Fandom as symbolic patronage: expanding understanding of fan relationships with industry through the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign

ABSTRACT

Conversations surrounding relationships between media fans and media industries frequently categorize fans according to their degree of industrial incorporation or resistance, for instance, as either “affirmational” fans who uncritically celebrate media on industrial terms or “transformational” fans who engage in critical and non-sanctioned forms of participation. Drawing on interviews with participants in the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign, this article connects rhetoric used by these fans to longstanding issues around patronage in fine arts, arguing these historical discourses provide a way to deepen our understanding of how fan audiences relate to media industry interests. The complex, asymmetrical relations that exist between patrons and artists they sponsor offer a valuable model for a type of fandom experience that does not fit neatly into the existing typology.

KEYWORDS:

• Fandom
• media production
• crowdfunding
• patronage
• participatory culture

Notes

¹ Participants were recruited through postings on the Kickstarter campaign website, Tumblr, and the two largest Facebook fan pages related to the Veronica Mars. I interviewed all respondents who were willing to participate in two interviews, were over 18, and had donated to the campaign. This coincidentally created a participant group entirely composed of self-identified women, which may have had some bearing on the themes that emerged; while several men responded to the call for participants, all were disqualified on one of these grounds. Beyond gender, my informants were a diverse group, ranging in age from early 20s to late 50s, coming from three countries and a wide variety of racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, family, career, religious, and political backgrounds. During the first interview, I sought information on my informants’ long-term relationships with Veronica Mars as a fan text and their experiences of participation in the Kickstarter campaign during the production and promotion process. In the second interview, I tried to elicit their response to the recently released film and their retrospective reflections on their participation in the process. Following transcription, I used a grounded theory approach to code the interview data for common themes.