Fans of Q: The Stakes of QAnon’s Functioning as Political Fandom

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110422
Author(s):  
CarrieLynn D. Reinhard ◽  
David Stanley ◽  
Linda Howell
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Driving Mechanism ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Cartoon Characters

Affective activation, and the community engagement it fosters, is the driving mechanism of all fandoms, irrespective of the specific “objects of affection” around which they coalesce. These centralized objects of affection may hail from popular culture, such as in the form of sports teams, television shows, cartoon characters, or musicians. As fan scholars have increasingly recognized, fandoms can also emerge around profit-driven brands, specific politicians, and social movements. Much has been said regarding the dangers of the online conspiracy theory QAnon. However, these warnings have tended to overemphasize the rapidly evolving, amorphous beliefs of its adherents, rather than recognize the affective activation propelling the movement. Through its analysis of affect-driven communities, the field of fan studies can be productively applied to investigate the online discursive activities of QAnon community members. Framing QAnon as a fandom elucidates the functions through which the conspiracy theory radicalizes “normies” by exploiting the types of fan activities already well-established in mainstream fan communities. Underscoring the transferability of fan studies concepts to political movements and communities, this exploration outlines the societal stakes of QAnon’s manipulation and normalization of the toxic emotions cohering its adherents into a fanatic community.

scholarly journals "I'm Buffy, and you're history": Putting fan studies into history

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Reagin ◽  
Anne Rubenstein
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Work Done

This essay kicks off the special historical issue of Transformative Works and Cultures by offering an overview of the ways in which fan communities have been studied by academic historians, and how fan studies has written the history of fan communities. The essay discusses historical work done by amateur fan historians throughout the 20th century; what academic historians can offer fan communities; why academic historians could benefit from studying fandoms as part of the history of popular culture; and what fan studies as a discipline might gain from a broader historical analysis of fandoms.

"They're Freaks!": The Cult Stereotype in Fictional Television Shows, 1958––2008

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 81-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn S. Neal
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Culture Form ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Present Context

This article analyzes the stereotypical portrayal of cults on fictional television shows and demonstrates the vital role that this popular culture form plays in the dissemination of anticult ideology. Through an in-depth examination of five episodes that aired between 1998 and 2008, it delineates how these shows employed stereotypical cult elements, such as fraud and violence, as well as contrasts in clothing, setting, and lifestyle to differentiate conventional religion from the dangers and delusions of cults. Further, the article reveals how usage of the cult concept is not limited to the present context and documents the historical pervasiveness of the cult stereotype on television since 1958. By highlighting these patterns, this study shows the power and implications of the cult stereotype. It illuminates how these television shows constitute a powerful force in defining and policing the boundaries of religious legitimacy in American culture.

scholarly journals DISCURSIVE LANGUAGE PERSONALITY OF VIRTUAL FAN COMMUNITY MEMBERS

2017 ◽  
pp. 191-196
Author(s):  
Z. I. Rezanova ◽  
Yu. K. Skripko
Keyword(s):  
Communication Process ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Specific Character ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Metal Music ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Content Analysis Method ◽  
The Given

The given article provides an analysis of collective discursive personalities of members of Internet fan communities which are devoted to performers working in two different music styles – pop and metal. Such kind of communicative interaction forms a unique discourse – the discourse of music fan Internet community which combines features of both subcultural group discourse (as the reason which led to the formation of the very fan community) and Internet discourse itself (as the environment for the given discourse). Through the use of content analysis method the authors find out both typical and specific psychological and cognitive features which fan community members implement during communication in the given discourse. These features include different ways of perception (visual vs. audial), major mindsets, emotionality level, etc. The main way of perception which is represented in the texts of conversations between pop music fan community members turns to be a visual one, while metal music fans are likely to have the audial way of perception as a major one. In the given discourse these features are represented by word groups of different perception semantics which are used by community members and belong to different parts of speech. The analysis of conversations in both fan groups demonstrates that concrete thinking could be characterized as a main way of thinking for fans of two aforementioned music styles. It is represented within the vocabulary and grammatical features used. Conversations between music fans of both types could be also characterized by a heightened emotionality level which directly depends on the specific character of music fanaticism. This specific character is based on over-positive attitude to favourite artists. The special attention is given to the system of language means which help to form general emotional background during communication process.

scholarly journals Fan-ning the flame

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Aviva Dove-Viebahn
Keyword(s):  
Character Development ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Main Text ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Cable Channel ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Lesbian Couple ◽  
Cult Television ◽  
Historical Antecedents

While promoting recent seasons of supernatural Western horror series Wynonna Earp (2016), cable channel Syfy released several fan-style videos championing the show’s resident lesbian couple: the protagonist’s sister, Waverly, and police officer Nicole Haught (celebrated via the portmanteau “WayHaught”). In 2019, a network “shipping” its own queer characters in service of fans contrasts starkly with the televisual landscape twenty, or even ten, years prior, when viewers invested in lesbian characters and/or same-sex couples relied on subtext and fan paratexts to fuel their enthusiasm for mostly unacknowledged or thwarted relationships between female characters. In this article, I engage in a two-part interrogation of the representation of lesbian romance on cult television shows in the last twenty-five years, with a focus on Wynonna Earp and its historical antecedents—supernatural, sci-fi, and fantasy shows featuring women and their female companion(s) (whether close friends or lovers). This includes a historiography of the development of lesbian fan communities around certain shows from the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as an analysis of the narrative stakes and character development in both historical and contemporary shows, like Earp, in order to interrogate their representations of subtext or main text romantic pairings.

