LEGOfied: Building Blocks as Media - Softcover

Nicholas Taylor And Chris Ingraham

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501365053 ISBN 13: 9781501365058

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020

Synopsis

LEGOfied: Building Blocks as Media offers a multi-faceted exploration of LEGO fandom, addressing a blindspot in current accounts of LEGO and an emerging area of interest to media scholars: namely, the role of hobbyist enthusiasts and content producers in LEGOs emergence as a ubiquitous transmedia franchise. This book examines a range of LEGO hobbyism and their attendant forms of mediated self-expression and identity (their technicities): artists, aspiring Master Builders, collectors, and entrepreneurs who refashion LEGO bricks into new commodities (sets, tchotchkes, and minifigures). The practices and perspectives that constitute this diverse scene lie at the intersection of multiple transformations in contemporary culture, including the shifting relationships between culture industries and the audiences that form their most ardent consumer base, but also the emerging forms of entrepreneurialism, professionalization, and globalization that characterize the burgeoning DIY movement. The major aim of this edited volume, and what makes it a compelling project for media scholars, is its rigorous, mutli-dimensional articulation of how LEGO functions not just as toy, as cultural icon, or as transmedia franchise, but as a media platform. LEGOfied is centered around their shared experiences, qualitative observations, and semi-structured interviews at a number of LEGO hobbyist conventions. Working outwards from these conventions, each chapter of the book engages additional modes of inquiry -- media archaeology, aesthetics, posthumanist philosophy, feminist media studies, and science and technology studies -- to explore the origins, permutations and implications of different aspects of the contemporary LEGO fandom scene.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Nicholas Taylor applies critical, feminist and posthumanist perspectives to experimental and mixed methods research with digital gaming communities. In particular, he is interested in the intersections of subjectivity, communicative practice, technologies and games, as enacted through both game production and play across a variety of contexts.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501365053
• ISBN 13: 9781501365058
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208
• Editor: Nicholas Taylor And Chris Ingraham