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Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. Henry Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 1992.
In Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins examines the underground world of media fandom, people who create fiction, artwork, and other forms of expression based on television shows. Drawing on a rich theoretical background with sources ranging from feminist literary criticism to cultural anthropology, Jenkins applies and adapts Michel de Certeau's model of "poaching," in which an audience appropriates a text for itself. Taking a stand against the stereotypical portrayal of fans as obsessive nerds who are out of touch with reality, he demonstrates that fans are pro-active constructors of an alternative culture using elements "poached" and reworked from the popular media.
Jenkins addresses a number of fannish phenomena, including fan fiction and fan-produced music videos. He offers the most plausible academic explanation yet for the popularity...