My thesis questions traverse the fields of law and textual studies. Fan fiction is an accelerating phenomenon which could represent an ideal new model for textual production, identity politics, and youth empowerment. This thesis is concerned with the restrictions placed on fan creativity by regulative corporate interests and interference from copyright-holders. The question which significantly drives my research is: how does regulation and self-moderation affect the fan’s ability to create and participate in fan practices? This question is supplemented by three sub-questions:

1.    In the digital age, what is the new role of the fan (and the author) in relation to the text--specifically, how are fans appropriating media consumption, theorization, accessibility, and production to their own means--and how does copyright law seek to inhibit this?

2.    How do Fanfiction.net users moderate their content, themselves and each other?

3.    How does a sense of community within online literary sub-cultures affect textual production, digital enterprise and other fan activities?

This thesis therefore renegotiates the often negative attitudes and perceptions of fans and their opinions concerning authorship and ownership. Fans’ detailed knowledge of and commitment to a program can exceed even that of the program’s producers. Given the amount of academic attention afforded to new revolutionary movements in media theory, such as participatory culture and gift culture, fan culture has come to represent an astounding wealth of cultural knowledge and a rising social status. This thesis seeks to question the legal responsibilities of media producers and consumers, and theories of intentional fallacy and the process of meaning-making by challenging hegemonic and culturally accepted positions of epistemological power. It asks: what has the role of the author and the reader become in modern times? Specifically, how do fans negotiate relationships to popular texts? Is a creative market in which fans are restricted to non-profit and small-scale endeavours sustainable?