scholarly journals Fan Culture with Chinese Characteristics: Participatory Engagement in the Web 2.0 Era

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bo Wang

<p>This thesis is centred on participatory fan culture in Chinese social media. It investigates how fans gather through social networks, how they produce creative work, and how they use different platforms to circulate their favourite media and fannish texts. By constructing, reshaping and spreading meanings through participatory practices, fans create their own cultures and gradually develop their own discourses. My theoretical approach can be classified as cultural discourse analysis (Carbaugh,2007; Scollo,2011), and I adopted the snowball sampling method to find interviewees and fan communities in which I have conducted observation to collect data for my analysis. On the basis of John Fiske’s concept of “textual productivity” (1992) and Henry Jenkins’s notions of “media convergence” (2006a) and “spreadability” (2013), the thesis is based on a platform analysis as well as two case studies about the Chinese reality TV show Where Are We Going, Dad?and BBC’s crime drama Sherlock.  The platform analysis examines four platforms that Chinese social media fans use most frequently: Weibo, WeChat, Tieba and Bilibili. Through the analysis of the sociocultural contexts, user interfaces and primary features of these four platforms, it became clear that the platforms emphasise differentiated content (e.g. microblogging-style posts, instant text/voice messages, continuous updating posts, video clips and flying comments), and that each platform has its own search and recommendation services to guide users to their target content. By comparing five elements of social media including public posts, direct messaging, group chatting, search tools and information recommendation (Yoder and Stutzman, 2011), the analysis offers insight into the different affordances provided by these four platforms and how Chinese fans employ the platforms to develop fan culture.  The two case studies investigate the formation, manifestation and influence of fan cultures on three levels: fan-platform interaction, fannish texts and fan identity. Analysing data collected from interviews and online observation in the Weibo-based fan chat group 刘诺一全球后援会1群(Liu Nuoyi Quanqiu Houyuanhui 1 Qun; “Liu Nuoyi’s Global Fan Community, Group 1”) and the Tieba-based forum爸爸去哪儿康诺吧(Babaqunaer Kang Nuo Ba; “Kangkang and Nuoyi of Where Are We Going, Dad?Forum”), the case study of Where Are We Going, Dad?demonstrates that the Web 2.0 services that fans use maintain an open structure, which attracts fans to contribute new layers of meaning and value. Discussing the fan-platform interaction, fannish texts and fan identities, the case study of Chinese Sherlockfandom demonstrates that Chinese online fans rely on textual productivity to establish their fan identities, and Chinese social media to facilitate the production and spread of fan translation, which not only bridges the language and cultural gap between the Sherlocktexts (the BBC episodes and the original novel) and Chinese fandom, but also connects different types of Sherlockfans online. I also compare the two cases from the perspective of narrative structure by drawing upon Jason Mittell’s “centrifugal and centripetal complex” model (2015) and argue that the different narrative structures lead a different sense of self-recognition for fans, gender dynamics, power differences in fan communities, and that they shape fans’ cultural citizenship.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bo Wang

