Research
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Manga
& anime - I have been
working on cross-cultural audience study of
the readers of Japanese and North American (Canada & USA) comic books. I
conducted individual interviews with readers of translated manga in the
spring of 2009 and I have produced conference papers and published papers based
on this data. I did won a URF grant which was used to travel to San Francisco to
conduct individual interviews with Japanese readers of manga while I was a
Visiting Scholar at UCSF in summer 2011. I worked with a
Japanese collegue on a funded
2-year research project to conduct a survey
of viewers of anime and readers of manga. I traveled to Japan in May 2013 to
continue this work on the reception of manga/anime. I have
presented on the topic of manga readers and anime viewers at a number of
international conferences and have published work in this area. In the summer of
2015 I conducted more interviews withe anime and manga fans who were drawn from
a large online survey. Click on the link to see more details in this part of
my research program
World
Science Fiction Convention - Worldcon -
I also have conducted other research on
international fandom and Worldcon.
In 2007 I attended The World Science Fiction
Convention (Worldcon) in Yokohma Jappan. That experience precipitated research into the
history of Worldcon and how the on-going fan convention
(since 1939)
has used communication
technologies over a span of more than six decades of organizing an international
convention of science fiction fans. I conducted an online survey of attendees at
the 2009 Worldcon and presented a paper based on this data at the Academic
conference associated with the 2010 Worldcon in Melbourne, Australia. I
conducted a follow up survey in Melbourne and a third survey of participants at
the Woldcon 2011 in Reno, Nevada. This set of surveys represents data that can
shed some light on the increasingly significant variable of location.
Location is key because the convention moves
around based on the campaigning of organized fans who are willing to host and
run the event.
In
addition to these surveys I have been carrying out ongoing participant
observation research with active organizers of this fan community at the
conventions and over the internet.I have presented analysis of this research data
at the academic track at Worldcons in 2010, 2011 and on panels at Loncon in
2014.
Click on the link to see more information about
this aspect of my research program.