Full Description
LEGOfied: Building Blocks as Media provides 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 LEGO's 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.
What makes this a compelling project for media scholars is its mutli-dimensional articulation of how LEGO functions not just as a toy, 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 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.
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Introduction: Clickable Media in a Plastic World
Nick Taylor, North Carolina State University, USA, and Chris Ingraham, University of Utah, USA
Chapter One: Palpable Pixels
Kate Maddalena, William Peace University, USA
Chapter Two: The Aesthetic Work of LEGO
Eddie Lohmeyer, University of Central Florida, USA
Chapter Three: Band of Builders
Jessica Elam, Berklee College of Music, USA
Chapter Four: Re-assembling Gender
Sarah Evans, Molloy College, USA
Chapter Five: Fake Plastic Trees
Chris Ingraham, University of Utah, USA
Chapter Six: Purity and the Boundaries of Belonging
Nick Taylor, North Carolina State University, USA
List of Contributors
Index
