Sunday, September 20, 2009
Journal Analysis
Fanzines are important to the communication of information from fan to fan. OK, so you are asking, what is a fanzine? Fanzines are a form of publication that is moderated and published by fans to the fans. Sports Illustrated is not considered a fanzine because it is not moderated by the fans. Cogen (2007) described the fanzine as more personal than a magazine article and more opinionated than a newspaper article. Since the inception of fanzines, webzines have spawned. Webzines are communcation tools like chat boards and discussion forums that allow fans to "sound off" about certain aspects of their favorite team or game. Any sports fan has debated the third down play that the coach called in or whether the base runner was safe or out. The attraction of sports and the passion that the fans have for it was the catalyst for fanzines. The popularity of fanzines could be directly related to the popularity of radio call in shows, webzines, and quite possibly sports bars. If BW3 didn't play the games, would they be as popular today? Fanzines were a product of popular culture and today are not as popular because of technological advances; regardless, fanzines were the pioneer of today's fan communcation and how a fan watches the game.
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I forgot to add the References.
ReplyDeleteCogen, B. (2007. Volume 40, Number 5). Was he safe or was he out? The Journal of Popular
Culture , 808-829.
J.J. ~ You picked a very eccentric article! I was not aware of the existence of zines, punk, sports or otherwise before reading Cogan’s article. And I had never heard about the apparent connection between baseball and punk rock before either. I find it fascinating that America’s favorite pastime, with its rules and decorum, and relatively slow pace (compared to other sports like basketball) is enjoyed by so many members of the punk rock community as the author would make us believe. I guess my stereotypes of baseball fanatics and punk rock fanatics collide in that world! However, I do find it very interesting that zines are utilized by a devoted subset of a society to interact with other members in an “authentic” discourse without the intrusion of the record companies (in the case of punk) or big business (in baseball). I see that as a way for the fans to get back to the roots of the particular diversion. I think what Cogan was implicitly trying to say in his article was that any one area of pop culture does not live in a vacuum isolated from other aspects. They are all intertwined without any distinct lines of separation. But as you move father out into the universe (of pop culture), the authenticity becomes watered down to appeal to more and more people. It was a very interesting article and one that you could spend days dissecting and thinking about. I did find it a little hard to read though and at times just had to put it down and take a break before reading on because it was very deep and not a quick light hearted read. Thanks for sharing with us!
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