The Role Of The Internet In Fan Fiction

With the emergence of new media such as the Internet, fans are given a new space to express their admiration and love for different media texts and personalities. Also, through the Internet, fans are given the chance to interact with other people with the same interests and share works which prove their admiration to a certain kind of media text. Different fan works, such as fan arts, fan-made merchandise, fan fictions, and a whole lot more spread easily and quickly within the Internet and reach a large number of people from around the world. The importance of the role of the Internet in this phenomenon is evident: it has become a space which showcases different kinds of fan activities and interactions.

This study will focus on one specific

As of now, there are still no official records as to when the first fan fiction was created. According to Laura Miller in her article in the New York Magazine, fan fictions emerged from Star Trek fan magazines or fanzines. However, there were recent findings about the few documented fan fictions from the 19th century. One example is the unauthorized sequel of the first part of Miguel Cervantes' book, Don Quixote, written by an author with the pen name Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda (which is considered as the first fanfic pseudonym), even it before it was officially released. It was in the year 1939 when the term fan fiction first used by the sci-fi community to distinguish amateur sci-fi fiction from professional fiction or ‘pro-fiction’. Later on, in 1944, John ‘Jack’ Bristo Speer, the first noted fan historian, edited a fandom encyclopedia where he used the term fan fiction to formally refer to stories published in ordinary fan magazines or fanzines. With the emergence of new media, different fan activities soon shifted to the Internet (Reich, July

The female characters in most of the fan fictions are given similar qualities; women were mostly portrayed as damsels in distress, as characters who needs saving by ‘knights in shining armors’ and depicted as kind and innocent. This kind of portrayal raises questions as to why female characters are presented in this manner in these kinds of media texts. Christine Handley and Catherine Coker, (as cited in Fan Culture: Theory/Practice 2014, 7), both agreed that the portrayals of female characters in media texts are problematic.

Media, as a powerful tool, has often depicted women as sex objects, passive, dependent, thin, young, often incompetent and dumb, focusing on improving their appearances and taking care of homes and other people (Wood 1994, 33). This powerful tool was able to create a stereotypical image of women which are then acquired by people who consume these kinds of