<p>This thesis is centred on participatory fan culture in Chinese social media. It investigates how fans gather through social networks, how they produce creative work, and how they use different platforms to circulate their favourite media and fannish texts. By constructing, reshaping and spreading meanings through participatory practices, fans create their own cultures and gradually develop their own discourses. My theoretical approach can be classified as cultural discourse analysis (Carbaugh,2007; Scollo,2011), and I adopted the snowball sampling method to find interviewees and fan communities in which I have conducted observation to collect data for my analysis. On the basis of John Fiske’s concept of “textual productivity” (1992) and Henry Jenkins’s notions of “media convergence” (2006a) and “spreadability” (2013), the thesis is based on a platform analysis as well as two case studies about the Chinese reality TV show Where Are We Going, Dad?and BBC’s crime drama Sherlock.  The platform analysis examines four platforms that Chinese social media fans use most frequently: Weibo, WeChat, Tieba and Bilibili. Through the analysis of the sociocultural contexts, user interfaces and primary features of these four platforms, it became clear that the platforms emphasise differentiated content (e.g. microblogging-style posts, instant text/voice messages, continuous updating posts, video clips and flying comments), and that each platform has its own search and recommendation services to guide users to their target content. By comparing five elements of social media including public posts, direct messaging, group chatting, search tools and information recommendation (Yoder and Stutzman, 2011), the analysis offers insight into the different affordances provided by these four platforms and how Chinese fans employ the platforms to develop fan culture.  The two case studies investigate the formation, manifestation and influence of fan cultures on three levels: fan-platform interaction, fannish texts and fan identity. Analysing data collected from interviews and online observation in the Weibo-based fan chat group 刘诺一全球后援会1群(Liu Nuoyi Quanqiu Houyuanhui 1 Qun; “Liu Nuoyi’s Global Fan Community, Group 1”) and the Tieba-based forum爸爸去哪儿康诺吧(Babaqunaer Kang Nuo Ba; “Kangkang and Nuoyi of Where Are We Going, Dad?Forum”), the case study of Where Are We Going, Dad?demonstrates that the Web 2.0 services that fans use maintain an open structure, which attracts fans to contribute new layers of meaning and value. Discussing the fan-platform interaction, fannish texts and fan identities, the case study of Chinese Sherlockfandom demonstrates that Chinese online fans rely on textual productivity to establish their fan identities, and Chinese social media to facilitate the production and spread of fan translation, which not only bridges the language and cultural gap between the Sherlocktexts (the BBC episodes and the original novel) and Chinese fandom, but also connects different types of Sherlockfans online. I also compare the two cases from the perspective of narrative structure by drawing upon Jason Mittell’s “centrifugal and centripetal complex” model (2015) and argue that the different narrative structures lead a different sense of self-recognition for fans, gender dynamics, power differences in fan communities, and that they shape fans’ cultural citizenship.</p>


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 456
Author(s):  
Varuni Bhatia

What do god posters circulating online tell us about the practice of popular Hinduism in the age of digital mediatization? The article seeks to address the question by exploring images and god posters dedicated to the planetary deity Shani on Web 2.0. The article tracks Shani’s presence on a range of online platforms—from the religion and culture pages of newspapers to YouTube videos and social media platforms. Using Shani’s presence on the Web as a case study, the article argues that content drawn from popular Hinduism, dealing with astrology, ritual, religious vows and observances, form a significant and substantial aspect of online Hinduism. The article draws attention to the specific affordances of Web 2.0 to radically rethink what engaging with the sacred object in a virtual realm may entail. In doing so, it indicates what the future of Hindu religiosity may look like.


Author(s):  
Anupam Nath ◽  
Debjani Kanjilal

Purpose This study aims to identify the challenges in current government organizations while providing services that require a collaborative effort. It also identifies the ways through which government organizations can address the collaboration challenges in ways such as those adopted by leading information technology organizations. Finally, this research also aims to identify the obstacles in government organizations, which could prevent them from successfully adopting new technologies. Design/methodology/approach The research was conducted in three phases. In the first phase, a case study was conducted on a government organization identifying the challenges in delivering services that require collaboration among different stake holders. In the second phase, multiple case studies were performed on three leading organizations who have successfully implemented the Web 2.0 technologies to address collaboration challenges while providing efficient service deliveries. In the third phase of the research, a case study was conducted on a government organization to identify the obstacles faced while implementing the identified solution(s). Findings Identification of existing problems while providing efficient service deliveries was possible using a case study approach. This research also finds that Web 2.0-based knowledge management tools can be very effective in addressing the existing challenges in the current state of e-Government. Finally, the research also finds that realization by the upper management, technology adoption cost, adoption of new work paradigm and time to create an effective repository are some of the major obstacles faced by the government organization while trying to adopt the proposed solution. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to conduct rigorous case studies on three different leading information technology organizations simultaneously to address a challenge in the current state of e-Government. This research also provides implications for practitioners as, based on the findings, they can implement the Web 2.0 technologies to address challenges in government organizations while providing efficient service deliveries. Furthermore, the research provides implications for further research to analyze the performance of the government organizations after they adopt these technologies.


