Fandom Theory - Henry Jenkins

A fandom is a collection of people who form communities based on their love for media texts  such as movies, books, music and etc . 

A fandom is different with regular fans, as the shows that they like would define their personality either on a physical form like through clothing or mentally through action or behavior. Some fandoms might even make their own media texts based on their favorite shows, this is usually called fan fictions and people who create them are called PROSUMERS.

Fandoms Summarized: 

Semiotic Productivity: Fans understand the meanings behind the media text. 

Enunciative Productivity: 'fanspeak' Fans sharing  the product to other people, styling the same way as the characters.

Textual Productivity: Prosumers ( fan who makes their own media texts ) content like Fan Fiction.

Disney Fanfics in Wattpad

Stages of Production in a Media Text`

1. Production - When ideas are made, put into practice and shot. This where filming and editing for the film takes place. 
2. Distribution - The time to advertise and share the Media text towards an audience to various means.
3. Exhibition - When the film is shown, usually on Cinemas or Online Streaming applications.

Modern Media 

Thanks to the technological advancements like the Internet, Audiences who are usually only part of the exhibition process of a media text now can be in all three stages of production.

Audiences through their influence Studios on the ideas to put into a film, the characters they want, the plot and etc. This can be done through forums or by forcibly asking a studio to change through dislikes and protest. 

A fandom can also easily be used as free advertisement, as they tend to discuss upcoming products voluntarily to the peers, which can make a film popular very quick. Sharing videos through social media is the best way for this. Example:

In just a month Trailers for the Black Panther 2

 Had reached views up to 30 million in YouTube

 Case Study - James Bond 'No time to die'

The film was released in 30th of September 2021, where it was distributed by Universal pictures and Unified artists releasing. The film was not a major hit amongst fans, as it gained a 7.3 IMDb score and 83% on rotten tomatoes, it had a total box office of $774.2 Million USD.

The film trailer had quite a significant online presence as it had reach views upwards of 25 Million on YouTube ( at the time of writing ), This likely caused by fandoms of the trilogy sharing the trailer to their peers and by making their own speculative videos or reviews of this upcoming. This creates hype and audiences who don't even watch the previous films might considering checking it out.

The two step flow is also used as You can see from above. The popular singer "Billie Eilish" had created a single " No Time to Die" for the film. Automatically fans of Billie would consider watching the film just like that and vice versa.