Fan participation in Star Wars takes many forms online and offline. On YouTube and forums, fans analyze every plot element and character in detail, inspiring discussions and theories. Blogs are dedicated to minor Star Wars elements. Cultural competence in Star Wars requires understanding fictional terminology like "Jedi" and "lightsaber" as well as symbolic meanings like the color of lightsabers. Fan culture goes further by creating new Star Wars stories, games, and graphics that expand the universe beyond the films within copyright.

1. Task 4 – Star Wars
Participatory
Fan participation in their favorite media forms has been on going since the
beginning of story telling. People have always taken great interest in things that
we enjoy, storytelling is a way of relaxation and we therefore enjoy participation.
Technology has advances to allow easy communication between people of
similar interests. The biggest of which being the internet. However older
participation methods are still used by some, book groups and general
discussion in person. Audience participation is not limited to only storytelling.
Audiences can get involved with news stories and live events. Televised events
can now be followed live on social media. Twitter has a feature that allows
people all around the world to get in touch with each other using a tagging
system. For example music festivals such as T In The Park are filmed live and
then people will comment thoughts about the event. There will be spikes in the
amount of activity on twitter according to big events unfolding onscreen.
Star Wars is a perfect example of how people will really get involved in a form of
media. There is an enormous cult following behind the original films. This has
inspired a way of life for some. The easiest way to find an expansive presence of
fan participation in Star Wars is on Youtube. People will analysis every plot
element in exceptional detail. This will inspire discussion and theorys about the
polt and characters, maybe even subliminal or symbolic meanings within the star
wars world. This is an entirely active audience. The idea is to express views of
their own, the internet has allowed mass following to flourish. Blogs are
dedicated to seemingly minor elements of the star wars world. Wikipedia pages,
sharing and discussion and social media, podcasts and as I have talked about
video blogs are all several forms of participation that exist in the stars wars fan
base. On forums there are back and forth arguments discussing counter views
that enhance the discussion and possibilities with in the world.
Cultural Competence
Cultural Competence is the ability to understand meanings behind things that
can be interpreted wrong if you are an outsider to that culture. The “things” that
I mentioned are usually a form of language although it can also be the
significance of a certain item or event. As a very easy to understand level
someone who was born in Britain is unlikely to be able to read and decipher
Arabic text. This is because the symbols are meaningless without training.
However to someone who is competent in that culture it has a clear and
understandable meaning. This cultural exclusivity extends into forms of media. If
someone was entirely new to business they would not be able to fully
understand the significance of certain words as there is a degree of previous
understanding required. For example “paradigm” which is defined as “a typical
example or pattern of something; a pattern or model” is a word that is not used
outside of business.

2. This translates into Star Wars nicely. Star Wars exists in a fictional universe,
which means that there is a large amount of fictional terminology and names for
elements of the world. For example the words “Jedi”, “Lightsaber” and
“Deathstar” are all words that have been created for the Star Wars films. To
understand what these words mean you are required to have a certain degree of
cultural competence about the Star Wars films. Going deeper into the exclusive
star wars terminology, you will find words which are understood by less people.
For example “Clone Wars” this refers to an event that happens in the films,
although people disconnected with star wars are unlikely to understand which
war it is or why it matters. It is not only language that separates those who know
the culture and those who don’t. There is meaning behind colour in star wars.
The sith are presented as the antagonists and are seen to be evil they will wear
black clothing. But more significantly they always fight with a red lightsaber in
contrast the jedi who are presented as good will fight with green or blue
lightsabers. They also do not wear black robes.
People can also participate in star was at a more social level. Events such as
ComiCon provides the opportunity to meet and discuss the franchise with people
that are actually involved in the creation of the films. Directors, producers and
actors form a panel that will accept questions from the audience.
Fan culture
The difference between fan culture and fan participation is that fan culture
directly creates content for the culture they are invested in. People create
additional content surrounding cultures they love. This can come in the form of
alternate endings, new episodes, things they which to happen, anything that
creates new content. A good example I can think of is in Game of Thrones. Game
of Thrones, the TV series, is based off a series of books. The books have been
written to a very high level of detail of world building. There is a past event that
is talked about in the TV show and Book. A fan has recreated the event that is
described (in detail) in the book and recreated it as an episode of the show. This
kind of content is at risk of breaching copyright laws unfortunately.
Star Wars’ mass following have drawn together skilled writers to create a series
of stories and historic events surrounding the films. This has become known as
“the expanded universe” meaning that these stories have been made using the
films as foundations to flesh out the lore and character backstories to the same
level are a long series of books. This kind of information and is not possible to be
expressed within the time frame of a saga of films. This expanded universe has
produced some really popular ideas that have been able to make it into the
newer films. George Lucas has taken characters from the expanded universe and
included them in the “prequel” films. Star wars fans that have been able to write
their own stories have bought the right to do so and expressed their vision in
other forms other than films. For example there is a long list of star wars games
and TV shows that have been written by fans (or not by the original writers of
the star wars stories). Creations made by fans are not necessarily in the form of
additions to the story. For example websites such as RedBubble.com allows fans
to make graphics and sell them printed on merchandise.