Fan engagement is a method to draw
in people into what is being produced.
Once the fan becomes hooked on something they will in turn spread the
word to others and the fan base will increase.
Getting people engaged produces a want for something and this brings in
revenue. This is the way the media
companies make their money. Some fans
can overdue something they like which might make their passion more marketable
in regards to making a living off something they help create for example, in
Social Media Reader a person by the name of Rubio was able to land a job
working for George Lucas because of the ideas Rubio borrowed from him. In away Fan engagement is a good. Ideas and creativity along with new actors
are being born and people have opportunities to share those ideas with the
world based from other people.
In an earlier assignment we
discussed piracy and how it was wrong and right. While I only saw the wrong side of piracy and
believed that the creators of the work were against it, I was wrong. In the Spreadable
Media book Javier Grillo-Marxuach said he did not mind the piracy much
because either way this was a form of getting people to talk about the show and
people talking about the show meant that they would buy the DVDs, and
eventually someone watching the pirated copy would buy some form of merchandise
(p.114). I never really thought about
piracy in this aspect and it made me realize that this statement is true. When I was deployed to Iraq I purchased a version
of the television series Friends. That
version was not the Hollywood version but a pirated version just like the book
mentions about some companies not being able to provide showings in different
countries. However viewers had heard of
the shows and wanted to watch them anyways.
While the episodes were in good condition, some of the episodes were
left out. This led me to buying the entire
series, which turned out to be a profit for that company. So even though some TV shows get cancelled
due to lack of legal viewers, they may still profit from the people pirating
because these people will spread the word and the profits will be made back
from merchandise and the legal purchases of the series.
Fan engagement also allows for
further creativity to take place and for people to get recognized by
others. For example, the Batdad on
YouTube, everyone knows him from word of mouth.
He probably started out doing those videos to entertain himself and his
kids and now he has had over 3,405,173 views on a compilation video. The relation he makes with his family and
connected it the viewers are why he has a high viewer rating. Unlike the Star Wars video you can tell it was
low budget but the creator still portrayed with some accuracy of some of the
scenes. However the creator did relate
it to anyone only the actual Hollywood version of Star Wars.
One of the main problems the
television companies have had is getting people to be engaged. The reason for this is because the audience
is virtually invisible to them and they acquire their ratings from a turned on
TV set. This does not necessarily mean
the audience is engaged and watching the show.
The television could just be on and if the audience is not actively
engaged and watching the show, they may lose rating for the next episode. The original creators of the films or movies
understood this problem of viewers not watching their shows and so they
partnered with other media companies in order to make viewing a more
pleasurable experience for the viewers.
Manufactures began to make video machines, which allowed for people to
set up a time for them to record their shows while they where at work or away
from where they couldn’t watch it. Then,
DVR came out and people where able to record multiple shows at once. The problem was fixed viewers were not trying
to steal the copyrighted information and everyone who had the capability to
record something did it.
Also, piracy led to companies taken
a more drastic measure. Companies did
not want their ideas out without any compensation. So they started to market themselves on items
everybody uses. This created a fan base
that was bigger than the previous and allowed for word to spread about the
company and what they produce. Marketing
strategies were tailored this way for the communication purpose. People communicate better without words when
they display what they like and what influence them. This allowed for the revenues to come back up
for the companies and allowed for some shows that were previous canceled due to
illegal downloading of them to be able to be put on air again.
Companies would not be able
influence very much without the fan engagement.
What we see as bad such as pirating certain shows and music also had a
positive to companies and shaped the way we are today with the advertisements
on clothing items as a possible solution.
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