Scholar-fan

Also, I should point out that as a big fan of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s books myself, I am not ‘looking down’ on fans in any way - hence the name ‘scholar-fan‘. Nor am I examining users of fansites and those who contribute in forums and discussion boards as if they were specimens in a zoo. What I am concerned with is what I can learn from monitoring those sites and participants - about how communities are formed, the kinds of issues and debates that are being triggered by the distribution of (and absence of) official studio-released information, as well as unofficial news, rumours and speculation posted by other participants. This leads to the central issue of how we can judge the current relationship between fans and producers through looking at online fan activity with regard to this major upcoming film release.