I found the Jenkins’ article of Interactive Audiences to be very interesting this week. I related with this article because I know how much of a fan that I could be. Jenkins brings up in her the points that computers and online communities changed fandom .”Online fan discussion lists often bring together groups who functioned more or less autonomously offline and have radically different responses to the aired materials.” She also presented different views from Baym and Levy about Soaps. Baym says “fans share knowledge of the show’s history […] any soap has broadcast more material than any single fan can remember”. With this in mind discussion boards for shows can be useful to share thoughts and admiration for the show, what could be called a collective intelligence. But in part I also think about my experience with discussions boards for some of my favorite broadcasted shows such as Gossip Girl and 90210. With the development of these communities it also created ways to spoil and ruin for future episodes. I agree with the idea of having too much access being a fan can destroy the experience of being a fan. It also cuts ties with international fans being their is a time gap. Discussion boards when I first began to watch Gossip girl kind of ruined my excitement for the show because of the idea that there were people out there who were fans from the episode 1, season 1 and tried to impose that I was not a “real” fan because I was not there from the beginning. Things like this are a discouragement to continue to participate with fandom online. Online fandom and digital technologies both facilitate and obstruct interpersonal relationships.
