Bronies learning English in the digital wild
This article reports on fan practices, in English, among an international community of bronies—adult fans of the animated cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP). Originally directed at a target audience of young girls, MLP has become popular among men. These older male fans have been extr...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2019 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya) |
| Repositorio: | Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:recercat.cat:10230/37119 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10230/37119 http://dx.doi.org/10125/44676 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Fandom Collaborative learning Digital ethnography New literacies |
| Sumario: | This article reports on fan practices, in English, among an international community of bronies—adult fans of the animated cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP). Originally directed at a target audience of young girls, MLP has become popular among men. These older male fans have been extremely active in producing multimodal and plurilingual fan practices. We explore how two different groups of bronies—one in Russia and the other in Spain—carry out fan practices in English. Applying digital ethnography, we describe six different cases of adult MLP fans. They both consume and create products such as fanfiction, translations, and fandubbing in different contexts with the use of sophisticated technologies. Not only do fandom practices allow these fans to develop digital identities and reach new audiences, they also help them to improve their English language skills—a task at which they reveal themselves to be both autonomous and self-critical. Regarding translation practices, we note several instances of bronies receiving mentoring from fellow fans who have a higher level of English. Finally, this article points out how, in the process of adapting their written output for global readerships, bronies can acquire some important transcultural skills. |
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