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.

Since the images displayed are small, if you would like to see a bigger image, just click on them.

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.
Since the images displayed are small, if you would like to see a bigger image, just click on them.

Synthesis of Related Research

In their article "Public Displays of Connection" (2004), Donath and 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. 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, which is something that Donath and Boyd describe in their article:

"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. Identity deception, though not unheard of, is difficult — convincingly representing oneself as a member of the opposite gender is quite costly, requiring extensive makeup, costuming, and possibly surgery, while portraying oneself as a different person requires acquiring another’s documents, avoiding known acquaintances, and risking a lengthy incarceration. On-line, identity is mutable and unanchored by the body that is its locus in the real world.
In many situations, creating pseudonyms has little cost and if one ruins the on-line reputation tied to one screen name, it is
simple to acquire a new name and return afresh. 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. "

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. On the Once Upon A Time 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 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; they flourish under their shared appreciation for Once Upon A Time. Gee discusses community in his article "Semiotic Social Spaces and Affinity Spaces".

"In such spaces, people who may share little, and even differ
dramatically on other issues, affiliate around their common cause
and the practices associated with espousing it via affinity spaces that
have most or all of the previously described eleven features. Fans of
everything (e.g., movies, comic books, television shows, video games,

various lifestyle choices, etc.) create and sustain affinity spaces"

Affinity spaces is something that Gee describes in great detail throughout his article, and that term 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 affinity for a popular TV show. In both of my data analyses, members were able to form thriving, successful discussions in the comments section of posts that all of them could appreciate. 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 Once Upon A Time. 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. Taking into account the importance of the fans, I also researched Henry Jenkins's work; he goes into detail about fans and their participation in his article "Interactive Audiences? The 'Collective Intelligence' of Media Fans".

"As fandom diversifies, it moves from cult status towards the cultural mainstream, with more

Internet users engaged in some form of fan activity. This increased visibility and cultural
centrality has been a mixed blessing for a community used to speaking from the margins. The
speed and frequency of communication may intensify the social bonds within the fan
community."

The TV show Once Upon A Time has quite popular, generating online news articles, magazine reviews, and etc.; this ties into Jenkins's statement about how increased visibility has worked as a blessing for a community. With the more attention Once Upon A Time earns, participation on the discussion board increases.

Jenkins, in his article,  discusses Pierre Levy's book Collective Intelligence. In this book Levy explains:

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

explore……Not only does the cosmopedia make available to the collective
intellect all of the pertinent knowledge available to it at a given moment, but it
also serves as a site of collective discussion, negotiation, and development…….
Unanswered questions will create tension within cosmopedic space, indicating
regions where invention and innovation are required"
A site of collective discussion where all pertinent knowledge is made available would be an apt description for this or any other discussion board. 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 but others agitated responses or snarky replies to someone else's opinion. 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. 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. 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……. [Net list] participants collaboratively provide all with the
resources to get more story from the material, enhancing many members' soap
readings and pleasures" 

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

Methodology

My research for this project was conducted on the IMDB Once Upon A Time discussion board. imdb.com has pages for various celebrities, movies, and TV shows. If you type the name of what you're looking for into the search engine, the site will direct you to that page. Pages for TV shows have cast and episodes lists, frequently asked questions, soundtrack info and etc.; and at the bottom of the page you can find the discussion board. When you click on the link you will be redirected to the discussion board page, where you can view all the posts that IMDB members have made, and the comments that said posts have received. I chose the Once Upon A Time discussion board for my project for a few reasons. First off I have been a fan of the show since it started 2 years ago, and I've previously spent time there as an IMDB member myself. Also, Once Upon A Time, currently in tis third season, remains a very popular show, and the discussion board, without fail, is always thriving with activity. I have visited discussion boards for other TV shows that I enjoy; none match the level of fan action. I knew that if I selected this board not only would I be engaging in something that already interests me, I would always have a wealth of material to work with.

