Fanfiction and the author

Through a rigorous quantitative/qualitative discourse analysis - never before undertaken in relation to online fanfiction and its reception - Fanfiction and the Author demonstrates how fanfic relating to Sherlock, Game of Thrones and Supernatural works to change and consolidate the discourses of masculinity, authority, and authorship created through these TV texts. As a result, this book innovatively explores how fanfic - the unauthorized creative (re)writing of media fans - alters the discursive formations of popular culture. This, the first large-scale study of fanfic to employ an approach attentive to the sites, receptions, and fan rejections of fanfic, demonstrates that fanfic often legitimates itself through traditional notions of authorship. However, in its explicit discussion and deconstruction of the author figure, fan culture is also beginning to contest those traditional discourses of authority upon which it has depended, paving the way for new kinds of writing that challenge the authority of media professionals.

AUP S17 catalogue text

The production, reception and discussion of fanfiction is a major aspect of contemporary global media. Thus far, however, the genre has been subject to relatively little rigorous qualitative or quantitative study-a problem that Judith M. Fathallah remedies here through close analysis of fanfiction related to Sherlock, Supernatural, and Game of Thrones. Her large-scale study of the sites, reception, and fan rejections of fanfic demonstrate how the genre works to legitimate itself through traditional notions of authorship, even as it deconstructs the author figure and contests traditional discourses of authority. Through a process she identifies as the 'legitimation paradox', Fathallah demonstrates how fanfic hooks into and modifies the discourse of authority, and so opens new spaces for writing that challenges the authority of media professionals.