1970 ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagny Stuedahl

The article focuses on a study of knowledge creation and organizing in a local history wiki. The background for this study was to understand how web 2.0 and social media might open new possibilities for museums to collaborate with communities and lay professionals in cultural heritage knowledge creation. Digital technologies provide tools that in many ways overcome challenges of physical collaboration between museums and amateurs. But technologies also bring in new aspects of ordering, categorizing and systematizing knowledge that illuminates the different institutional as well as professional frameworks that writing local historical knowledge into digital forms in fact represents. 


Author(s):  
Vedran Podobnik ◽  
Daniel Ackermann ◽  
Tomislav Grubisic ◽  
Ignac Lovrek

In the Web 1.0 era, users were passive consumers of a read-only Web. However, the emergence of Web 2.0 redefined the way people use information and communication services—users evolved into prosumers that actively participate and collaborate in the ecosystem of a read-write Web. Consequently, marketing is one among many areas affected by the advent of the Web 2.0 paradigm. Web 2.0 enabled the global proliferation of social networking, which is the foundation for Social Media Marketing. Social Media Marketing represents a novel Internet marketing paradigm based on spreading brand-related messages directly from one user to another. This is also the reason why Social Media Marketing is often referred to as the viral marketing. This chapter will describe: (1) how social networking became the most popular Web 2.0 service, and (2) how social networking revolutionized Internet marketing. Both issues will be elaborated on two levels—the global and the Croatian level. The chapter will first present the evolution of social networking phenomenon which has fundamentally changed the way Internet users utilize Web services. During the first decade of 21st century, millions of people joined online communities and started using online social platforms, about 1.5 billion members of social networks globally in 2012. Furthermore, the chapter will describe how Internet marketing provided marketers with innovative marketing channels, which offer marketing campaign personalization, low-cost global access to consumers, and simple, cheap, and real-time marketing campaign tracking. Specifically, the chapter will focus on Social Media Marketing, the latest step in the Internet marketing evolution. The three most popular Social Media Marketing platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare) will be described, and examples of successful marketing case studies in Croatia will be presented.


Author(s):  
Yfantis Vasileios ◽  
Abel Usoro ◽  
Tseles Dimitrios

This chapter explores the potential of Web 2.0 utilization in developing countries through the concept of e-government. Successful implementation of the Web 2.0 concept has to combine both technological and human factors. Thus, this chapter proposes a conceptual model that will measure e-government 2.0 readiness. The conceptual model is based on a combination of the Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, and indexes from the United Nation’s database. South Sudan is used at the end as a brief case study of the potential of e-Government 2.0. Future research should validate the empirical model. Meanwhile, the implications of the model are presented.


Author(s):  
Dora Simões ◽  
Sandra Filipe

This chapter reports on the use of social media marketing by pre-adults, setting off from a case study of pre-adults of different courses at a Portuguese higher education school. Data were collected through a questionnaire available online and analyzed with descriptive statistical techniques. Based on the pointed outlines, the aim is to evaluate longitudinally the types of social media used by pre-adults, the contexts in which they use each social media type, their opinions about the intentions of social media marketing and the influences of social media marketing on their brand knowledge, attitude and behaviour. Tendencies around concepts, tools and levels of attraction by the audiences, with focus on relationship marketing in the 2.0 era are revisited. Furthermore, the chapter presents the perception of pre-adults about social media marketing, and contributes with critical information that might help cast light over recent theories and practices of social media marketing.


