Revised Entry #2: Polished Analysis

In my study of the IMDB Once Upon A Time discussion board, my area of focus has been people's emotional behaviors, specifically, what gets an emotional rise out of discussion board members and how they respond towards each other. As I collected data, I attempted to observe and analyze the emotional behaviors regarding how members interact as a community. This was interesting to do because people didn't necessarily behave the way I expected them to. I had previously visited the discussion board as a fan; returning as an ethnographer made me take more away from the actions of the other fans. With Once Upon A Time starting its 3rd season just as I started my project, the amount of material to comb through was endless. I narrowed my viewpoint to posts that pulled in other members of the community, as opposed to stand alone posts that received no comments.

One instance that illustrates how different members of the board can join together through mutual feelings regarding their community and what transpires there was a post that introduced the fan-invented "Season 3 Drinking Game". At the time of the posting, the first few episodes of Once Upon A Time Season 3 had recently aired, generating multiple posts from disappointed, complaining fans. Then came a new post: "Drink Up, me Hearties! The Season 3 Drinking Game".  The original poster, "ranguvar", doesn't provide any information as to her reasons behind coming up with this activity, she just starts listing off suggestions. Ranguvar provides a list of topics  that members had frequently complained about, with instructions regarding how many shots of alcohol should be taken for each one. I noticed that as the amount of alcohol ordered to be consumed increased, the topics became ones that were less frequently mentioned. For example: "Take one shot: Whenever someone makes a post about how Once isn't ethnically diverse" (at the time of the posting, there had been multiple discussions regarding that issue) whereas "Finish the bottle: When someone complains about the special effects" was regarding a topic that rarely earned posts. I inferred from this this she expects that people might take up her drinking game, and hence designed the game to avoid potential alcohol poisoning. Ranguvar's post is simple instructions, lacking any personal commentary from her, so her reasons for making this posts are open for interpretation. I concluded, however, that this was all fun and games for her. In the title alone, she addresses the community members as "Me Hearties", a quote from the show, complete with an exclamation point. Also, she concludes her post by inviting others to add more. This friendly offer and jovial introduction sets a tone for her post implying that she is not fed up with the community and all the complaining they'd been doing but rather accepts the complaining that takes place and wants to turn it into something fun. It is clear that ranguvar still considerers herself a devoted member of the community by her signature line: "Harlot of the Leather Pants Mrs. Rumplestilskin :)". Nearly all discussion board members have a signature line, but few use one that relates to the show. The bold print and smiley face emoticon stand out from the rest of her post in that they display clear signs of emotion (pleasure, appreciation for the show) and give her an identity, as a loving fan. I think it was that, her sustained love of Once Upon A Time, that allowed her to take something negative like a number of whiny posts and spin it into just another fun thing related to the show.

Ranguvar's post earned multiple comments that provided a number of emotions. Some applauded her, others continued to complain; the comment that stood out from the others was posted by "alismigyette". Unlike ranguvar, alismigyette's comment has no shortage of an emotional response. Her comment contextualizes excitement.  Not only does she use extra punctuation marks and emoticons, alismigyette thows her own opinions into the mix by providing a detailed list of more suggestions for the drinking game. Her excitement about the game is evident in her first sentence: "aww, yes!!! I so love this!!!!!!!! Hey who's Michael James?? Sorry, but that flew over my head!!!" Each fragment of that introductory sentence has a great deal more punctuation marks than necessary; "I so love this!!!!!!!" takes the lead with a grand total of seven exclamation points. Alismigyette then proceeds to list off suggestions for when to take a shot, expanding the game to include actual moments on the show instead of soley discussion board posts. Her instructions were also less formal, more playful than ranguvar's, and also are colored by her own opinions about the subject matter.  One such instruction is: "four shots when Emma makes that crazy face she always makes!!! lol :) too funny". That sentence alone includes three exclamation points, informal grammar (lol), an emoticon, and a personal comment (too funny).  Her level of detail displays her commitment to the activity and enthusiasm about all of it. Personal opinions continue to pop up in her comment, providing a level of color that illustrates her comfort and content with the game, e.g.: "Ok, Take three shots when someone is caught 'trolling'... idk if that was mentioned"; "Four shots when the postings are plain stupid and ridiculous; When someone posts on how much they 'hate' poor Henry". She wraps up stating "that's all I can think of.." although she had provided more suggestions than ranguvar.  And just as ranguvar does, alismigyette identifies herself as an avid member of the community, with her signature line: "*Officially Rumple's keeper of the dagger!! :)" Once again she displays her excitement with more exclamation points than necessary and a smiley face emoticon. I believe that alismigyette's excitement starts to boil over when she engages in these discussion board games, and using excess punctuation and emoticons are her way of venting that.

