ECREA16-Abstract

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Saturday, November 12

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PN 311

Children as Media Users – In a Life Course Perspective

S.L. Johansen

University of Aarhus, School of Communication and Culture - The Centre for Children's Literature, Aarhus C, Denmark

Children as media users are most often examined and described as either vulnerable or active and their media use is similarly understood as either prob‑

lematic or emancipating. Either way, children and adolescents are most often framed as different from adults, and described as for instance 'digital natives'

(Prensky, 2001), 'generation touch ' etc. By approahing children's use of media in their everyday life through a lense related to life course new insights

emerge. A more relational, constructive, and constructivist, approach to media use and audience studies could add new nuances to our knowledge of media

use in everyday life (Givskov & Johansen, 2015) and put further emphasis on similarities, rather than on differences between age groups. This could be

done by applying a broader, ethnographically inspired practice perspective, drawing on theoretical concepts of mediatization to grasp both the individual

meaning making processes and the structural frameworks offered by media platforms and texts. As such, media use in a life course perspective should be

seen as continuums of concrete practices instead of as absolute phases and as related to individual practices instead of to group generalizations. In doing so,

research could take important steps away from 'othering' media users and focusing instead on common and general patterns of use. Drawing on Hepp, Hjar‑

vard & Lundby (2015) the point is to take the cultural practices and materialities into consideration - to describe both the individual artefacts and the related

practices and to grasp and understand their interrelations and connections. Recent studies on children's media practices show how children nurture their

fan cultures, identity building, learning, and play through a massive range of different media products and practices. All in all, these practices form the basis

of identity- and network-building processes in which children themselves act as both active practitioners and more passive audiences of media content,

forming a participatory, everyday media culture (Jenkins, 2006; Willett et al., 2008). In this presentation, I will draw on recent and on-going empirical

projects to nuance the discussion of children's media usage and practice, presenting a framework for children's media use, in which I attempt to overcome

traditional dichotomies (good/bad, digital/analogue) as well as essentialistic understandings of children as media users.

References: Givskov, Cecilie & Johansen, Stine Liv (2015): Young or old – discussions on age groups and media use. Extended Abstract for NordMedia 2015,

Copenhagen Hepp, A., Hjarvard, S., & Lundby, K. (2015). Mediatization: Theorizing the Interplay Between Media, Culture, and Society. Media, Culture & So‑

ciety.  Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable Media : Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture . NewYork: NewYork University Press

(NYU Press)  Prensky, Marc (2001): Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon, Vol. 9 Iss: 5, pp.1–6Willett, R., Richards, C., Marsh, J., Bishop,

J., & Burn, A. (2013). Children, media and playground cultures: Ethnographic studies of school playtimes. . London: Palgrave.

PN 312

‘The Florals’: Ageing Fans and Online Lives in the Sherlock Fandom

L. Nybro Petersen

University of Southern Denmark, Department for the Study of Culture, Odense M, Denmark

In an interview from 2014 Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor playing the lead in the popular BBC drama Sherlock (2010-) refers to two middle-aged fans

as ‘the florals’: “Oh lord, here we go, here we go.” He indicates two middle-aged women in flowery dresses sitting at a table across the room. “The florals

over there,” he says, eyes averted (quote Out Magazine). Cumberbatch’s statement became a topic of debate within the Sherlock fandom and it reflects

a prevalent public discourse: fans are understood to be screaming, hysterical teenagers and adults and older people‘should know better’.This study analyses

the online fan lives of mature and elderly fans through interviews and discussion of their online interactions on Twitter, Tumblr etc. But Sherlock Holmes

originated, over a century ago, in 1887 when Arthur Conan Doyle published his first story and the fandom have reveled in the numerous adaptions since. As

such, the Sherlock fandom has a significant representation of fans that are middle-aged or elderly. Previous studies by Harrington and Bielby (2010, 2014)

have focused on ageing in fandom in a life course perspective, but this study aims to look specifically at the role of being ‘older’ in a fan community. In this

study, I analyze email interviews with a group of 50+-year-old Sherlock fans in order to discuss the meanings that ageing have in the Sherlock fan culture

community. In particular the interviews focus on the role of ageing and old age when these fans participate on online social media. Ageing in fandom, I

argue, is both considered indecorous, but also brings authenticity and legitimacy to the fan and the fan community in different ways.