scholarly journals Acafan methodologies and giving back to the fan community

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katja Lee
Keyword(s):  
Community Participation ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Community Responses ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Fan Communities

In fan studies, researchers are encouraged to share their research with the fan communities they study, with some even suggesting that such a practice can be a way to ethically give back to the community. During a multiyear study of adult fans of Lego, several different ways to share research with the fan community were trialed and evaluated for their relative strengths. Community responses to these projects determined that both academic and creative practices for sharing research can successfully engage the community. Creative practice can capture the spirit of giving by making a contribution to the community by using its own modes of community participation.

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.

Play moods across the life course in SKAM fandom

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Line Nybro Petersen ◽  
Vilde Schanke Sundet
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Fan Practices ◽  
The Life Course

This article considers fans’ playful digital practices and focuses on the play moods that are co-constructed in online fan communities. We analyse how these play moods are negotiated across the life course for participating fans. Play moods are closely tied to the playful modes of fan practices, and by gaining a greater understanding of the moods that fans engage in at different stages of their life course we gain new insights into fan play as it relates to issues of age-related norms in fan communities. Specifically, this article analyses the Norwegian teenage streaming drama SKAM (Shame) (NRK, 2015‐17), which was produced for a target audience of 16-year-old Norwegian girls but ended up capturing the hearts of people of all ages across Scandinavia and internationally. This study is based on interviews with 43 Scandinavian fans aged between 13 and 70. The participants were all active on social media (Facebook, Instagram, the show’s blog, etc.) while the show was on the air and the interviews offers insights into issues of age-appropriateness as it relates to fan practices. As such, fans ‘police’ both themselves and each other based on perceptions of age, while also engaging in practices that are by nature playful and may be considered subjectively and culturally ‘youthful’ or ‘childish’. The article combines theory of play and fan studies with a focus on the life course and cultural gerontology in order to highlight these tendencies in the SKAM fandom.

scholarly journals The ex-fan's place in fan studies

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Kies
Keyword(s):  
Fan Studies ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Fan Communities

In an examination of how fans end their relationships with the objects of their fandom and related fan communities, I use my own experiences with the television series Supernatural (WB/CW, 2005–) to demonstrate how breaking up with a fandom is emotionally and technologically complicated. Becoming an ex-fan is different from antifandom and is worthy of greater investigation in fan studies.

scholarly journals Fans of Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ryan Rico
Keyword(s):  
Media Violence ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Columbine High School ◽  
Breeding Grounds ◽  
School Shooters ◽  
Online Fans ◽  
Mainstream Culture

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in what was then the deadliest school shooting in American history. Despite causing a national panic and serving as a flash point for larger narratives on bullying, gun control, and media violence, both boys have gained active online fans. These fandoms dedicated to the Columbine shooters are widely referred to as dark examples of Internet communities, while the fans are also frequently denigrated as unstable and violent outcasts. Such dark online fandoms are yet to permeate mainstream culture or to challenge the preexisting perception of these communities as breeding grounds for the next wave of school shooters. While studies have covered the types of fans and their myriad interests, the field remains focused on more conventional examples of fan communities. In an effort to challenge and expand the object of focus when we study fandom, this qualitative study examines Columbine fans and their activity in order to understand the dominant motives they appear to have for engaging with and around such controversial figures and then concludes by exploring how this community might help us reflect more broadly on our concept of fandom. Redeeming these fans as part of diverse and complex communities of social relevance can demonstrate how even a dark fandom such as that of these Columbine shooters provides valuable cultural insights and benefits the field of fan studies.

scholarly journals Politicising fandom

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 408-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dean
Keyword(s):  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Consumption Community

This article aims, first, to argue that fandom matters to politics and, second, to offer a theorisation of what I call politicised fandom. The article proceeds through three stages. Part 1 offers a brief mapping of the existing scholarship within the interdisciplinary sub-field of fan studies and alights on a definition of fandom offered by Cornel Sandvoss, before mapping some different understandings of the fandom–politics relation. Here, I argue for an emphasis on the agency and capacity of fan communities to intervene politically. Part 2 then provides an initial theorisation of politicised fandom, highlighting four key elements: productivity and consumption, community, affect and contestation. Part 3 offers some snapshots of how this politicised fandom is manifest empirically via the analysis of three similar yet different instances of politicised fandom in UK left politics: Russell Brand, Milifandom and Corbyn-mania.

