TY - JOUR
T1 - Historical Inquiry in an Informal Fan Community
T2 - Online Source Usage and the TV Show The Tudors
AU - Matthews, Jolie Christine
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (REC-238524, REC-354453, Co-PI Brigid Barron) through the LIFE center (http://life-slc.org/). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsoring agencies. This work was also supported by a generous grant from the Wallenberg Foundation Media Places program (Sam Wineburg, PI). Any errors that remain, however, are the sole responsibility of the author.
Publisher Copyright:
© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
PY - 2016/1/2
Y1 - 2016/1/2
N2 - This article examines an informal online community dedicated to The Tudors, a historical television show, and the ways in which its members engaged with a variety of sources in their discussions of the drama’s real-life past. Data were collected over a 5-month period. The analysis included the types of sources used in conversation; members’ purpose for invoking and reaction to sources; as well as topic, participation, and response patterns in the discussion forum. The community is a space in which popular culture and the discipline of history meet. Members come together because of a fictional depiction of the past, yet a desire to corroborate, clarify, contextualize, or uncover what really happened leads users to participate in detective-like inquiry work and the learning of new topics they had not previously considered. Members also challenge and critique one another’s positions and the sources other members invoke in multiple ways, including by using more formal disciplinary heuristics in this informal setting. Key differences emerge in members’ purpose for invoking sources, with popular media used more frequently for illustrating a point or asking a question and nonfiction works most invoked to support and argue historical claims.
AB - This article examines an informal online community dedicated to The Tudors, a historical television show, and the ways in which its members engaged with a variety of sources in their discussions of the drama’s real-life past. Data were collected over a 5-month period. The analysis included the types of sources used in conversation; members’ purpose for invoking and reaction to sources; as well as topic, participation, and response patterns in the discussion forum. The community is a space in which popular culture and the discipline of history meet. Members come together because of a fictional depiction of the past, yet a desire to corroborate, clarify, contextualize, or uncover what really happened leads users to participate in detective-like inquiry work and the learning of new topics they had not previously considered. Members also challenge and critique one another’s positions and the sources other members invoke in multiple ways, including by using more formal disciplinary heuristics in this informal setting. Key differences emerge in members’ purpose for invoking sources, with popular media used more frequently for illustrating a point or asking a question and nonfiction works most invoked to support and argue historical claims.
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U2 - 10.1080/10508406.2015.1112285
DO - 10.1080/10508406.2015.1112285
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84958122552
SN - 1050-8406
VL - 25
SP - 4
EP - 50
JO - Journal of the Learning Sciences
JF - Journal of the Learning Sciences
IS - 1
ER -