Digital Fandom ─ New Media Studies

This book re-evaluates the way we examine today’s digital media environment. By looking at how popular culture uses different digital technologies, Digital Fandom bolsters contemporary media theory by introducing new methods of analysis. Using the exemplars of alternate reality gaming and fan studies, this book takes into account a particular «philosophy of playfulness» in today’s media in order to establish a «new media studies».
Digital Fandom augments traditional studies of popular media fandom with descriptions of the contemporary fan in a converged media environment. The book shows how changes in the study of fandom can be applied in a larger scale to the study of new media in general, and formulates new conceptions of traditional media theories.

Paul Booth is an assistant professor in communication at DePaul University. He studies the confluence of traditional and digital media, narrative, popular culture, television and film. He has published articles in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Journal of Narrative Theory, and Narrative Inquiry.