Abstract
The value of a new toy lies not in its material qualities (not “having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle,”) the Skin Horse explains [to the Velveteen Rabbit], but rather in how the toy is used…. The Skin Horse emphasizes, not the deterioration of the original but rather the new meanings that get attached to it and the relationship into which it is inserted. (Jenkins, 1992, p. 50) The cultural scholar Henry Jenkins uses material from a book media commercial product-The Velveteen Rabbit (Williams, 1975)- to help explain how Star Trek fans use material from a loved television series for social connection and symbolic activity. Fans talk about, enact, and recreate that old show, even merging bits of its symbolic stuffwith other media fare. As the Star Trek shows fragment, get reworked, become almost unrecognizable, they grow in meaningfulness; that is, they become the “real” stuffof collective meaning-making-of popular culture.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts |
| Subtitle of host publication | Volume II |
| Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
| Pages | 461-469 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Volume | 2 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781317639701 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780805856996 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2015 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Social Sciences
- General Arts and Humanities