Fan Culture

From "Fan Culture, the Internet and the British Influence in Popular Music Studies" by Gary Burns

Overall I'm not sure that this article is the most helpful for my purposes. Yet it does help in the discussion on whether Disney is a serious topic for academic study. There are a few quotes that will be useful in the website.

*" the popular culture movement, which analyzed all forms of popular products of the entertainment industries, and did so without any a priori assumption that such products are inferior or that the creators or consumers of such works are dolt." (201)This passage seems like an excellent definition of popular culture

*"The writers of articles in Rolling Stone have always been primarily journalists, whereas the scribes of Record Collector also have some claim to be called researchers. They go back and read old periodicals (including Rolling Stone) and books. They use archives (and become archivists themselves). ... Their work tends to be definitive historical research--often on a microscopic subject, but all the more definitive for that." (202)
Difference in reporting popular culture and analyzing it

*"The Internet now provides easy access to facts that were impossible to obtain only a few years ago." (203)

*"Web sites are this carrying on some of the important traditions established by fanzines collectors, discographers, and pedantic amateur reseachers." (205)
Both quotes help to examine that relationship between the Internet and the recording industry. These ideas can be easily be applied to the role of the Internet in the growing Disney culture.