I began my research by quietly lingering in the shadows of the discussion board watching other members interact. After doing this for some time, I decided to take a step in and see how members would react to contributions that I made myself. Since I was studying emotion, my goal was to provoke an emotional reaction. I wanted to study online "catfights", for lack of a better description, so I  made a post myself, asking members whether they preferred the character of Captain Hook or Rumplestilskin. Both characters were immensely popular, as proven by the large number of posts that each of them had previously gained; also I had already observed members making very impassioned posts regarding their favorite characters. I asked straight out in my post "Rumple or Hook?... Any reason why?", then sat back to watch the results unfold. This experiment of mine did not have the desired effect however. All those who responded were in favor of the same character, Rumplestilskin, so the comment section was catfight-free. I was provided though with some good data though, which I will discuss below, displaying how different discussion board members can form a thriving community over a shared affinity. Of the four groups of fans that I've observed in my study of the discussion board (the lusty fans, the trolls, the average folk, and the informants), the first three of those groups made their presence known in the comment section. I had suspected before I made this post that the majority of responses I would receive would be lust-infused, and I was correct about that part. The lusty fans rose beautifully to the occasion: "IMO, RUMPLE TAKES THE CAKE... HELL, THE WHOLE BAKERY!!!!!!! ;)"(That comment came from alismigyette, back again and as excited as ever. This time, extra exclamation point and one emoticon were not enough; alismigyette illustrated her excitement and enthusiasm with caps lock as well. The sentence displayed is only one bit of a long comment, indeed, the longest one I received, complete with five beaming emoticons and five instances where over half a dozen extra punctuation marks were used); "He has that commanding presence. *Gosh* I'm fangirling allover him"; (The stars around the word gosh indicate that the word is emphasized; this member displayed her appreciation for Rumplestilskin with those symbols, as well as stating outright that she was "fangirling" over him.) "And he does the leather thing better than Hook ^_~" (The member here gives a reason for why she likes Rumple, he wears leather, with a winky face to let us know that's a good thing in her book) . The average folk group, the ones who (for the most part) just make small posts/comments, usually to ask questions or give a brief opinion, also weighed in, keeping things short and to the point: "Rumple/Gold without question"; "Rumple, because he's far more complex than Hook" (This comment was made by ranguvar, who was once again just sticking with the basic information, with one exception: she updated her signature line; the smiley face emoticon now had hearts floating around it. I can infer that despite her being less vocal about her appreciation for the show than alismigyette, she still wants to show it, just in a subtler way.) Even a troll reared its head for this discussion: "Rumple. Because Hook sucks. All I see is a misogynist dick when I see Hook". (To be fair, that last post wasn't attacking anyone else, so labeling the poster as a troll might be a bit reaching, but his/her tone left the door open for a fight, had anyone dared to disagree with that comment.) What I have gleaned from observing and analyzing this data is that a number of very different people come to the Once Upon A Time discussion board, with different ways of expressing themselves, and yet they can all co-exist in harmony due to their mutual appreciation for a TV show.

Throughout my research I observed people's different responses to emotional stimuli and how different people were able to interact together. In an online community like this discussion board, emotion is a crucial part of sustaining the site. It is because of people's emotions regarding the show that they visit the board in this first place, it is because of emotions that they take the step of making posts and commenting on them. Without members have feelings about what they see on the show, and what they read on the discussion board, there would be no cause for interaction on the board at all.

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Revised Entry #1: Synthesis

In their article "Public Displays of Connection" (2004), Judith Donath and Danah Boyd discuss online identities in-depth; specifically, how simple it is for a person to invent an online identity that suits them, and alter it to their own liking.

“Identity deception is prevalent in the on-line world. In the real world the body anchors identity, making it both singular and difficult to change… On-line, identity is mutable and unanchored by the body that is its locus in the real world.”

This caught my interest, as I have been giving the matter of identity some thought in my research project. On the Once Upon A Time (OUAT) discussion board, all members post anonymously, with their (generally nondescript) email addresses as their user names. However, there is a distinct level of identity present on the board. Yet the identities are molded into whatever the user would like them to be. Discussion board members can portray themselves in a way that is alien to how they behave in the offline world, and if they decide that they don't like their online counterpart, they can easily delete it and create a new one, which is something that Donath and Boyd discuss in their article:

“Behind the new name is the same problematic person, but the equivalence between the disreputable old name and the clean new name- the fact that they are both names for the same person- is invisible.”

