Category: News of Note

Every month in OTW Signal we’ll take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including legal, technology, academic, fannish history, and preservation issues that are important for fandom, fan culture or transformative works.

Many fans are familiar with the OTW project Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC), which released the first of its 36 issues 13 years ago on September 15, 2008. TWC is an international, peer-reviewed journal which publishes academic articles about transformative works, media studies, and fan communities. Their issues have included studies about fanfiction, fan videos, film, TV, anime, comic books, fandom groups, video games, and machinima.

But the OTW itself has sometimes been the focus of academic work. Many of these have focused on AO3, either studying fandom while analyzing its content or looking at what its structure and function says about fandom and technology.

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Every month in OTW Signal we’ll take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including legal, technology, academic, fannish history, and preservation issues that are important for fandom, fan culture or transformative works.

An article about teens running fan pages — for TV shows made before they were born — tried to answer why these shows continued to be so popular to a new generation. It pointed out some differences in where fans gather.

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Every month in OTW Signal we’ll take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including legal, technology, academic, fannish history, and preservation issues that are important for fandom, fan culture or transformative works.

A few months ago, OTW Legal Staffer Casey Fiesler wrote an article: Gift Logic: Labors of love flourish online under fandom’s social norms. In it she discussed the “pull to publish” practice and explored the history that led to the OTW’s founding, and how volunteers learned to create the spaces they needed.

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