Open Access20 år med Tolkien: Forandrede fællesskaber på nettet [20 years with Tolkien: Transformed online communities]
Author(s) -
Stine Gotved
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
mediekultur
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1901-9726
pISSN - 0900-9671
DOI - 10.7146/mediekultur.v33i63.24357
Subject(s) - mainstream , anonymity , the arts , the internet , asynchronous communication , sociology , internet privacy , media studies , genealogy , world wide web , art , history , computer science , political science , visual arts , telecommunications , law
In the last 20 years, online communities have changed profoundly. The development from well-defi ned entities into distributed networks is described through the lens of three case studies (1996, 2006, and 2016) of the same newsgroup (rec.arts.books.tolkien). In between these investigations, the more general changes are described – internet access is far more widespread, and the communication has moved from nerdy exchanges to mundane and mainstream. Today, the social media platforms are dominant, and while the studied fan culture on Facebook is represented primarily by commercial interests, the dedicated fan communities are found elsewhere, in fora still text based, asynchronous and with relative anonymity.