On the OUAT discussion board, this could be the case with any of the four fan groups, though it is most noticeable with the trolls. One discussion board member, with the username yvonne, had been particularly active on the board, frequently making snide comments in response to people's posts, and earning (her?)self a negative reputation. People were offended and aggravated by what yvonne had to say, and even left comments underneath her own, telling others "just ignore her". Then yvonne, a frequent poster, disappeared completely from the board. About that time, a new user, molly_kiss, made her presence known on the board, posting unkind comments in response to posts that were of the same subject that yvonne had such strong opinions about. This change did not pass over the heads of other members; one user went so far as to make a post with the title "is molly_kiss yvonne?" Said post has since been deleted, and although it cannot be proven that the troll yvonne created a new identity for herself, Donath and Boyd's description of creating pseudonyms and hiding behind them fits the situation very well.

Throughout my research, I have noticed that as the board members engage in discussions about the show, despite the squabbles over trivial things like what actor is the most appealing or how good/bad the latest plot twist is, the members of the OUAT board are generally quite united as a community. James Gee discusses community in his article "Semiotic Social Spaces and Affinity Spaces", describing it in terms of an affinity space:

"In such spaces, people who may share little, and even differ dramatically on other issues, affiliate around their common cause and create and sustain affinity spaces."

Gee’s definition of an affinity space I believe can be applied to the OUAT board quite fittingly. All the members, both genders, different ages and nationalities join together in this community because of their mutual fondness for a popular TV show.

 As I studied the discussion board, I observed members with noticeably different values unite over a common affinity. To clarify: sometimes social issues like ethnicity, adoption, or sexual impropriety are brought up on the board in regards to how they play out on OUAT. When members voice their opinions on the matter, they are often drawn into disputes with other members that have a different ethical standpoint. And yet when the topic of discussion is how excited you are for the next episode, or how intense the cliffhanger was, I watched those very same members chat in harmony, all personal differences forgotten for that moment.
Whether or not conversations are successful, or fans' behavior is civil, it is their continued interaction that sustains the site.

In an online community like this discussion board, participation is crucial for its continued growth. There is no webmaster to keep pushing things along and make posts whether or not anyone responds to them. The only action that takes place on the part of the moderator is to delete posts that are obviously spam or unrelated to OUAT. The OUAT discussion board is what it is because of its fans. Their contributions are what bring in the gossip, the polls, the theorizing, and the bickering. If there were no fan participation at all, the discussion board would still exist (all IMDB pages have one), but it would merely sit there, blank. Henry Jenkins's goes into detail about fans and their participation in his article "Interactive Audiences? The 'Collective Intelligence' of Media Fans"; his discussion focuses on how the growing fandoms spread outside of the original community source:

"As fandom diversifies, it moves from cult status towards the cultural mainstream, with more
Internet users engaged in some form of fan activity.”

The TV show Once Upon A Time has quite popular, generating online news articles, magazine reviews, and etc.; this ties into Jenkins's statement that “increased visibility and cultural
centrality has been a mixed blessing for a community used to speaking from the margins”.

With the more attention OUAT earns, participation on the discussion board increases. For example, one of the actors on the show posted on Twitter that he had seen a lot of people “hatin’” on him on the discussion board. Within 24 hours of that tweet, it had been copied and pasted multiple times on the discussion board, all of those posts earning a high number of comments weighing in on the subject. An even quicker response took place when Adam Horowitz, one of the OUAT writers, brought up the IMDB discussion board when giving an interview about the then-undiscovered identity of one of the characters. Horowitz said, in regards to the discussion board, that he had heard several good theories, including the correct one. His remark generated about half a dozen posts within the hour; not long after that, the “Baelfire Appreciation Thread” had been posted on the board and earned dozens of comments wondering which theory was the correct one. As Jenkins put it, “The speed and frequency of communication may intensify the social bonds within the fan community."

Pierre Levy, author of Collective Intelligence, explains in his book how community members interact together, and the resulting effect.

"The members of a thinking community search, inscribe, connect, consult, explore……”

His description fits the OUAT online community, or indeed, nearly any online community. As the members engage in said actions, they form what Levy calls a “cosmopedia”, which can “make available to the collective intellect all of the pertinent knowledge available to it at a given moment”.

