Fan Culture: Semiotic Productivity

The Oxford English Dictionary defines community as "a body of people or things viewed collectively" (community, n). The digital world has further complicated commonly held ideas of community - moving it beyond physical spaces into the online world. As a result, people who are already part of a community based on where they live, go to school, and work are also able to connect with people across the globe who share similar values and interests. As such, the internet has created new means of media engagement, in that it has moved the space of fan communities online. This shift has allowed for new forms of engagement, like forums and fanfiction, to become more popular. But despite the new platforms available, traditional forms of boundary policing

Fiske identifies three major forms of productivity that occur within fan cultures: semiotic productivity, enunciative productivity, and textual productivity.

Semiotic productivity refers to the "making of meanings of social identity and of social experiences from the semiotic resources of the cultural community" (37). To simplify, in relation to fandom semiotic productivity occurs when fans use their object of interest to create social meaning in their own lives. For instance, Madonna fans who use their interest in the singer to shift the way they make meaning about their own sexuality outside of patriarchal constructs (37).

Enunciative productivity refers to instances when the "meanings made are spoken and are shared" orally and visually (37). This form of productivity is thus a communicative form that expresses and circulates "meanings of the object of fandom within a local community" (37). This form of productivity includes a number of means of communication - both in terms of "fan talk" as well as personal styling "of hair or make-up, the choice of clothes or accessories" (37). In sports, for example, fans often speak amongst themselves about players and games as well as style themselves to demonstrate their interest: using jerseys and other team paraphernalia to self-identify as a