Benjamin Woo
Biographic Data
| ID | 3693125 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Benjamin Woo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Benjamin |
| FAMILY NAME | Woo |
| SIGNATURE | WOO B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Carleton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3153-6428 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
How to be a fanboy
From Comic-Con to Amazon
San Diego Comic-Con is North America's premiere fan convention and a key site for mediating between media industries and fandom. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Comic-Con to abruptly move its programming onto an array of digital platforms in an apparent "platformization" of the con. Informed by research on fan conventions, media industries, and the platformization of cultural production, this analysis of the online convention argues that Co…
Framing the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on fan conventions
Some initial findings are presented from a media monitoring project on the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on comic cons and other fan events during 2020. We analyzed a sample of 77 items from a corpus of 813 articles, identifying story lines and themes that framed this moment of upheaval and uncertainty
Is there a comic book industry
The “American comic book industry” is not American, its true product is not comic books, and it may not even be an industry. This article uses a geospatial map of comic book and graphic novel publishers active in the US market as well as sales estimates derived from both the direct market of specialty comic book retailers and trade book stores to question inherited “mental maps” of comic book publishing, such as the divide between “mainstream” an…
Theorizing comic cons
When comics fandom emerged as a distinct media-oriented community in the 1960s, one of the things it brought with it from science-fiction fandoms was the convention. Buoyed by the synergistic relationship between Hollywood and the San Diego Comic-Con and the growing prominence of ‘geek’ culture, comic conventions, comic art festivals and related media fandom events across North America have enjoyed enhanced prestige, attention and attendance over…
Cultural studies and actually existing culture
The cultural studies tradition is a big tent that is defined by academic realpolitik and feelings of affinity or disaffinity as much as anything else. This article recounts my own introduction to and professionalization within the field of cultural studies and, more particularly, how my relationship to empirical research methods changed over time. I ultimately want to argue for the importance of staying grounded in the analysis of real people’s r…
The invisible Bag of Holding
The Studies of media fandom grew out of a tradition of feminist audience studies that pushed back against the dismissal of women audiences and their tastes by male critics, especially those within the modernist tradition. Most fan research emerges out of humanistic and qualitative traditions of inquiry. It is unsurprising, then, that their accounts of who participates in fan communities are anecdotal and impressionistic. A handful of studies have…
Scene Thinking
Josep Pedro, El blues en España. Hibridación y diversidad cultural desde los orígenes al auge de la escena madrileña. Valencia: Tirant, 2021, 458 págs
Asian fail
Popular representations of Asians – and especially Asian men – often stereotype them as nerds. Drawing on qualitative field studies of Chinese Canadians' beliefs about ‘authentic’ identity and of an urban ‘nerd-culture scene,’ this article examines the perceived nerdiness of Asians. Membership Categorization Analysis is used as a framework to analyze two Chinese Canadian men's self-categorizing discourses. One embraces his nerdiness but is ambiva…
Alpha nerds
Recent studies of cultural intermediaries demonstrate that economic activity in even the most rationalized organizations and industries is thoroughly cultural. However, they may not do justice to contexts where production and mediation are embedded in communities with distinctive traditions and aesthetic standards. This article offers an ethnographically informed account of intermediaries working within one such context: namely, the organizations…
Alpha nerds
Recent studies of cultural intermediaries demonstrate that economic activity in even the most rationalized organizations and industries is thoroughly cultural. However, they may not do justice to contexts where production and mediation are embedded in communities with distinctive traditions and aesthetic standards. This article offers an ethnographically informed account of intermediaries working within one such context: namely, the organizations…
Asian fail
Popular representations of Asians – and especially Asian men – often stereotype them as nerds. Drawing on qualitative field studies of Chinese Canadians' beliefs about ‘authentic’ identity and of an urban ‘nerd-culture scene,’ this article examines the perceived nerdiness of Asians. Membership Categorization Analysis is used as a framework to analyze two Chinese Canadian men's self-categorizing discourses. One embraces his nerdiness but is ambiva…
