(click title above to visit Lucasarts.com)
1) Technology has closed the division between folk culture and commercial or mass culture and has made folk culture thrive because it has been given a system for it to be dispersed to many more people in many more modes. I too see that the modern mass/commercial media draws upon folk culture and included it in the participatory culture that has meshed with mass/commercial culture.
(2) Japanese media companies work with anime fans through collaboration with fan clubs and considering them allies in creating new content. Hummm - what a novel idea!
3) Lucas and Lucas Arts have tried to deal with fan fiction by creating an official Star Wars competition where Lucas himself chooses the winner, opened a space for fans to express themselves with the knowledge that what they created would become the property of Lucas/studio. Lucas enjoys fan participation and can see how it might benefit him/his company with "free publicity," but is also concerned about content and wants some control over what is published on the web including but not limited to any kind of sexual or immoral information that might be illegally associated with him and his work.
Lucasarts.com. (2009). Lucas arts logo [screen shot]. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from http://www.lucasarts.com/
Jenkins. H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. NY: New York University Press.
It's a struggle to protect one's intellectual property (IP) and balance that with the enthusiasm of fans so in love with the story that they want to create their own branches to the narrative. Lucas has done a pretty good job of this.
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