Choose Your Topic

Each of you will be responsible for assigning questions or problems to solve for an upcoming topic on our schedule. Look at our schedule on the calendar on Blackboard and choose the topic you'd like to be responsible for. Your post here must be up *prior* to class time that day and deal with the topic in some broad sense. You may want to connect it to our reading for that day as well as link it to previous discussions we have had.

Select your day (and a second choice as well) and post it in the comments here, no later than Friday at noon. Check the comments before adding your own. The sooner you post, the greater the likelihood of getting the day and topic you would prefer. All dates after spring break are available. Once you've all posted, I will add your names to the calender so you have an extra reminder.

Transmedia Storytelling

Post your transmedia story developments here: be sure to include all elements particularly the images and links that explain the connections you are making.

Don't forget to list both your names!

Elements must include:

• Image
• Story
• Facebook Page
• Blog

Elements may include (use at least two)

• Twitter
• Game
• Film
• TV show
• Comics
• Music
• Books

Jenkins Ch 2: Buying into American Idol

Jenkins argues in this chapter that asynchronous participation (i.e. not in real time) has affected both fan communities and the corporations who try to woo them. Fans can go back and review material they once saw only in real time; they can also confer and debate meaning about products or shows. He writes:

Even if you believe that fan and brand communities lack the clout to significantly alter corporate behavior, you still need to understand the way participation works within this new affective economy so that you can direct criticisms at the actual mechanisms by which Madison Avenue seeks to reshape our hearts and minds.

Find examples of fan communities (think of Blakley's "taste communities") affecting corporate behavior or attempts by corporations to woo those fan communities. Are there other examples like American Idol? Were they effective? How so? Do people feel more loyalty when they feel that they have an input?

Post by the end of the day Friday.