The Once Upon A Time discussion board, at its highest points of activity, receives at least at a dozen posts an hour, 24 hours a day, from a multitude of board members, making it nearly impossible to find select board members to follow and study; while I have seen recurring members, they are simply too inconsistent in their postings to follow properly. So instead, I took a more general approach to who I would study, looking to the discussion board members as a whole and then splitting them up into groups based on their behaviors. I ended up with four groups, whom I took the liberty of naming: the trolls (people who spend their time on the board attacking other people's opinions and/or trying to pick online fights); the lusty fans (those members whose posts/comments consist almost entirely of virtual drooling over the hotness of an actor or chemistry between two characters); the informants (members who regularly post spoilers about upcoming episodes or behind-the-scenes information); and the average folk (people who visit the board simply to ask a question about the show, or make a comment regarding a recent episode). The lusty fans have near-consistently had the most dominant presence on the show; not only are they the most vocal (all caps lock, exclamation points, emoticons), their group makes the most posts; generally speaking those posts receive the most comments. I have made a point to observe all four groups, though frankly the lusty fans have been the most interesting to me. Evidently their excitement over male hotness is contagious.

My role in the site has changed somewhat over the course of my study. I started out strictly as an observer, not making any posts or comments on the board myself, but merely observing how the other members interacted with each other, and what sorts of things would get the biggest emotional responses from them. I wanted to get a feel for the board members, while remaining impartial. Over time though, I let that approach fall by the wayside. Not because I had any issue with it, but because after silently observing and getting a better idea of what board members were like, I wanted to see if my view of said members would change if I was a member too. As I mentioned previously, I already had my own IMDB account and had spent time on the Once Upon A Time board, but I would have fallen squarely into the average folk group, only making posts with questions or comments, and not giving the other members or their behaviors a second thought. My first act as a returning member was to try an provoke an emotional response from the lusty fans. (A detailed summary of this can be found on my Data Analysis 2 blog post) After experimenting with that, I focused on the big issues of the discussion board (eg debates over who would die on the show, an uproar over one character possibly being homosexual, etc.) On the discussion board, you can see which posts have the most comments; I made sure to check those out and observe people's emotional responses. As for my own actions, I would sometimes make my own post regarding a hot topic, or comment on a controversial post that someone else would make. More often than not I would get responses to my posts/comments (some people would happily agree with me, some snarled at me), though occasionally I would be entirely ignored.

The data I collected would come from the posts and comments that people made. I visited the discussion board nearly every day, and as said data kept coming in, I was able to make notes on it, perhaps print out what I thought was important, and study it. I made a point of collecting data on all four of my groups. The posts that I was drawn to were the ones that had received the most comments, as those posts were likely to have provoked the biggest emotional response, and usually there was a wealth of data to observe and analyze.
So far in this research project I have done two major data analyses. For the first one, I studied how the members of the discussion board interact as a community. One member created a drinking game based on the behaviors of the other members (for example, "take a shot whenever someone complains about Michael Raymond James"). People in the comment section piled onto this with enthusiasm. My focus was on how the members could unite together as a community, even when the subject matter was something that irritated all of them (members constantly complaining about the show). The second data analysis I did is summarized above; I tried to provoke an emotional response by getting board members, specifically people who fall into the lusty fans category, to turn on each other. However, everyone who responded was united in their opinions, a different reaction than I'd been expecting. It made for an interesting study however, and let me focus on the lusty fans, observing a new level of their behavior. That group is almost always the most excitable and outspoken; in this case, everyone was calmly and diplomatically in agreement  about which character was better.

I didn't have any one major research tradition in mind when I was conducting my study, no prime example that I wanted to follow. I played this research project as a trial by fire, acting as I saw fit. I came at this project from an ethnographer's standpoint, studying the discussion board the way one would a community, observing what makes them flow properly, what causes problems, what issues are considered a big deal- these things helped me to get a better grasp of the emotions that run rampant in this community.

