appreciation of those works to which our upbringing and social position inclines and equips us to interpret, we gain position in relation to other social agents, contrary to artistic ideologies of disinterest and self-sacrifice ([1979] 1986, [1992] 1996, 1993). For Bourdieu, even supposedly ‘pure pleasure’ is a matter of ‘playing the cultural game well, of playing on one’s skill at playing, at cultivating a pleasure which “cultivates”‘...

Two research traditions inform the methodology of this study: discourse analysis inspired by Foucault, and internet studies. This section outlines the contribution of each. I explain how I apply those Foucauldian principles of discourse as active, constructive, formative language and practices to the context of online fanfiction, informed by earlier Foucauldian studies of text and network analyses online. I note particularly a lack of methodical attention to the reception of statements in discourse, crucial to the hierarchization and regulation of fanfic, which this project addresses. Finally, I explain the ethical protocols of the project.

Discourse Analysis Foucault considered his texts...

The BBC’s modern adaptation of selected Sherlock Holmes stories has largely met with enthusiastic critical reception and great popularity. The series has sold to over 180 territories, including Canada, Australia, Sweden, India, Japan, Germany and the commercially crucial USA via the PBS syndicate network. The show received the respected Peabody award in 2011, in addition to a selection of Emmys, Baftas and other markers of cultural capital for writing, acting, direction, sound and cinematography. The fandom, meanwhile, is one of the most active and productive on Tumblr, Livejournal, A03 and Fanfiction. net. It is fair to say, then, that we...

Game of Thrones (hereafter GoT, 2011–), a quasi-mediaeval fantasy series based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOAIF, 1996-), has a significant impact on contemporary pop culture. With an average viewership of 18.4 million per episode, at the peak of its popularity, GoT claims the record for the most-watched TV show in the history of the HBO Network (Beaumont-Thomas 2014). The show and cast have received several prestigious awards, including the Peabody Award 2012, three Hugo Awards for Best Dramatic Presentation in short and long forms, and a total of ten Emmys to date....

As we have observed, cult television makes frequent use of symbolic author figures. Though TV shows are, in reality, a product of many people’s labour and dependent on a multi-level network of financial and industrial support, individuals in the horror/drama/sci-fi genre are often constructed as the primary creative force behind a program (Mittell 2012). Inherited from twentieth-century film theory, and the singular model of Romantic authorship before that, these figures help imbue the text with an aura of value (Gray 2010, pp. 99–102) and a symbolic ‘guarantee of value’ (Newman and Levine 2012, p. 1020). This is itself a rather...

This study has established that statements from fanfic do alter the discursive formations of canonical media in fundamental ways, altering governing statements. However, fanfic’s legitimation of othered properties frequently depends on the capital of the already-empowered White man, especially the author. We established this is in the first chapter, where fanfic legitimated the construction of femininity, emotion, the global East and the body via the figures of Sherlock and John, the archetypal Englishmen. This may be implicated by the problem some postcolonial critics recognize, of counternarratives as ultimately reaffirming the primacy of the canonical author’s voice through citation and reference...