Bridging Design and Fandom: Fan Studies and Design Research in Conversation

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online.

Fandom studies and design are both relatively young disciplines both of which are familiar with interdisciplinarity, and with co-production and participation. Using contexts such as technology, sustainability and urban space, Bridging Design and Fandom brings together Fan Studies and Design Research to explore the many ways these two fields overlap.

Divided into thematic sections, this edited collection focuses on pressing current challenge areas that both fan studies and design can speak to including affordances and platforms, digital fan design, entrepreneurship and consumerism, sustainability, and tourism and urban space. Showcasing the power of interdisciplinary collaboration and how these fields can fruitfully interconnect to create new knowledge and outcomes, contributors with expertise from a wide range of inter and multidisciplinary backgrounds consider both new technologies and traditional practices, giving a holistic overview of how tangible physical practice and intangible digital contexts, theories and infrastructures can both form a part of design in this space of fan research. The collection explores design challenges such as how platform infrastructure underpins much of the modern media landscape in which fans operate, and emerging areas for fan studies such as considering the environmental impacts and sustainability of fan activities, which intersect with major areas of current design research focus.

Readers of this book may come from design research backgrounds, fan studies backgrounds or range of related social science disciplines such as sociology and media and communications. It is unique new reference point as an introduction to new methods and approaches and an opening to new areas for exploration and research with the power of interdisciplinary endeavour at its core.

Naomi Jacobs is Lecturer in Design Policy and Futures Thinking at Lancaster University, UK.