'Oh brave new world with such people in it': Shakespeare films and World Wide Web fan communities.

摘要

This thesis explores non-academic audiences' response to film representations of Shakespeare's works. Media fan communities, cyber communities and culture, audience reception, cultural studies, film production and literary criticism are all explored in this analysis of audience response and interaction. Viewers' responses to Shakespeare films are posted on World Wide Web (web or WWW) communities, whereby film and Shakespeare fans share commentary on and about Shakespeare film productions. Web community membership, often disparate in its hierarchal composition of Shakespeare literates and neo-fans, participate in knowledge sharing practices, invoking Bourdieu's notions of cultural capital and Huysman's presumptions of social capital. Though critically overlooked, Shakespeare film fan communities on the WWW participate in a pedagogic-didactical practice of understanding, and interpreting, Shakespeare seldom seen outside the classroom as they partake in edifying discourses whereby Shakespeare, and Shakespeare films, are scrutinized. In short, Shakespeare films extend beyond the typical cinematic experience of popular entertainment for many audience members whose expressed views indicate participation in a cultural edification/enrichment of sorts. As such, Shakespeare films coupled with the WWW as locus for audience response and (re)creativity assemble the groundwork for compelling cultural research and relevance in twenty-first century Shakespeare studies.