No shame to play: Ludic prosumption on Brazilian fanvideos.
| Autor | de Souza-Leao, Andre Luiz Maranhao |
Introduction
Technological changes have significant impact on different cultural spheres (Levy, 2007). Pop culture, which has become a significant means of disseminating and legitimizing globalization, is one of these spheres (Kizgin, Jamal, & Richard, 2018; Penaloza, 1994), whose strength is mainly ground on media product fans (Hills, 2013). Fans stand out for their significant involvement in, and affectivity toward, products consumed by them and show proactivity and organization in their practices (Jenkins, 2006; Kozinets, 2001).
According to Jenkins (1992), participatory practices are the emblematic feature of these specialized consumers. By means of "poaching" acts, they seek a variety of contents about media products consumed by them, which they appropriate to and re-signify; consequently, they become co-producers of their own consumer experience. It happens because fans feel responsible for engaging in consumption, as well as for co-creating their consumption experiences (Seregina & Weijo, 2017; Tumbat & Belk, 2013).
Based on this perspective, Souza-Leao and Costa (2018) have suggested that fans can be understood as prosumers, since they perform tasks traditionally assumed to be performed by producers, such as promoting and adapting the media products consumed by them. The concept of prosumption is based on production/consumption inseparability (Ritzer, 2014; Tofler, 1980); it has gained new relevance in Web 2.0 scope (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010), since technological appropriation and media convergence have enabled participatory cultures, in which individuals with common interests become collectively productive (Guschwan, 2012; Jenkins, 2006; Sugihartati, 2020). Based on new forms of virtual interactions, mainly on social networks, consumers take responsibility for their production by developing and distributing contents inherent to what they consume (Boulaire, Hervert, & Graf, 2010; Ritzer, Dean, & Jurgenson, 2012).
Since the 1970s, fanvideo production is one of the practices that have mostly contributed to fan culture development (Jenkins, 1992). The evolution of video production, editing and distribution techniques has enabled the consolidation of this practice. Nowadays, digital technologies, mainly the ones in Web 2.0, have given fanvideos great relevance amidst fan culture (Freund, 2016; Stein & Busse, 2009), since it strengthens the relationship between fans and media products (Jenkins, 1992). YouTube, in its turn, has become the main fanvideo distribution channel (Ziller, 2012).
Plays are one of the practices increasingly recorded and widespread through fanvideos. Plays take place as reproduction, reinterpretation and recreation of fan experiences with products they feel connected to, for pure amusement and self-expression purposes (Hetzel, 2002, Mathwick & Rigdon, 2004). Therefore, plays are a hedonic and autotelic practice that enables ludic interactions among fans, based on elements provided by the products they are based on (Holbrook, Chestnut, Oliva, & Greenleaf, 1984; Holt, 1995; Mikkonen & Bajde, 2013). It may happen when individuals get together to play with toys or to perform characters from media franchises.
Based on the argument that fans are prosumers, the present study suggests that fan plays can be called ludic prosumption. The analyzed empirical context lies on Brazilian fans who have produced and published plays on YouTube based on main franchises in the entertainment industry. The aim of the current research was to analyze how ludic prosumption is featured on plays based on successful pop culture franchises performed in Brazilian fanvideos.
The theoretical contribution of the present research lies on the fact that it interconnects different concepts to suggest that fan plays about pop culture refer to ludic prosumption. The economic and social relevance of pop culture justifies the greater attention given to the consumer research field, mainly to its culturalist side. On the other hand, understanding fans as prosumers (Souza-Leao & Costa, 2018) enables understanding the role played by them in the market productivity logic (Chen, 2011, Collins, 2010). Besides, consumption behaviors of ludic and hedonic nature, as in the case of plays, have been a fertile field of investigation for the Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) since the 1980s (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). Thus, this research aims at endorsing the discussion about how different fan practices can manifest the prosumption disseminated in Web 2.0.
