The second after-lunch presentation as part of the Collaboration 2.0 event for the Convergence Culture Consortium this past Saturday featured Dr. Robert V. Kozinets, who presented some of his research on Star Trek fan communities and how this oft-followed fan community continues to adapt in a convergence culture.
As part of this internal event with the C3 team, corporate partners, and faculty affiliates present, Kozinets' presentation was called "New Voyages and the Paradox of Prosumption."
Kozinets is an Affiliated Faculty member of the Convergence Culture Consortium and an Associate Professor of Marketing at York University's Schulich School of Business in Toronto. His work in the business school there is at the intersection of marketing and anthropology. His understanding of brands draws heavily on the consulting work he has done, advising a variety of companies on their brands, including TV Guide, Pepsi, and IBM.
As is referenced in his C3 bio, Rob has taught courses on entertainment marketing, new product placement, postmodern consumer behavior, and brand management, among others, and his published work focuses on branding, virtual communities, technology consumption, communal markets, and themed retail.
Among Kozinets' work on Star Trek is his 2001 piece for the Journal of Consumer Research, entitled "Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek's Culture of Consumption", a study which focuses on "the cultural and subcultural construction of consumption meanings and practices as they are negotiated from mass media images and objects," based on his field work in Star Trek fandom.
This latest work on Star Trek includes insight on the new fan-produced Star Trek series, entitled Star Trek: New Voyages.
Kozinets currently has a co-edited book coming out soon from Elsevier, entitled Consumer Tribes.
See more about Kozinets' work here and here. He also has a Web site, coming soon.