The discussion board, being a site of collective discussion, ties in quite nicely to Levy’s characterization of communities, particularly considering that the internet makes all information available at once. The collective intellect of all the members helps shape the board into a veritable hive of information, though OUAT being an in-progress TV show, there are still questions that fans can’t answer. Unanswered questions, according to Levy, “will create tension within cosmopedic space”.

Levy's mention of tension being created by unanswered questions can be applied to certain posts on the board; for example the post "who will die? poll" generated a lot of comments, some just one-word answers (“henry”; “regina”) but others agitated responses (“omg im worried theyre gonna kill off rumple!!”; “if the writers get rid of hook I’m going to march down to their houses with a shovel!”) or snarky replies to someone else's opinion (“Are u stupid? they cant kill prince Charming”; “don’t be a dumbass rumple’s fine”). There were also several posts speculating whether or not one of the lead actors on the show is pregnant; with the reports unconfirmed, worried comments piled up: "would they write this into the show?"; "is that why snow said she wants another baby?"

On the OUAT discussion board, a significant portion of the fans' contributions to the site are influenced by contributions that have already been made. Nancy Baym, in her article "Talking About Soaps: Communication Practices in a Computer-Mediated Culture", explores how fans can function on the site more effectively as a group: "A large group of fans can do what even the most committed single fan cannot: accumulate, retain, and continually recirculate unprecedented amounts of relevant information”.

The continued recirculation of relevant information is very common on the discussion board, with people piling onto what others have said, usually until the issue is resolved on the show, or the topic eventually burns itself out. If someone makes a post about a hot topic, whether or not said post receives lot of comments, other posts will follow, either reinforcing the original idea or presenting a new take on it. Baym describes this as “[net list] participants collaboratively provid(ing) all with the resources to get more story from the material, enhancing many members' soap readings and pleasures" 

As mentioned above, hot topics generate multiple posts presenting different opinions about the same subject. When OUAT introduced in one of its episodes the possibility that a character was homosexual, the discussion board exploded with different posts regarding the issue, e.g: "the lesbian twist"; "phillip or aurora (poll)"; "SICK, SICK, SICK". These fans as a group, like Baym describes, were capable of doing more than one fan ever could. Variety in opinions and behaviors helps answer questions and stimulate debates; it helps draw the fans in. That I believe is an important part of what sustains the discussion board.

 References:

Baym, Nancy. Talking About Soaps: Communication Practices in a Computer-Mediated Culture. New York: Hampton Press, 1998.

Donath, Judith & Boyd, Danah. Public Displays of Connection. BT Technology Journal, Vol. 22 No. 4. 2004.

Gee, James. Semiotic Social Spaces & Affinity Spaces.

Jenkins, Henry. Interactive Audiences? The 'Collective Intelligence' of Media Fans.

Levy, Pierre. Collective Intelligence. Cambridge: Perseus, 1997.

Conclusion

The IMDB Once Upon A Time discussion board functions as a new form of communication for online fans. Although imdb.com's main purpose is to dispense information regarding movies, celebrities and etc., the discussion board itself serves as an affinity space for fans of different ages, genders and nationalities to interact as a community. The element of digital literacy in this site is possessed and controlled by the fans; with the discussion board being an interactive site, the level of activity is dependent on the fans and their devotion to the site. In my study of the emotional responses of the members, I found the discussion board to be full of relatable content, for due to the vast number of personalities that make themselves known there, there is always someone with whom you can empathize. Though the site was not fan-created, it is continuously maintained by fans, with the result that it rest on a solid fanbase, the strengths and affability of which draw in more fans.

I conducted my research as both an observer and a participant. The best way for me to go about my study was from an ethnographer's standpoint; I quietly stayed in the background watching how the members behaved, getting a better feel for the site, before I decided to actually interact with other members. Being a fan of the show myself made things easier, though other members make it simple for new fans to grasp what's going on, in their consistency of explaining themselves; the discussion board also has a very simple layout, which I surmised is part of what helps pull new members, the ease of it all. With complete anonymity, members are free to behave however they so chose, which would make this a good site for someone wishing to study public connections or affinity spaces.

All of the action on the discussion board takes place via posts and/or comments, and the relentless in-pouring of posts and comments proves how many devoted fans the Once Upon A Time discussion board has. It's not just a fondness for the show, people get excited or angered by what transpires on the discussion board itself. This site has proven itself to be an excellent example of an online fan community, with its variety of members, wealth of material, and clear layout. I can conclude from my study that the level of support from the fans, mixed with the digital literacies on the site, allow the community to flourish as a multi-layered network.