The literature review presents the following key concepts: productive consumption by fans, fanvideos in participatory culture and play as ludic prosumption practice. The methodological procedures indicate how Interpretive Content Analysis (ICA) was used to analyze fanvideos produced by Brazilian fans and posted on YouTube. Results are described through categories and codes, as well as the patterns deriving from the relationships between them, which are illustrated through empirical contexts in the research corpus. The study discusses such results by taking into consideration the research problem.
The productive consumption of pop culture
Pop culture refers to a range of cultural manifestations available in different formats (e.g. movies, tv series, music, media sports) that adapt to social, technological and economic changes. It has been influenced and spread due to technological evolution and to large media conglomerates, a fact that turns it into one of the main globalization dissemination means (Kizgin, Jamal, & Richard, 2018; Penaloza, 1994). Notwithstanding, the relevance given to pop culture mainly results from the performance of its main audience-i.e. specialized consumers known as fans (Jenkins, 2006; Zajc, 2015).
Fans are different from ordinary consumers due to their commitment to products consumed by them; they collaborate with these products by taking intense, coordinated and organized actions, as well as by consolidating and legitimizing values capable of bringing them together around the consumption of media texts (Costa & Leaao, 2017; Hills, 2013). It happens through social interactions among fans (Jenkins, 2006) who show affectivity and feelings toward media products (Chavanat & Bodet, 2014). Thus, they enable a collective consumption way, which allows them to be acknowledged as a particular consumer subculture (Sandvoss, 2005) featured by its productive capacity-driven by the products consumed by them and by the cultural context they live in (Hills, 2002).
Based on the Consumer Culture Theory, the current study agrees with Souza-Leaao and Costa (2018) about the understanding that fans can be characterized as prosumers (see Chen, 2018; Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010). This concept was first introduced by Toffler (1980), who advocated that consumers cannot be seen in the passive sense of the term, because they participate in the process of producing goods and services. According to the aforementioned author, the existence of productive consumers dates back to the pre-industrial society; they have gained prominence after technological and cultural transformations that took place over the twentieth century, when consumers started to perform work functions that used to be exclusively attributed to producers.
Despite the brief repercussion of the study by Kotler (1986), the concept of prosumer was not widely adopted until it was resumed and revitalized by Ritzer (2014). The aforementioned author advocated that the production-consumption dichotomy has never existed in fact, that it was more like a concept conceived by industrialization, since all production presupposes consumption and all consumption requires productivity. He suggests that the consumption phenomenon should be understood based on the logic of a continuum between the concept of prosumption as production-relative to typically productive activities-and of prosumption as consumption-inherent to what individuals are used to call consumption. It is possible setting a series of potentially balanced prosumer activities, which tend to one or other extreme of this continuum.
Thus, what it called consumers can only be understood as consumption prosumers, since they are not just limited to consuming, but to perform tasks that were once part of the goods and services provided to them (Cova, Dalli, & Zwick, 2011).Thesetaskscanbeincorporatedto goods and services by producers as compulsory and objective activities, as defined by Tofler (1980) and endorsed by Ritzer (2014). But they can also be spontaneously and subjectively performed (Cova & Cova, 2012; Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010) in contexts that take into consideration the productive consumption of fans. The life of these prosumers presents a certain variety and complexity associated with prosumption techniques (Andrews & Ritzer, 2018).
New information and communication technologies have boosted consumption productivity, which is potentiated by interactions enabled by the web (Almeida, Mazzon, Neto, & Dholakia, 2012; Gongalves, Fonseca, Oliveira, & Tinoco, 2008), mainly due to the democratization enabled by Web 2.0 technologies (Collins, 2010; Laughey, 2010). It happens because fans acquire a collection of materials in the Internet that make it possible for them to prosume (Siuda & Troszynski, 2017). Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010) have associated the increase in spontaneous prosumption practices with this technology and called these productive consumers Web 2.0 prosumers. The digital environment is a productive place that enables a growing number of practices in which individuals produce contents in activities entailing consumption and production (Dusi, 2016). These individuals present a singular productive ability and strongly influence both the productive process and the popularity of products consumed by them. Thus, new forms of prosuming are developed in the virtual environment and, above all, through the intensive use of social media (Ritzer et al., 2012; Zajc...
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