ABSTRACT
Fandom is a rich and vibrant culture of rewriting – a formation of media spaces and audiences that come together online and off-line. In this introduction chapter, I provide a short overview of fandom and diverse fan activities. These practices have been studied in the interdisciplinary field of fan studies, also known as fandom studies. I provide a short overview of the field, its history, and state-of-the-art studies. Finally, I propose a theoretical model that can be used to study fan practices, with attention to their media relationships (their inter/transmediality), affect, characters, and worlds within the productive space of fan practices. This model is not limited to understanding fan activities, but highlights properties that are increasingly important in the analysis of any media text.