2012 ◽  
pp. 1824-1837 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leila Sadeghi ◽  
Steve Ressler ◽  
Andrew Krzmarzick

This chapter examines the growing literature on e-government and Web 2.0 with particular attention to online collaborative platforms, such as GovLoop, that complement government. The authors present a thorough background to the topic of Web 2.0 in e-government and present numerous examples of how these technologies are used across government both in the U.S. and globally. This chapter explores two main areas: first, how Web 2.0 and social media are being used as a vehicle to enhance e-government, and second, to present a case study of GovLoop, which is a collaborative social media platform designed to complement the work of government. GovLoop provides those working within and external to government—citizens, government employees, academics, non-profit professionals and contractors—with the ability to share information and collaborate on issues of public benefit. The chapter presents a starting point for future research on how Web 2.0 is changing the very nature of e-government and service delivery, and how governments are in a unique position to utilize these tools to expand collaboration and openness with their communities.


2010 ◽  
pp. 343-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk Eijkman

This chapter addresses a significant theoretical gap in the Web 2.0 (or “Web 2.0+,” as it is referred to by the author) literature by analyzing the educational implications of the “seismic shift in epistemology” (Dede, 2008, p. 80) that is occurring. As already identified in Chapter 2, there needs to be a consistency between our own epistemic assumptions and those embedded in Web 2.0. Hence the underlying premise of this chapter is that the adoption of social media in education implies the assumption of a very different epistemology—a distinctly different way of understanding the nature of knowledge and the process of how we come to know. The argument is that this shift toward a radically altered, “postmodernist,” epistemic architecture of participation will transform the way in which educators and their students create and manage the production, dissemination, and validation of knowledge. In future, the new “postmodern” Web will increasingly privilege what we may usefully think of as a socially focused and performance-oriented approach to knowledge production. The expected subversion and disruption of our traditional or modernist power-knowledge system, as already evident in the Wikipedia phenomenon, will reframe educational practices and promote a new power-knowledge system, made up of new, social ways in which to construct and control knowledge across the Internet. The chapter concludes by advocating strategies for critical engagement with this new epistemic learning space, and posing a number of critical questions to guide ongoing practice.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Natalie Liverant

<p>Tweet Carefully, Museums presents an in-depth case study of audiences and a museum using social media in the current Web 2.0 age. It explores online protest and controversy over an event held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) in 2015. This dissertation addresses a current gap in the literature centred on public use of social media as a platform to engage in museum-centred debate and discussion. At the moment, literature discussing new technologies in museums focuses heavily on an institution-to-audiences model. While this is indeed useful information, there is another aspect of digital media that has been largely neglected. In their case study, Gronemann et al. observed that overall, museums distanced themselves from discursive co-construction in their Facebook posts. The lack of engagement with audience can have adverse effects as social media grows in its popularity to mobilise the public in the name of social justice. “Western” museums, many of which have a history of fostering colonial narratives, can also be perceived as authoritative institutions. Museums need to engage more conscientiously with their online audiences. Unconsidered or insensitive engagement over social media may have adverse effects on institutions.  Kimono Wednesdays was an event where the public was invited to try on kimono in Gallery 255 at the MFA. The MFA advertised the event on a few social media platforms. On Facebook, the advertisement drew the harshest criticisms from a section of the Asian-American community. The sensational attention on Facebook grew quickly into physical protest inside Gallery 255. This case study analyses a sample of the dialogic posts, comments, and replies left on Facebook during the protests. It also analyses a symposium organised by the MFA, Kimono Wednesdays: A Conversation, where a panel made up of academics, museum staff, and a protester discussed the various concepts and perceptions of the museum’s controversial advertising and event.  This case study demonstrates that social media is a double-edged sword for museums, as it is a useful tool, but presents uncomfortable challenges. The key findings from this study show how content on the internet can be misinterpreted and how implicit bias can occur from any institution. As museums embrace Web 2.0 applications, they too must become more aware of their online presence and set in place methods of dialogic co-construction so as to better understand and communicate with the diversifying cultures that surround them.</p>


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