Information communities are “united by a common interest in creating and increasing access to a set of dynamic, linked, and varying information resources” (Durrance & Fisher, 2003). These communities can arise from concerted efforts to disseminate information that will serve the public good or they can emerge more organically when an ongoing conversation on a specific topic gathers more participants. Regardless of one’s motivation for participating in an information community, the behaviors within and the benefits of a given community are similar by virtue of the community’s structure. When I learned that INFO 200 would include completion of a research project on a specific information community, I immediately had a sense of the kind of community I wanted to explore and that sense only grew stronger through reading Durrance and Fisher’s characterization of what an information community entails.
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight was published in 2005 and almost overnight inspired an extremely devoted legion of fans. Because of the book’s success, movie rights were secured and in February of 2008, production began on the film, Twilight. Actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson starred as the lead romantic couple, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. Much has been written about The Twilight Saga with regard to problematic depictions of gender, agency, and romance. Those concerns are legitimate and fair and in my opinion, disconnected from the experience of being a fan as I believe that it’s possible to like something and be critical of or reject certain facets of that thing simultaneously. As such, within the behemoth of a fandom born out of 4 novels and 5 feature films, many sub-communities emerged online devoted to one particular aspect of the all-inclusive Twilight universe under the umbrella of said universe. For the purposes of my analysis, I’m going to focus on the “Robsten “ fandom as a subset of the Twilight fandom. “Robsten” was the portmanteau generated through the combination of the names Robert and Kristen and the Robsten fandom was an information community comprised of thousands of internet-users around the world who celebrated and sought information about the romantic relationship between actors Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. I will limit my focus from the period of February 2008 (when the first film commenced shooting) to May 2013 when media reported that the actors had ended their relationship.
Within the Twilight community, I find the exploration of the Robsten fandom especially interesting because it was a community organized around a premise that was never explicitly objective and yet, the fandom was extensive, devoted, international and hyperactive for a consistent duration of time. I believe this perceived ambiguity around the fandom’s premise will have an interesting and significant impact on how and what kind of information was sought and received, how it was shared, and how it was commodified within the community. Information was shared through at least one of three channels which I will explore and elucidate including:
- Official or commercial celebrity gossip spaces eg; eonline.com, Lainey Gossip, Pop Sugar, Gossip Cop, etc.
- Designated spaces for various fandoms to interact in which Robsten communities were formed eg; live journal, ezboards, yuku, and vbulletin message boards, fanfiction.net
- Original fan sites and social media accounts that were created to receive, provide, and share information about Robsten eg; kstewartnews.com, robertpattinson.blogspot.com, ksitbu.com, musingsonother.com, robstenlove.com, robstendreams.com, etc. as well as Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube accounts devoted to the pairing
Within this analysis, I will also consider specifically how the Robsten fandom reflects Durrance and Fisher’s characteristics of an information community including that the fandom originated around a common interest and exchange of distributed information, it was inclusive of multiple focal points, it emerged and functioned without geographical boundaries, and it exploited the Internet and technology (Durrance & Fisher, 2003). I will also look at some of the ways in which this fandom resisted Durrance and Fisher’s criteria particularly with regard to questions of access and availability of information as I think those questions had a significant influence on the community dynamic but didn’t inhibit its existence as an information community. I intend to explore the community’s own spaces for sharing information within the framework of academic research on online fandoms, social media, and Twilight specifically as well as Nick Carr’s The Shallows and the readings on information communities from class to generate a comprehensive exegesis on how this information community functioned as such and how it fits into the larger discussion on the significance of information communities.
Reference:
Fisher, K., & Durrance, J. (2003). Information communities. In K. Christensen, & D. Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of community: From the village to the virtual world. (pp. 658-661). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc
[Originally published on 02/16/17 @ SJSU iSchool blog, Heteroglossia]
Emily Moss - Electronic Portfolio 