Making Fandom Work: Industry Space and Structures of Power at the San Diego Comic-Con.

This dissertation examines the San Diego Comic-Con, a large, popular culture convention that attracts over 130,000 attendees each year. Though Comic-Con was founded by a small group of fans in 1970, media industry promotion has become an increasingly prominent part of the event in recent years. Drawing upon extensive archival and field research, as well as political economy, media industry studies, cultural studies, and fan studies, this dissertation offers a detailed examination of the event space alongside extensive analysis of the discourses that circulate within and about Comic-Con. Ultimately, I argue that the industry’s presence structures the Comic-Con experience by situating attendees within an economic logic driven by large-scale media production and marketing. I begin with an overview of Comic-Con’s history, highlighting the ways in which the founding of the convention allowed for an integration of professionals and fans across a broad swath of popular culture. Analyzing discourses about movie blogger Harry Knowles, creator of the website aintitcoolnews.com, my second chapter argues for an understanding of exclusivity as something that shapes the meaning around a particular audience or experience by producing a sense of limits. Chapter Three considers how the space of the Comic-Con lines produces an economy of waiting, where attendees’ time is exchanged for exclusive promotional material and experiences. My fourth chapter examines Hall H, a 6500-seat room that is home to the largest and most popular film and television panels at Comic-Con. Here I consider how space and discourse work together to transform exclusive content into large-scale promotion. Finally, Chapter Five provides an historical examination of Comic-Con’s Exhibit Hall, tracing the growth of the space since 1970 in order to demonstrate how it was shaped and defined by the presence of retail business, support of and for consumerism, and the interests and investments of media conglomerates. This chapter’s use of archival research bolsters my argument throughout this dissertation, that the Exhibit Hall, and Comic-Con as a whole, is a space structured around making fandom work—both literally and figuratively—in concert with the economic interests of the media industries.PhDScreen Arts and CulturesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108973/1/hannae_1.pd