Children’s game-day experiences and effects of community groups

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Rose Nakamoto Reifurth ◽  
Matthew J. Bernthal ◽  
Bob Heere
Keyword(s):  
Sport Management ◽  
Distinct Group ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Community Membership ◽  
Sport Team ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Sport Teams

Purpose Sport management research that examines children as a distinct group of sport consumers is sparse, and therefore the authors know relatively little about how and why children become fans of sport teams. The purpose of this paper is to explore the game-day experiences of children in order to better understand how these experiences allow children to socialize into the team community and become fans of the team. Design/methodology/approach The authors examine this through exploratory observational analysis and 26 semi-structured interviews with children at professional sporting events. Findings Among the results, it was found that children primarily focus on exploring ways to build membership in the fan community as opposed to initially building connections to the team itself. In addition, those children that watched the games with their peers demonstrated greater in-game emotional responses than those children that viewed the game with family. Research limitations/implications This study provides support for the importance of community membership in the initial stages of sport team fandom as well as the varying effects of different groups within fan communities on child fans. However, further research is needed to increase the generalizability of the results. Practical implications It is recommended that sport teams increasingly target groups that will bring children to games with their peers in order to enhance their game experience and increase their socialization into fandom. Originality/value This paper is one of the first in sport management to directly look to better understand children and the ways in which they become fans of sports teams.

Muslim Girlhood, Skam Fandom, and DIY Citizenship

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-62
Author(s):  
Briony Hannell
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Minority Youth ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Girlhood Studies ◽  
Popular Representations ◽  
Poststructural Analysis ◽  
Muslim Girls

While fandom is a dominant girlhood trope, few accounts examine faith in the context of girls’ fandom. Addressing this gap, using a feminist poststructural analysis, I draw on interviews and participant observation to locate fan communities as a space in which Muslim girls can enact citizenship. Combining youth cultural studies, girlhood studies, and fan studies, I explore how Muslim fangirls of the Norwegian teen web-drama Skam (2015–2017) draw on their desire for recognition and their creativity as cultural producers to engage in participatory storytelling that challenges popular representations of Muslim girls. This process enables the production of communities rooted in shared interests, experiences, and identities. I suggest that fandom should be recognized for its capacity to generate new meanings of citizenship for minority youth.

Displaying Race for Dollars: Racial Realism in Media and Entertainment

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Skrentny
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Professional Sports ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Financing ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
The Public ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Employment Sector ◽  
Racial Realism

This chapter explores racial realism in the advertising and entertainment industries (movies, TV, and professional sports). These cases are distinctive because they are almost totally focused on racial signaling—the image of the worker is very much the product that the employers are selling. Racial signaling is thus common in all of them, though rarer in sports than the other sectors, especially in the last few decades. Hence, the chapter shows that civil rights law does not authorize these practices. It also examines the possibility that television shows' dependence on use of federally regulated airwaves, and sports teams' dependence on the public financing of stadiums might provide legal openings for racial realism in these sectors. Since this employment sector is about expression, this chapter also explores possible First Amendment defenses for these employers, and shows that at least one court has found a constitutionally protected freedom to discriminate.

Imagining the Mulatta

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Culture Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Political Events ◽  
And Gender

Imagining the Mulatta: Blackness in U.S. and Brazilian Media demonstrates how mixed-race women of African and European descent are harnessed in popular media as a tool to uphold white supremacy and discipline people of African descent to uphold state policies of antiblackness. Uncovering the racialized and gendered paradigms of U.S. and Brazilian media, the book uses case studies of texts from a broad range of popular culture media—film, telenovelas, television shows, music videos, magazines, newspapers, and Olympic ceremonies—to elucidate how the U.S. mulatta and Brazilian mulata figures operates within and across the United States and Brazil as a response to racial anxieties and notions of white superiority. These shared concepts of race, gender, and sexuality crystallize in the mulatta/mulata figure as representative of interlinked racial projects in Brazil and the United States. Focusing on popular culture and political events of the 2000s, the book demonstrates how the mulatta and mulata figures facilitated multicultural and postracial discourses. Exploring representations, definitions, and meanings of blackness in the context of the Americas, the book traverses the cultural conditions of racializations in the United States alongside Brazil to unveil the workings of pervasive racial and gender inequalities.

10. The letterless canon

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-111
Author(s):  
Ilan Stavans
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Jewish Literature ◽  
Comic Strips ◽  
Stand Up Comedy ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Comedy Film ◽  
Film Scripts ◽  
The Way

“The letterless canon” argues that Jewish literature from the mid-twentieth century onward is not restricted to fiction, poetry, and theater. The book as a tool for the dissemination of knowledge has undergone a metamorphosis. Along the way, the border between high-brow and popular culture has been erased. Comic strips like Superman and graphic novels can be viewed as literary artifacts. Indeed we should consider the work of Will Eisner (A Contract with God), Art Spiegelman (Maus), and Alison Bechdel (Fun House), each of whom offers different contributions. There is also the matter of stand-up comedy, film scripts, and television shows which examine, from a Jewish perspective, gender, racial, and class issues.

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