Film and Media Merchandising in the Eye of the Fan Historian: Practices, Objects, Media

Abstract

The fan practice of collecting film and media merchandise is a growing field of investigation in media studies. However, the focus of these studies has primarily been on the questions of why and how fans collect the material culture of cinema and television. The question of how they use their collections to produce film and media merchandise history and to disseminate their findings to the public has found considerably less attention. Through the textual analysis of fan-made histories of the Star Wars franchise, as this chapter demonstrates, fans are active and creative participants in collecting, preserving, restoring, and disseminating materials from the past and in transforming these materials into print and online publications, podcasts, video tutorials, documentaries, and museum exhibitions.