Fangirls as teachers: examining pedagogic discourse in an online fan site.

Videogames, such asThe Sims, are a digital media passion drawing adolescents to online spaces where they create and share content. This article explores how discourses and expectations are taught in one online, videogame-related fan site of adolescents who read and writeSimsfan fiction. Using Bernstein's pedagogic discourse theory, data from a 2-year virtual ethnography are analyzed to study pedagogic interactions between moderators and members withinThe Sims Writers' Hangout, an online discussion forum. Findings point to the dominance of regulative discourse and how discourses relocated from other media sites serve as pedagogic discourse in this informal digital literacy learning space. This article contributes to our understanding of digital literacy and learning in online environments by focusing on the pedagogy used to teach expectations. The analysis also points to the utility of Bernstein's theory for studying informal online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]