From Comic-Con to Amazon
San Diego Comic-Con is North America's premiere fan convention and a key site for mediating between media industries and fandom. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Comic-Con to abruptly move its programming onto an array of digital platforms in an apparent "platformization" of the con. Informed by research on fan conventions, media industries, and the platformization of cultural production, this analysis of the online convention argues that Co…
Cultural studies and actually existing culture
The cultural studies tradition is a big tent that is defined by academic realpolitik and feelings of affinity or disaffinity as much as anything else. This article recounts my own introduction to and professionalization within the field of cultural studies and, more particularly, how my relationship to empirical research methods changed over time. I ultimately want to argue for the importance of staying grounded in the analysis of real people’s r…
Alpha nerds
Recent studies of cultural intermediaries demonstrate that economic activity in even the most rationalized organizations and industries is thoroughly cultural. However, they may not do justice to contexts where production and mediation are embedded in communities with distinctive traditions and aesthetic standards. This article offers an ethnographically informed account of intermediaries working within one such context: namely, the organizations…
Asian fail
Popular representations of Asians – and especially Asian men – often stereotype them as nerds. Drawing on qualitative field studies of Chinese Canadians' beliefs about ‘authentic’ identity and of an urban ‘nerd-culture scene,’ this article examines the perceived nerdiness of Asians. Membership Categorization Analysis is used as a framework to analyze two Chinese Canadian men's self-categorizing discourses. One embraces his nerdiness but is ambiva…
Scene Thinking
Josep Pedro, El blues en España. Hibridación y diversidad cultural desde los orígenes al auge de la escena madrileña. Valencia: Tirant, 2021, 458 págs
The invisible Bag of Holding
The Studies of media fandom grew out of a tradition of feminist audience studies that pushed back against the dismissal of women audiences and their tastes by male critics, especially those within the modernist tradition. Most fan research emerges out of humanistic and qualitative traditions of inquiry. It is unsurprising, then, that their accounts of who participates in fan communities are anecdotal and impressionistic. A handful of studies have…
Is there a comic book industry
The “American comic book industry” is not American, its true product is not comic books, and it may not even be an industry. This article uses a geospatial map of comic book and graphic novel publishers active in the US market as well as sales estimates derived from both the direct market of specialty comic book retailers and trade book stores to question inherited “mental maps” of comic book publishing, such as the divide between “mainstream” an…
Theorizing comic cons
When comics fandom emerged as a distinct media-oriented community in the 1960s, one of the things it brought with it from science-fiction fandoms was the convention. Buoyed by the synergistic relationship between Hollywood and the San Diego Comic-Con and the growing prominence of ‘geek’ culture, comic conventions, comic art festivals and related media fandom events across North America have enjoyed enhanced prestige, attention and attendance over…
Cultural studies and actually existing culture
The cultural studies tradition is a big tent that is defined by academic realpolitik and feelings of affinity or disaffinity as much as anything else. This article recounts my own introduction to and professionalization within the field of cultural studies and, more particularly, how my relationship to empirical research methods changed over time. I ultimately want to argue for the importance of staying grounded in the analysis of real people’s r…
Framing the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on fan conventions
Some initial findings are presented from a media monitoring project on the Covid-19 pandemic's impacts on comic cons and other fan events during 2020. We analyzed a sample of 77 items from a corpus of 813 articles, identifying story lines and themes that framed this moment of upheaval and uncertainty
From Comic-Con to Amazon
San Diego Comic-Con is North America's premiere fan convention and a key site for mediating between media industries and fandom. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Comic-Con to abruptly move its programming onto an array of digital platforms in an apparent "platformization" of the con. Informed by research on fan conventions, media industries, and the platformization of cultural production, this analysis of the online convention argues that Co…
How to be a fanboy
Sociology (9 works) · Digital Games and Media (6 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Comics (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Art (4 works) · Business (4 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)