Learning from Anime Fans: Implications for Formal Media and Cultural Pedagogy
Location
Room 210
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
Japanese animation (anime) is recognizable to a great proportion of the adolescent population in the United States. This essay investigates how more involved adolescent fans consume anime in ways similar to how other studies have explored adolescent consumption of media products in general. However, the primary concern is with the type of interactions that adolescent anime fans have with anime and with each other that allow us to find a type of fan pedagogy. The author attended two collegiate Japanese animation clubs, three anime-specific conventions, and one convention devoted to the fantastic arts to interview adolescent anime fans about their experiences as fans in terms of how they have interacted with anime, other fans, and U.S. mainstream culture. Beyond anime consumption, this essay argues that particularly older adolescent anime fans are engaged in a process of teaching and learning from each other about locally accepted ways of understanding Japan. This includes critiquing both Japanese and U.S. mainstream culture and debating over aesthetic, gendered, and sexual aspects of anime. Implications for media educators and for educators in the social sciences more broadly are discussed.
Keywords
Media, Anime, Culture, Informal, Pedagogy
Recommended Citation
Allison, Brent, "Learning from Anime Fans: Implications for Formal Media and Cultural Pedagogy" (2014). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 9.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2014/2014/9
Learning from Anime Fans: Implications for Formal Media and Cultural Pedagogy
Room 210
Japanese animation (anime) is recognizable to a great proportion of the adolescent population in the United States. This essay investigates how more involved adolescent fans consume anime in ways similar to how other studies have explored adolescent consumption of media products in general. However, the primary concern is with the type of interactions that adolescent anime fans have with anime and with each other that allow us to find a type of fan pedagogy. The author attended two collegiate Japanese animation clubs, three anime-specific conventions, and one convention devoted to the fantastic arts to interview adolescent anime fans about their experiences as fans in terms of how they have interacted with anime, other fans, and U.S. mainstream culture. Beyond anime consumption, this essay argues that particularly older adolescent anime fans are engaged in a process of teaching and learning from each other about locally accepted ways of understanding Japan. This includes critiquing both Japanese and U.S. mainstream culture and debating over aesthetic, gendered, and sexual aspects of anime. Implications for media educators and for educators in the social sciences more broadly are discussed.
