From Comic-Con to Amazon: Fan conventions and digital platforms

Area of Science:

• Media Studies
• Cultural Sociology
• Digital Humanities

Background:

• San Diego Comic-Con serves as a critical nexus between media industries and fan communities.
• The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a rapid shift to digital platforms, termed 'platformization'.
• Existing research explores fan conventions, media industries, and the platformization of cultural production.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the online 2020 Comic-Con (Comic-Con@Home) as a case study of platformization.
• To investigate how pre-existing platform-like structures within conventions facilitated this digital shift.
• To understand the reconfiguration of relationships between fan conventions, cultural producers, and digital platforms.

Main Methods:

• Analysis informed by scholarship on fan conventions, media industries, and cultural platformization.
• Examination of the 2020 Comic-Con@Home, including specific platform activations like Amazon's Virtual-Con.
• Comparative approach considering pre-pandemic convention structures and online adaptations.

Main Results:

• San Diego Comic-Con exhibited inherent platform-like characteristics prior to the pandemic.
• Conventions function as organized markets and infrastructures, integrating attendees, industries, and complementors.
• Platform logics, such as experiential marketing and data capture, were already influencing convention operations.

Conclusions:

• The shift to Comic-Con@Home was not a radical departure but an acceleration of existing trends.
• The convention's inherent platform-like nature facilitated its move to digital environments.
• This digital transition signifies an ongoing reconfiguration of interactions between fan conventions, cultural producers, and digital platforms.