The goal of this book is to take the vid seriously as a form in its own right, with its own formal history and aesthetic strategies. Accordingly, I have approached vids primarily through textual analysis, as is conventional for a study largely grounded in television studies. I began my research by viewing vids of all genres and made out of diverse source material: from television, film, and other visual sources. To this end, I accessed digital files streamed online, my personal collection of vid files, vidshows (screenings) at vidding-focused fan conventions, and DVD compilations of vids included in convention memberships and sold by individual vidders. I estimate that I have watched at least 2,000 unique vids in the course of my research. I did not undertake formal structured interviews, nor did I circulate surveys or otherwise attempt a comprehensive audience study. Instead, I attended these events as a fan and as a researcher, freely disclosing my academic purposes and participating in convention panel discussions to share my work. I acknowledge the limitations of this approach, which gives preference to the media form. I also acknowledge the limitations of the study in terms of geography and race. My experience of fanworks and fan spaces (both online and offline) as well as the critical work on fans and fandoms that informs this research is Anglo-American, predominantly white, female-dominated, and exclusively focused on the English language.

Television studies is an appropriate frame for studying the vid form, as the discipline offers ways of thinking about mode of address, sequential narratives, and the textuality of video forms.