scholarly journals Textual Poaching, Gamekeeping and the Counter-stereotype

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf Halse
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Online Discussion ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Online Discussion Forums ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
The Us ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Online Fans

Abstract In the analogue era, fan studies explored localized resistance within fan communities’ cultural practices, examining how this might lead to new understandings of gender, sexuality, and race. However, there has been less work that examines the consequences fans’ cultural practices using digital media have for the cultural politics of ‘poaching’. The current article presents a study of online fans’ perceptions of positively depicted Muslim characters from the Middle East in the television serial, 24. Like the rest of the show’s regular cast, these characters should be in focus for fans in their competing interpretations and evaluations of each episode in online discussion forums. The study comprises a comparison of how two online fan communities, one in the US and one in Norway, perceive counter-stereotypical Muslim characters. An analysis of fans’ readings is carried out, and one central finding is that fans appropriated 24’s counter-stereotype in ways that can be described as reactionary.`

scholarly journals It's not all about the music: Online fan communities and collecting Hard Rock Café pins

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lincoln Geraghty
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Rock Music ◽  
Hard Rock ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
The World

Previous studies of music fan culture have largely centered on the diverse range of subcultures devoted to particular genres, groups, and stars. Where studies have moved beyond the actual music and examined the fashion, concerts, and collecting ephemera such as vinyl records and posters, they have tended to remain closely allied to notions of subcultural distinction, emphasizing hierarchies of taste. This paper shifts the focus in music fan studies beyond the appreciation of the music and discusses the popular fan practice of collecting souvenir pins produced and sold by the Hard Rock Café (HRC) within a framework of fan tourism. Traveling to and collecting unique pins from locations across the globe creates a fan dialogue that centers on tourism and the collecting practices associated with souvenir consumption. Collectors engage in practices such as blogging, travel writing, and administration that become important indicators of their particular expression of fandom: pin collecting. Membership requires both time and money; recording visits around the world and collecting unique pins from every café builds fans' cultural capital. This indicates an internationalization of popular fandom, with the Internet acting as a connective virtual space between local and national, personal and public physical space. The study of HRC pin collecting and its fan community suggests that HRC enthusiasts are not so because they enjoy rock music or follow any particular artist but due to the physical ephemera that they collect and the places and spaces they visit.

Finding the child fan: A case for studying children in fandom studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 93-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyra Hunting
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
Children's Media ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Consumption Practices ◽  
Fan Practices ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
As If

As fan studies increasingly explores understudied fan communities this article calls for the inclusion of children as a crucial overlooked group of fans. Drawing upon research that considers fandom throughout the life course, it argues that fandom is an important part of childhood and one that may look different than it does for adult fans. I argue, the extent to which children’s media consumption practices resemble fan practices has obscured the fact that children can be fans. In this article I consider the impediments to considering the fandom of children, the ways in which children may be acting as ‐ if not labelling themselves as ‐ fans, what doing so can offer both fandom studies and children’s media studies and I lay out some suggestions for beginning the process of examining the practices and sites of children’s fandom.

scholarly journals How (Not) to Talk about Race: A Critique of Methodological Practices in Fan Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rukmini Pande
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Fan Studies ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Fan Communities ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Analytical Frameworks ◽  
Blind Spots

Fan studies, a thoroughly interdisciplinary field, has drawn on methodological strategies from such fields as anthropology, literary studies, cultural and media studies, and psychoanalysis, resulting in a wide range of analytical frameworks and methodological approaches that highlight the different aspects of the fan communities being considered. Yet a lack of attention to how (unmarked) whiteness underpins these strategies has led to persistent blind spots regarding the operation of race and racism within these spaces. An analysis drawing from cultural and postcolonial studies highlights some of the ways scholars can overcome these gaps. Nonetheless, the logics of white supremacy continue to influence both micro and macro issues around research in fan studies.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document