The Case Study of Sherlock Holmes (2009) - Scholarly Commons ...

Abercrombie and Longhurst‟s audience continuum (1998) (see Figure 1) as the
foundation for my study in fan cultivation. Their continuum suggests the position of a
fan is relative to their interaction with a text and comparable to the progression of other
positions along a continuum: fan, cultist, enthusiast and petty producer (Abercrombie &
Longhurst, as cited in Sandvoss, 2005). Abercrombie and Longhurst‟s continuum
(1998) coincides with Sandvoss‟s (2005) theory of “difference [by] degree” (p. 30-31)
and Bailey‟s (2005) theory of defining the audience by the degree of media saturation
they encounter. Alongside Abercrombie and Longhurst‟s continuum (1998), I examine
Bourdieu‟s economic class system (as cited in Hills, 2002), in which fans are segregated
according to their text interaction and the power derived from the product they
consume, and investigate the social power struggle between the fan classes: working
class, petit bourgeois, dominated fraction and dominating fraction. I subsequently
research cultivation theory, abiding by Shanahan and Morgan‟s (1999) definition of the
process, and media theorist McLuhan‟s axiom (as cited in Mulder, 2004) that the
“medium is the message” (p. 16). I examine an audience‟s commercial value and its
manipulated responses, coinciding with Mulder‟s (2004) scepticism towards an
audience‟s ability to make authentic and uninfluenced decisions. According to the
theories of Shanahan and Morgan (1999), McLuhan (as cited in Mulder, 2004), Mulder
(2004), and those of Ruddock (2001), Jones (2003), Gray, Sandvoss and Harrington
(2007), and Cavicchi (1998), I discover when a consumer becomes an “ideal consumer”
(Cavicchi, as cited in Hills, 2002, p. 29), in other words, a fan.
In the methodology chapter, I examine and outline the boundaries of my case study and
the concurrent ethnographic journey I undertook, and explore the practical side of
cultivation theory and analysis, alongside planning my model and creative component.
My case study focuses on a viewer‟s response to the movie Sherlock Holmes (2009) and
the subsequent franchise and fandom it is associated with. Before expanding on my
choice of film, I examine and adopt a combination of Stake‟s (as cited in Brewer, 2000)
instrumental and collective case study formats. “Collective cases permit empirical
generalisations, while instrumental ones permit theoretical inference (among other
things)” (Brewer, 2000, p. 77). I then try to align my case study alongside Babbie‟s
researcher intent theory (as cited in Ruddock, 2001), which encourages researchers to
examine the reliability, validity, and generalisability of their methodological planning.
The focus of my case study, Sherlock Holmes (2009), was chosen because of the
various products attached to its related fandom. Considered to be perhaps the “oldest
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