Polished Data Analysis

In my study of the IMDB Once Upon A Time discussion board, my area of focus has been people's emotional behaviors, specifically, what gets an emotional rise out of discussion board members and how they respond towards each other. In my data analyses I attempted to observe and analyze the emotional behaviors regarding how members interact as a community. This was interesting to do because people didn't necessarily behave the way I expected them to.

In my first data analysis, I studied the fan-invented "Season 3 Drinking Game" which started as just one post but had more piled on in the comment section. The original poster, ranguvar, doesn't provide any information as to her reasons behind coming up with this activity, she just starts listing off suggestions; however it can be inferred from the content of her post that she is tired of all the posts that discussion board members have previously made complaining about the show. Ranguvar provides a list of topics  that members had frequently complained about, with instructions regarding how many shots of alcohol should be taken for each one. I noticed that  as the amount of alcohol ordered to be consumed increased, the topics became ones that were less frequently mentioned. For example: "Take one shot: Whenever someone makes a post about how Once isn't ethnically diverse" (at the time of the posting, there had been multiple discussions regarding that issue) whereas "Finish the bottle: When someone complains about the special effects" was regarding a topic that rarely earned posts. Ranguvar's post is simple instructions, she doesn't let off any emotional response regarding what she's posting or why she's posting it but she does conclude her post by inviting others to add more. This friendly offer somewhat changes the tone of the post; by welcoming the rest of the community to participate, she implies that she is not fed up with the community but rather accepts all the complaining that takes place and wants to turn it into something fun. It is clear that ranguvar still considerers herself a devoted member of the community by her signature line: "Harlot of the Leather Pants Mrs. Rumplestilskin".

Ranguvar's post was followed up by a comment from alismigyette, who happily added on to the drinking game instructions. Unlike ranguvar, alismigyette's post has no shortage of an emotional response. Alismigyette shows her excitement about this drinking game in multiple ways: extra punctuation marks, emoticons, and sharing her opinion. Examples include: "aww, yes!!! I so love this!!!!!!!! Hey who's Michael James?? Sorry, but that flew over my head!!!" and "four shots when Emma makes that crazy face she always makes!!! lol :) too funny". She wraps up stating "that's all I can think of.." although she had provided more suggestions than ranguvar. Her instructions were also less formal, more playful, suggesting that she was already caught up in the fun of it. Just as ranguvar does, alismigyette identifies herself as an avid member of the community, with her signature line: "*Officially Rumple's keeper of the dagger!! :)"

For the second data analysis, I  made a post myself, asking members whether they preferred the character of Captain Hook or Rumplestilskin. I wanted to study online "catfights", for lack of a better description, and this seemed like a good way to do it, given that I had already observed members making very impassioned posts regarding their favorite characters. This experiment of mine did not have the desired effect however. All those who responded were in favor of the same character, so the comment section was catfight-free. I was provided though with some good data displaying how different discussion board members can form a thriving community over a shared affinity. Of the four groups of fans that I've observed in my study of the discussion board (the lusty fans, the trolls, the average folk, and the informants), the first three of those groups made their presence known in the comment section. I had suspected before I made this post that the majority of responses I would receive would be lust-infused, and I was correct about that part. The lusty fans rose beautifully to the occasion: "IMO, RUMPLE TAKES THE CAKE... HELL, THE WHOLE BAKERY!!!!!!! ;)"; "He has that commanding presence. *Gosh* I'm fangirling allover him"; "And he does the leather thing better than Hook ^_~". The average folk group, the ones who just make small posts/comments, usually to ask questions or give a brief opinion, also weighed in, keeping things short and to the point: "Rumple/Gold without question"; "Rumple, because he's far more complex than Hook". Even a troll reared its head for this discussion: "Rumple. Because Hook sucks. All I see is a misogynist dick when I see Hook". (To be fair, that last post wasn't attacking anyone else, so labeling the poster as a troll might be a bit reaching, but his/her tone left the door open for a fight had anyone dared to disagree with that comment.)
The point that I'm trying to make by providing all the above data is that a number of very different people come to the Once Upon A Time discussion board, with different ways of expressing themselves, and yet they can all co-exist in harmony due to their mutual appreciation for a TV show.

In these data analyses, I observed people's different responses to emotional stimuli and how different people were able to interact together. I am having difficulty better explaining myself/ elaborating on my subject of discussion, so any advice regarding this blog post would be most helpful.
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