If you have any advice or need any clarifications, feel free to post in the comment section

Reflectie Piece

For the free choice blog post, I have opted to do the reflective piece. This decision was in part influenced by the fact that my previous blog posts do not appear to have been very strong, and I am hoping that taking a good hard look at my project and the online community that I'm doing will help improve this project for me.
My project is to study the imdb.com Once Upon A Time discussion board and the different emotions that run rampant there; what affects people the most and how they behave. For this reflective piece I'm taking a look at three different aspects of the community: emotion, identity, and patterns.

Emotion: The most common way for members of the IMDB community to display their emotions is in how they type. To clarify, someone who is emotional will likely use caps lock or bold/ italic print or lots of exclamation points, or have little flashing emoticons around their text (or some combination thereof). I have come to refer to this as emotion-type, for lack of a better name. Emotion is also displayed through repetition. That is to say, if someone has a strong opinion about a discussion board post, they continue to add comments to it, particularly if another member posts something that contradicts or ridicules what the former member has said. I have noticed that in that case, as said member continues to make posts defending themselves, they grow more and more likely to start typing in all caps, or with angry emoticon faces or etc. By this point though, its clear that their use of emotion-type is due to frustration, rather than simple excitement, which is the main reason for emotion-type. Constantly commenting on a post is rare however; most members make a comment or two and leave it at that, even those members with the excited caps lock and smiley face posts. People who continually make comments are usually being negative, and are not well-received by other members. The typical response is to ignore that negative person, or troll, if you will. Sometimes a member will make a derisive response to the troll's post, but then go back to ignoring them, leaving the troll to have an emotion-type tantrum on their own.

Identity: Discussion board posts, although I have not found a rule saying they are required to be, are all strictly anonymous on the Once Upon A Time board; people's user names generally come from the first part of their email address. If you click on a member's user name you can see their profile, but that does not provide you with personal information, even gender. You will only see a profile picture, how long they've been a member, and if they've recently rated or commented on anything. However, discussion board members can still have well-developed online identities. One example of a form of identity is the quote that most members include at the bottom of every post they make. It can be almost anything; a name: Mrs. Rumplstilskin, Harlot of the Leather Pants; a quote: "When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout"; or something you support: Long live Captain Swan! By observing these bottom of the page quotes, it is easier to get a feel for this anonymous member that you are observing. People whose names or catch phrases directly relate to the show have proven more likely to be frequent posters, complete with emotion-type. Also, members' identities form through what they post, and how they post it. When the die-hard fans make their posts, very rarely are they short or emotion-type free. Some people are clearly just looking for attention, in the way that they pick fights or keep asking questions about a subject that everyone else has moved past. Those whose posts are brief and nondescript are usually just viewers of the show who have only come on the board to get a question about the show itself answered. And of course, as mentioned above, there are the trolls. In my observations of the members, I have surmised that the average member falls somewhere in the middle: not quite a die-hard fan and not a troll, just someone who has come onto the discussion board because they felt like expressing their enjoyment or complaints about the show.

Patterns: One of the things that I decided I would keep a lookout for when I started this project was patterns occurring throughout the discussion board. In my studies so far, patterns that I've observed have been pretty general so far. With each week comes a new episode, and with that, a string of similar posts that gush about the show or complain about a character, etc. After 2-3 days it usually dies down. And about 2-3 days after that, the number of posts picks up again, with people getting excited for the new episode. Without fail, the day the gets the most posts is Monday, which is the day after the show airs. Another thing that I've been trying to observe is patterns that come from specific members themselves. I mentioned earlier the trolls who routinely post due to aggravation or because they're trying to get a rise out of people, but troll excluded, I have yet to observe a pattern in the behavior or any specific members. I am curious about that though, so I will continue to observe it.

I hope that this blog post is an improvement, and will help give anyone who reads it a better idea of  how my project is going. Writing it was certainly helpful, especially in terms of making connections. Please comment with any questions or advice.