363 research outputs found

    Preferred Level of Weird: A Librarian\u27s Guide to Fanfiction

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    This instruction guide aims to provide librarians with an understanding the basics of fanfiction including a glossary of terms, an introduction to the information seeking behaviours of fanfiction readers, and some search tips on a popular general fanfiction archive for helping both librarian and patron find the reading experience they are looking for

    To my betas, endless chocolate frogs! : exploring the intersections of emotion, the body, and literacy in online fanfiction.

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    This project examines the complex intersections of identity, including gender, sexuality, and social class, in the literacy practices of online fanfiction. Previous scholarship has focused solely on the gender and/or pedagogical implications of fanfiction communities, and my project engages and extends these conversations by analyzing how fanfiction practices provide a distinctive space to explore how we understand identity, digital technologies, and fannish participation. I conducted textual analysis of stories, authors\u27 notes, how-to guides, and questionnaires and interviews. A close inspection of fanfiction practices provide insight into how digital technologies and literacy practices interact within exchange economies. My dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 include a review of the literature as well as a theoretical approach to the project and its methods. Chapters 3 and 4 address the functions of online fanfiction by looking at fan websites, fan stories, and how-to fan documents, as well as questionnaires and interviews. Finally, Chapter 5 develops a theory of online fanfiction literacy practices, and the ways in which these practices are shaped by power structures, identity construction, community norms, and material circumstances. I focus, in particular, on developing a theory of emotion in terms of literacy practices—what I come to call “emotioned literacy” (borrowing from Micciche).The investigation of online fanfiction spaces is especially valuable for rhetoric and composition because it highlights how writing is a deeply embodied and emotional, life-long (learning) process. In addition, this project highlights the importance of a network of dedicated participants with knowledge(s) in different areas. Finally, this project highlights the importance of paying closer attention to the ethics of our online research methodologies

    Youth and Digital Media: From Credibility to Information Quality

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    Building upon a process-and context-oriented information quality framework, this paper seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities. A review of selected literature at the intersection of digital media, youth, and information quality -- primarily works from library and information science, sociology, education, and selected ethnographic studies -- reveals patterns in youth's information-seeking behavior, but also highlights the importance of contextual and demographic factors both for search and evaluation. Looking at the phenomenon from an information-learning and educational perspective, the literature shows that youth develop competencies for personal goals that sometimes do not transfer to school, and are sometimes not appropriate for school. Thus far, educational initiatives to educate youth about search, evaluation, or creation have depended greatly on the local circumstances for their success or failure

    The informational “cosplay journey” of Star Wars cosplayers in the context of a Facebook group

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    INTRODUCTION. Research on personal information practices has increased in recent decades. Building on this current of thought, the present study explores information practices in the context of serious leisure, looking specifically at the Rey Cosplay Community Facebook group, an online community of Star Wars cosplayers. The work discusses how these fans seek, organize, and share relevant information during the process of making costumes. METHOD. This study used participant observation and semi-structured interviews to investigate information behaviours, including information seeking, organization, use, and sharing, of seventeen members in the Rey Cosplay Community with a purposive sampling strategy. ANALYSIS. The researchers transcribed and jointly coded the collected data with an open coding scheme to identify themes that emerged from the data. RESULTS. The cosplayers used a myriad of tools to seek, organize, and share information about costume making. Participants identified that their information practices had evolved over time, and they shared sophisticated strategies for sharing work-in-progress photos and updates as well as methods for organizing information for later use. CONCLUSION. There are a variety of information practices used when making a costume. Participants often seek and acquire relevant information on online platforms and use a combination of traditional physical tools and modern electronic tools to organize information. They also display a rich culture of sharing information when responding to other fans’ information needs. The overall structure that these information practices take can be neatly articulated as a sort of informational “cosplay journey”

    Searching for Balance: The Reading Choices, Experiences, and Habits of Women in Higher Education Leadership Roles

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    Women in higher education leadership roles face complicated challenges in their professional roles, and struggle to maintain work-life balance, yet they make time to read for professional development and for pleasure. Utilizing grounded theory methodology, focus group methods, and grounded theory coding, this study examines the reading choices and habits of women in higher education leadership roles, delving into how they balance their reading between material tied to their professional interests and leisure reading material, and to what extent reading for pleasure contributes to their work-life balance. The study explores what reading materials women academic leaders consume, and where they acquire reading recommendations. The study also examines whether women had an early love of reading and when that began, and follows their reading choices and habits through K-12, college, graduate school, and their present lives. In addition, the study explores how reading has impacted women throughout their personal and professional lives, and how it has contributed to their current higher education leadership roles. Suggestions will be made regarding changes that can be implemented in curricula to better support and prepare young women to attain leadership positions and lead balanced lives once in these roles

    Clubwomen and Time: An Examination of Temporality in American and British Women’s Literary Clubs

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    This thesis connects women’s literary clubs in America and Britain from 1850 to 1900. It specifically looks at Shakespeare Clubs and Robert Browning Clubs in America, and The Pioneer Club, named for Walt Whitman’s poem, in Britain. The thesis looks at articles, club documents and journal reports printed by and about the clubs, to demonstrate a common theme between them. It further examines original writing left behind by the Shakespeare Clubs as examples of fanfiction. The thesis posits that these clubs represent a separate sphere of women’s time, forming spaces of temporal reclamation. All three club movements existed in a period when women’s time was meant to be spent on prescribed activities, centred around home and family. Woman’s designated sphere was the domestic space of home, in a society built on the ideology of separate spheres. This thesis suggests that the clubs, which were generally home-based and built around and within woman’s existing sphere, were spaces where women reclaimed some of the temporal autonomy denied to them in society. While critics have explored the idea of women having a different experience of time, there has not been a study which views these literary clubs as a separate experience of women’s time. The thesis will use evidence from primary and secondary sources to demonstrate that the clubwomen viewed their activities as separate from, and time intentionally claimed from, prescribed temporal pursuits. This was time claimed purely for leisure and self-serving, which was not an accepted or prescribed way for a woman with or without family responsibilities to spend her time. This thesis will claim that women used their clubs as spaces for exercising temporal autonomy

    Befriending through online gaming

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