See that’s the thing is I come from a black feminist and an ethnographic perspective where the goal is to embrace and push into the bias, not to attempt objectivity which is ultimately a doomed project. IMHO fandom studies can use science but it’s not science. It’s cultural studies.
I guess I might go as far as to say that what Em is describing as fan studies here is a bit of a misnomer bc most of us aren’t interested in making broad statements about an entire fandom. That would be more audience studies at least as a Henry Jenkins adviser that’s how I’d put it.
As much as it's wading into dangerous territory, I don't honestly believe that including lived experience (personal or while studying a group) is necessarily "not science." If there's an honest record of what's occurring, and individuals are critical of claimed truth, it's still science.
Coming from the Clin Research side (past tense), and especially the Reg/QA end where ethics and safety are on the extremes of testing for bias and error, we still relied on ethnographic studies where more "objective" data simply wasn't available. If anything, that's fundamental to the field.
But, if you happen to have some primer material that's open access, I'd absolutely love to read up on the topic (no rush or pressure, lord knows academics need less pressure every day, and especially on the weekend). And also, an obligatory "Damn you autocorrect!"
To be clear, I’m responding originally to Gena’s post about work that *deviates* from the sound practice of very focusing on very specific case studies. My original point (pre-caffeine) was to point to the methodological challenge of trying to say something confidently about audience writ large.
I corrected that to advisee* twice and it still wound up wrong. :/