Study of Digital Skills in Spanish Fans

Abstract

There are several studies nowadays that address the analysis of participatory cultures and, more specifically, the fan audience of movies or television series. Henry Jenkins, moving away from the stereotype of brainless consumers and social misfits who dedicate their lives to developing “useless knowledge,” marks a turning point by suggesting a fan profile that corresponds to educated people. From this moment, fan studies are living their golden age with different researchers or aca-fans who study and analyze the phenomenon in their different countries of origin. The general objective of this research is to take an x-ray, study and describe the Spanish fan audience regarding their digital skills. There are also two secondary objectives: to make a comparison between fan audience and non-fan audience according to their digital skills and to analyze the correlation degree between the level of digital skills of the fan audience and the number of series and movies of which they consider themselves to be fans. To address these objectives, an ad hoc online questionnaire was administered, involving 1003 audiovisual fiction consumers, whose data were analyzed using a quantitative methodology. Descriptive and comparative analyzes allowed us to conclude that, first of all, the practice that fan audience control is the search for information. Second, the fan audience has greater digital skills than nonfan audience. And, finally, that the level of skills in the content interaction and editing elements in fans is directly proportional to the number of products of which the audience consider themselves to be fans.