Devotion to a book, movie or series can enrich your life
Dec 07, 2004
Uncategorized
Today’s Mercury News in San Jose has a set of articles about fans and fandom, and includes a discussion of the Harry Potter fandom and fansites. The main article quotes MIT’s Dr Henry Jenkins, a longtime expert on fan behaviour:
“Fandom is a community that supports grass-roots expression… [It] encourages people to grow as readers, writers, thinkers and human beings.”
There’s also an un-bylined sidebar by a teen (if anyone local can let us know if there is a byline, that would be great) who, “As they have for millions of other “Potter-Heads,” the books have reminded me that reading could be enjoyable as opposed to torturous. The number of books I purchased and read tripled from the previous year. With all this extra reading, my English grade significantly improved and I’ve received only A’s in that subject ever since (compared with the C’s I earned in the years before I read the Harry Potter books).”
And lastly, their list of top fan sites includes the Floo Network’s Harry Potter Lexicon!
Registration may be required to read some of the articles, but it’s free.
Also, last week, the Herald in Scotland ran an article about Harry Potter fanfiction, which mentions some of the same concepts and topics as the Mercury articles do, along with interviews with Harry Potter fanfic writers.