Women as protagonists of Spanish-speaking fanfiction

Abstract

This study addresses how Spanish-speaking women write fanfiction (fiction written by fans of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, film, etc.) in some communities of fans (fandoms). The high number of female writers in fandoms in the media have feminized both the activity of writing fanfiction and the communities of fans itself. The goals of this research are: first, to describe the Spanish-speaking female fanfiction writers. Who are they? Where are they? What do they do? And, secondly, to explain how the predominant topics are making fanfictions and fandoms more feminine. The methodology used is mixed, qualitative and quantitative, trying to find the proper process through the triangulation in the data collection of different primary sources obtained expressly for this research. The quantitative data originates from a survey done with media fans and conceived specifically for this study. The qualitative data comes from personal interviews conducted with content creators of different fandoms. The outcomes show that fanfiction is a place of gathering for minorities who have usually not found themselves represented in media. And that, thanks to fandoms and fanfictions, have created their own communication channels to broadcast stories. In this way, they have achieved feeling represented through a thematic focused, mainly, in interpersonal
relationships.