Review: Johanna Mutzl (2005). "Die Macht von Dreien ..." Medienhexen und moderne Fangemeinschaften. Bedeutungskonstruktionen im Internet ["Three's Power"—Media Witches and Modern Fan Communities. The Construction of Meaning on the Internet]

Abstract

Johanna MUTZL's study is concerned with the construction of meaning on the Internet amongst fans of the TV series Charmed. Conducted in both German and English, the study is based on a discourse and genre analysis, an e-mail questionnaire, and a grounded theory evaluation of over 200 fan sites. The study persuasively demonstrates how the Internet has contributed to the development of new means of production and distribution as well as the formation of creative communities. According to this study, fans derive personal relevance for their own, daily experience from media images of womanhood and witchcraft. Constructing personally relevant discourses, their productivity is setting up new (discursive) spaces on fan pages and social communication networks on the Internet. MUTZL describes these as "fan spaces", in reference to Doreen MASSEY (1994), whose approach she has elaborated into her own three-pronged model. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0602287