I’ve recently started the process to join a guild for Star Wars: The Old Republic and have begun to wonder about how the fictional universe’s basic structure lends itself to fans developing ideas regarding political participation. Beyond the simple binary of the Republic/Empire, I am interested to see how fans talk about political values and ideals. While much of this discussion has already taken place around published media, I am interested to see how the introduction of an MMO during the Old Republic period will allow discourse that differs from Star Wars Galaxies. I think it will be interesting to see how the forums develop over the next 10 months as the game leads up to launch. In that vein, here are some of the things that I’ve been thinking about lately.
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Participatory Fandom
Teaching Old Brands New Tricks
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4192
I’ve also including some of the readings that I used for a recent paper on Invisible Children.
Alice James and the Spectacle of Sympathy
Examining Social Resistance and Online-Offline Relationships
Muscular Christianity and the Spectacle of Conversion
