"All the Feels!": Music, Affect and Critique in Fanvids
"In my PhD I explore how vidders, the fans who make vids, use music as a narrative and affective device. Using a mixed methods approach, I analyse vids and examine how music contributes to how vids communicate a message. I have focused on nine vids, divided into three chapters with vids which fall into three themes of critical engagement with media."
"These three themes are: 1) Colonialist narratives, militainment and the use of folk music – 2) Race, representation in media and the sound of racialisation – 3) Vids as exploration of the fan experience and fan feels. Theoretically, my work builds on three strands of theory; musicology (particularly film music), fan studies, and affect. I use the three strands to look at what vids do and how they do it, as well as how they are received in praxis within – and at times outside of – their intended fandom audiences. Here, the way in which music evokes feelings is central, as is the ways vidders use the music as a scaffold for the vidding process. Alongside textual analysis of vids, I have used ethnographic methods in my work, both to interview vidders, the makers of the vids I analyse, in order to better understand their process and the considerations that go into making a vid which is attempting to communicate a specific and complex message, and employed online ethnography to research the reception of the vids. Through the above, I aim to add to the field of fan studies and audiovisual music alike by integrating the analysis of music into the study of vids, thus nuancing the analysis of vids.
"From a musicological perspective, I am aiding in a widening of the scope of audiovisual music analysis by adding vids - as an art form distinct from music video, commercials and video art (to name a few) - to the spectrum of media we study. My work will show how vidders use music and moving images to create an affective response, which we can term feels, in order to critically reflect and comment on fandom and society."
Publications
2019: Journal article, "Toward an integration of musicological methods into fan video studies", Journal of Transformative Works, 30.
2019: Book chapter, "Fans at Work: Offence as motivation for critical vidding" in Graefer, Anne (ed.) Media and the Politics of Offence, Palgrave Macmillan
2015: Journal article, "Critical Vidders: Fandom, Critical Theory and Media", Akademisk Kvarter, 11
Selected papers
2020: Salon on "Online Spaces", Fan Studies North America Conference, online
2018: "A Soft Centre and a Hard Shell: Superhero Masculinities in Vids" Superheroes Beyond Conference, ACMI and Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
2018: "Deconstructing Movies: Fan vidding as critical analysis" Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2018: "Feel my Righteous Anger: Affect as motivation for critical vidding", Fan Studies Network Conference, Cardiff University, UK
2017: "Talking a good vid", Beyond Borders Conference, Birmingham City University, UK
2015: "Critical Fans and Vids", The Fantastic in a Transmedia Era, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
2011: "Messing with our Minds: Film music in the Harry Potter franchise", DiaCon Alley conference, Kent University, Canterbury, UK 2009: "Five Films, Four Directors and Three Composers", Terminus Conference, Chicago, USA
Tutor and former liaison, The Brilliant Club
