Recently, given the effort I’ve made setting up research for my book, I’m spent a considerable amount of time networking with academics, and I’m going to begin sending out messages to con heads, industry folk, and other fans. There’s certainly a lot you can do just with Google and an email address!

About the name thing… yeah, it’s still a bit strange for me as well! But when I’ve been sending out emails to network, I have been using a first-name basis. There are certain degrees of politeness for both first names and actual titles (like Professor), of course.

I don’t believe I currently have a methodology planned, but I don’t feel like I need one at the moment. The great thing about the blog is that I can use the format of the essay to explore all the topics I’m interested in until I reach graduate school, where I will of course have to set a methodology in stone for my dissertation.

* I sometimes feel like arguing a similar stance when talking about the “digital native” phenomenon. When I/we/they grow up, I think that most everyone will have gotten used to technology, just because it was such an inherent part of our childhood, unlike adults today who had to integrate it into their lives. Contrary to the generation gap, I think we’ll eventually see a separation of access (and hence digital literacy), perhaps producing our own Internet-related Newtypes.

At the moment, I feel like I’m not trying necessarily to avoid any part of the anime medium, or I suppose the fandom for the matter as well. When I look at anime blogs, I tend to see a lot of focus put on more recent works, and in the key of Anime World Order I’m all for looking at much older stuff and attempting to examine the full spectrum of media available.

I would say that, contrary to his “aca-fandom”, which is rooted in a popular culture that emanated from the society he is living in (the US society), your immersion would be into the world of fans of a popular culture that is imported from abroad, so it isn’t exactly the same as his situation. You are dealing with a world of commercial and artistic contents considered foreign to the society where you are evolving, so I guess that you won’t be going into exactly the same kind of immersion. Or will you also go back to Japan and study the Japanese audiovisual entertainment industry from “inside” the society that it emanated from (keeping in mind that the inside/outside issue is always a difficult one, though)?

By the way, it’s been such a long time since I have heard a student talk about his professor using his first name! ;-) When I came to the US to do my Bachelor, it took me a year before I was able to do that, since I had been so conditioned to talk about my teachers and professors as Mr. or Mrs. “last name”. Moreover, since English doesn’t make a difference between the familiar and the more distant form of “you”, I just had the constant feeling that I was actually being overfamiliar with them.

I’m wondering now – in the process of immersion, how do you plan to distinguish Alex, the researcher, from Alex, the fan? What kind of measures will you take to ensure that you are gaining multiple perspectives and insights, and picking up on all facets of the anime/manga-verse? Do you have a methodology planned, or is “method” a farcical framework that we establish as researchers to give ourselves comfort in a logical process that will produce results?

a) If you encounter an interesting sub-category of fandom, dig deeply into it. Really find out what people are doing and why within super-specific fandom niches.

b) Seek out and learn about anime, manga, and parts of fandom that you would normally avoid (based on your personal preferences/taste). Get a good overview of what other people are into so as to broaden your perspective on fandom. That way, when you have to decide on the specific topic you want to focus on, you’ll be able to make an informed decision, and you’ll be able to talk about things in a broader context.

That said, good luck, and hope to see you at AX this year!