viral media : what, why, how, and can it work in edu

According to Henri Jenkins, since the controversy over Napster, the dominant stance within the recording industry as well as film and television has been to regulate many of the forms of fandom that once went below their radar, while internet and games companies have been more willing to experiment with an approach that enlists fans as co-creators in the production of content and brand promotion. He states, "if new media has made visible various forms of fan participation and production, then these legal battles demonstrate the power still vested in media ownership..." since as he argues "for many media producers, who still operate within the old logic of commodity culture, fandom represents a potential loss of control over their intellectual property." Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Media Consumers in a Digital Age p.146

He sites Levy in considering the industry panic over interactive audience as short-sighted: "by presenting he knowledge space from becoming autonomous, they deprive the circuits of commodity space... of an extraordinary source of energy" Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Media Consumers in a Digital Age 147. Examples for Jenkins of corporations that understand how to market fandom include Amazon in how they've linked bookselling to the fostering of online book culture and ESPN's fantasy baseball league, which gives audiences an incentive to tune in for up the the minute stats.