Hi there! I really like the idea of you doing some academic work about online fandom! You won't be the first, and that's the really cool thing - online fandom is slowly accumulating a wealth of academic work, just like any field (can you imagine the number of volumes of work that have been done on the pre-Raphaelites?) so every new piece of academic consideration adds to it.
You may already know of this site, but if you don't, it could be interesting for you. Archive of Our Own is more than a fanfic archive. It also has an academic side, and a section on other less academic aspects of fandom called fanworks.
I know it can be a little time-consuming (and sometimes frustrating or bewildering) to start to build up a group of friends and acquaintances on Dreamwidth or Live Journal. You're more than welcome to go to my profile and see some of the people I know. Go over and take a look at their journals, see if you're interested in hanging out. You'll find fanfic, commentary on real life (a few academics, too!) and some really interesting people. Introduce yourself, get involved in conversations, and if you decide you'd like to add them to your circles, you can ask them if they'd mind you adding them as a friend. Most folks are glad to.
Because I started journaling over at Livejournal, and because a lot of folks from LJ haven't yet moved to Dreamwidth (oh, the politicking of LJ and Dreamwidth is wonderful fodder for your online fandom research, too!)I have a much larger circle of friends over there; feel free to drop over there and meet people there. You might want to get a free LJ account, to do that ... but starting over here, I think you'll find there are lots of people who are interested in being friendly!
Another thing you can do is take a look at my profile for links to various communities; you can visit them and see if you'd like to hang out in them. Some of them are very slow, others are a little more active. There's more things I could think of, but my brain's like a sieve today.
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Date: 2014-04-05 08:50 pm (UTC)You may already know of this site, but if you don't, it could be interesting for you. Archive of Our Own is more than a fanfic archive. It also has an academic side, and a section on other less academic aspects of fandom called fanworks.
I know it can be a little time-consuming (and sometimes frustrating or bewildering) to start to build up a group of friends and acquaintances on Dreamwidth or Live Journal. You're more than welcome to go to my profile and see some of the people I know. Go over and take a look at their journals, see if you're interested in hanging out. You'll find fanfic, commentary on real life (a few academics, too!) and some really interesting people. Introduce yourself, get involved in conversations, and if you decide you'd like to add them to your circles, you can ask them if they'd mind you adding them as a friend. Most folks are glad to.
Because I started journaling over at Livejournal, and because a lot of folks from LJ haven't yet moved to Dreamwidth (oh, the politicking of LJ and Dreamwidth is wonderful fodder for your online fandom research, too!)I have a much larger circle of friends over there; feel free to drop over there and meet people there. You might want to get a free LJ account, to do that ... but starting over here, I think you'll find there are lots of people who are interested in being friendly!
Another thing you can do is take a look at my profile for links to various communities; you can visit them and see if you'd like to hang out in them. Some of them are very slow, others are a little more active. There's more things I could think of, but my brain's like a sieve today.