Making European cult cinema: fan production in an alternative economy

Carter, Oliver (2013) Making European cult cinema: fan production in an alternative economy. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.

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Abstract

This study gives attention to the fan production surrounding European cult cinema, low budget exploitation films often in the horror genre, that engage a high level of cultural commitment and investment from its fans. It addresses wider issues of debate relating to why people are fans and whether they are anything more than obsessive in their consumption of media. The academic study of fandom is relatively a new area, the formative year being 1992 when studies such as Henry Jenkins’ Textual Poachers, Lisa Lewis’ The Adoring Audience and Camille Bacon-Smith’s Enterprising Women approached fandom as a cultural activity. Studies such as these celebrate fandom and focus on fan production as a symbolic activity rather than an economic activity. Academics have only recently have academics recognised the commitment, time and effort that fans invest when producing artefacts.

I explore the ways European cult cinema fandom might be understood as an alternative economy of fan production by looking at how fans produce artefacts and commodities. It uses a method of data collection, which includes ethnographic observation and interviews, focused on public offline and online fan activities, and my own personal experiences as autoethnography. The collected data is interrogated using a theoretical framework that incorporates ideas from cultural studies and political economy: using the concept of an ‘alternative economy’ of European cult cinema fan production. The purpose being to interpret an object of fandom as a production of meaning, physical artefacts and commodities, therefore understanding fandom as both cultural and economic production.

I argue that, in this alternative economy, fans are ‘creative’ workers, using digital technologies to produce artefacts that are exchanged as gifts or commodities; this practice relating to repertoires of professionalism. I find that fans are not just producing artefacts and commodities relating to European cult cinema, but that through these processes they are culturally and economically making what has become known as European cult cinema.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Dates:
DateEvent
August 2013Completed
Subjects: CAH24 - media, journalism and communications > CAH24-01 - media, journalism and communications > CAH24-01-05 - media studies
CAH25 - design, and creative and performing arts > CAH25-01 - creative arts and design > CAH25-01-04 - cinematics and photography
Divisions: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > Birmingham Institute of Media and English > Birmingham School of Media
Doctoral Research College > Doctoral Theses Collection
Depositing User: Richard Birley
Date Deposited: 18 Jul 2017 14:19
Last Modified: 12 Jan 2022 16:57
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4887

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