Australian Researcher Comments on Prohibitive New Law

Academic, Boys' Love / Yaoi Comments (0)

Mark McLelland, an Australian professor whose name is well-known to boys’ love scholars and fans, has written a guest article about the new Australian internet-filter law at fandom researcher Henry Jenkin’s blog, Confessions of an Aca/Fan. Check out McLelland’s article “Will New Law Block Many Slash, Anima, Manga Sites in Australia?” for a criticism of the new legislation and its implications for fans and academics.

McLelland is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wollongong. He’s published numerous papers in the fields of sexuality, fandom, and legal issues, recently guest-editing Intersections’ special issue on Japanese Transnational Fandoms and Female Consumers, which was largely dedicated to boys’ love. In February, his paper  “Australia’s Proposed Internet Filtering System and its Implications for Animation, Comics and Gaming (ACG) and Slash Fan Communities” will be published in Media International Australia.

If you haven’t run across Mark McLelland’s BL-related research yet, a few of his articles listed on our scholarly bibliography at the Yaoi Research Wiki include

• McLelland, Mark. (2000). The Love Between Beautiful Boys in Japanese Women’s Comics, Journal of Gender Studies, 9:1, March 2000, pp. 13-25.

• McLelland, Mark. (2000.) No Climax, No Point, No Meaning? Japanese Women’s Boy Love Sites on the Internet, Journal of Communication Inquiry, 24:3, July 2000, pp. 274-291.

• McLelland, Mark. (2005). The World of Yaoi: The Internet, Censorship and the Global ‘Boy’s Love.’ The Australian Feminist Law Journal, 23, 61-77.

• McLelland, Mark. (2006/2007). “Why are Japanese Girls’ Comics Full of Boys Bonking?” Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, 10.

• McLelland, Mark & Yoo, Seunghyun. (2007). The International Yaoi Boys’ Love Fandom and the Regulation of Virtual Child Pornography: Current Legislation and Its Implications. Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 4(1), 93-104.

Henry Jenkins, who has hosted McLelland’s guest article, is a professor of communication, journalism, and cinematic arts at the University of Southern California (where I earned my Ph.D.!). He studies media spectatorship and participation, with an eye toward where the interests of fans and corporations clash. His many publications include the classic Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture and his two latest, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture.

(Censorship button courtesy of politicalstupidity at Zazzle.)

drupagliassotti @ January 27, 2010