Post-postmodern consumer authenticity, shantay you stay or sashay away? A netnography of RuPaul’s Drag Race fans

Consumer negotiation of authenticity is explored through a netnography of online fans of the reality television series RuPaul’s Drag Race. Suggestion is of a post-postmodern approach to negotiating the authenticity of series narratives consumed, associated authentic identities of consumers, and of supporting interactions of the consumer community. A more reconstructive stance arises from some fans’ occasional frustrations over staging interfering with narrative truth and at times perceived dismissal of meaningful fixed identity. Public performances before and with other online fans help to agglomerate and assert preferred versions of these. This post-postmodern approach is distinct from more deconstructive and typically postmodern attitudes also evident among the fandom, and themselves shown to interact with and be reinvigorated by reconstructions. Highlighted is the complex negotiation of authenticity by consumers overall.

How Political Candidates' Use of Facebook Relates to the Election Outcomes

This paper examines the relationship between political candidates' use of Facebook and their election outcomes (vote share and election success). The use of social media in political marketing campaigns has grown dramatically over the past few years. It is also expected to become even more critical to future political campaigns, as it creates two-way communication and engagement that stimulates and fosters candidates' relationships with their supporters. Online Facebook data were acquired for all 84 candidates running in a municipal election in Taiwan. Results suggest that a candidate's Facebook presence, the type of account they use, the authentication of the account, and the number of online fans they have are related to their election outcomes.

Wikipedia and participatory culture: Why fans edit

Online, fans of popular culture media partake in participatory culture in various ways, such as writing fan fiction and scrutinizing media on message boards. Another way they do so is by editing relevant articles in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. In fact, research has shown that Wikipedia articles skew heavily toward pop culture, suggesting that fans of pop culture are among the most enthusiastic of Wikipedia's editors. Of course, the question emerges: Why are pop culture fans in particular so interested in editing Wikipedia? Building on previous research, I argue that fans want to take part in the production of the media that they enjoy, that Wikipedia allows editors to create their own paratext (i.e., the Wikipedia article) in relation to a main text (e.g., a movie, a television show, a book series), and that this paratext may be heavily used by the general public. Such usage is a form of implicit approval that affirms the editors' knowledge and encourages them to make more edits. Thus, Wikipedia validates the fan editor's work in a way that other outlets for participatory culture (e.g., fan fiction, fan art, songwriting) cannot.

Fans of Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

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.

Textual Poaching, Gamekeeping and the Counter-stereotype

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.`