Fan Communities

This paper seeks to recontextualise key findings from recent studies of reality TV audiences in light of insights drawn from across the wider field. It suggests that modes of engagement and response adopted by different reality TV audiences appear broadly consistent with those identified in relation to a wide variety of genres viewed in diverse national contexts, as charted in the Composite Multi-dimensional Model of audience reception (Michelle 2007). To further illustrate these parallels, this paper analyses online audience responses to a specific event that occurred during the 2006 reality game show, Rock Star: Supernova, applying the Composite Multi-dimensional Model as its conceptual schema. In so doing, this paper seeks to demonstrate how we might move beyond the traditional focus on specificities of genre and format to recognise and begin to theorise broader continuities in the nature of audience engagement that may persist beyond the transition to new, hybrid, and increasingly interactive media formats.

Por meio da compreensão do ativismo de fãs como uma forma de resistência cotidiana cultural, econômica e criativa, o objetivo deste capítulo busca problematizar as relações entre participação, resistência e consumo de fãs do jogo on-line League of Legends (LoL). Enquanto suporte empírico, apresenta-se um mapeamento sobre algumas práticas do ativismo de fãs-jogadores no antigo fórum oficial de LoL no Brasil, a partir de uma triangulação metodológica com destaque para o uso de inspirações etnográficas. Após as reflexões teóricas e as análises, propõe-se uma tipologia das práticas de resistência cotidiana na comunidade de LoL baseada em quatro modos. Os resultados desta abordagem indicam que a diversidade do universo das produções digitais e práticas de parte dos fãs de LoL ressignificam as compreensões sobre resistência e participação, questionando a dualidade existente entre a cidadania e o consumo da cultura pop, agindo como catalizadores que reinterpretam e excedem os limites do fandom.

While anthropomorphizing nonhuman animals has been shown to increase identification with them and, by extension, concern for their wellbeing, little research has directly tested whether identifying with nonhuman animals is similarly associated with concern for their wellbeing. We tested hypotheses related to this premise across three cross-sectional studies. In study 1 (n = 224), we tested the hypothesis that therians—a group of people who self-identify with nonhuman animals, show greater concern for nonhuman animal rights than non-therian furries—people with a fan-like interest in media featuring anthropomorphized animal characters. In study 2 (n = 206), we further tested this hypothesis using implicit and explicit measures of identification with nonhuman animals to predict behavioral intentions to support nonhuman animal rights. In study 3 (n = 182), we tested the generalizability of our findings in a sample of undergraduate students. Taken together, the studies show that explicit, but not implicit, identification with nonhuman animals predicts greater support for their rights. The implications of these findings for research on anthropomorphism and animal rights activism are discussed, as well as the limitations of these findings and possible avenues for future research.

Classical sociologists like Max Weber pointed out the relationship between processes of modernization and cultural discontents. In this chapter it is argued that such discontents where at the heart of the critique of the romantic counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s on “the system” – a cultural critique that has been appropriated over the last decades by the commercial culture industry and is nowadays informing many of its media products. This study addresses two popular genres – ‘fantasy’ and ‘conspiracy culture’ – as articulated in various novels, movies and computer games and analyses the exact ways in which they express and address cultural discontents in contemporary culture.

Talking politics online is not exclusively reserved for those spaces dedicated to politics, particularly the everyday political talk crucial to the public sphere. However, past net-based public sphere research has focused mostly on political spaces thereby neglecting an array of other genres. The aim of this article is to move beyond politically oriented communicative spaces by investigating political talk within the British reality TV discussion forum Wife Swap. The purpose is to see whether a forum dedicated to reality TV provides the communicative space, content, and style for politics that extends the public sphere. The central question is whether it fulfils the requirements of rationality and ‘decent’ deliberation. Moreover, the analysis moved beyond a formal notion by investigating how expressives influence the more traditional elements of deliberation. The findings revealed that Wife Swap participants engaged in political talk that was often deliberative. Moreover, it was a space where the use of expressives played a key role in enhancing such talk.

This thesis deals with the emergence of fan communities around user-generated content. I will examine two case studies dealing with users and their transition to productivity through the use of contemporary technology, and characters and events from popular culture. More specifically, I will analyze the Twitch Plays Pokémon stream as a case study for the ‘streaming’ category, and the DEATH BATTLE! series as a case study for the ‘original content’ category. The main questions of the thesis are how communities emerge around freely distributed, user-generated material on the Internet, what are their characteristics, and how platforms allow and encourage them to do so.
This essay’s methodology includes a) a platform and protocol analysis to analyze how technology allows the communities to come into being, and b) an institutional analysis in terms of community and content to analyze the social aspects of these communities. In this analysis, I will research how my two case studies (DEATH BATTLE! and its subsequent works, and the Twitch plays Pokémon stream) were appropriated in their platforms by their makers to enhance the sense of belonging in communities. For the technological part, I will use José van Dijck’s ‘platform dissasemblage’ to examine how the platforms used by the creators of DEATH BATTLE! and Twitch plays Pokémon function in regards of community building, shaping and spreading, since her work on social media platforms offers an extensive analysis and useful insight into them. Then, for the social part, I will analyze how these communities produce their content in an open, collaborative environment, in the light of Axel Bruns’s research on produsage cultures, which is very helpful because it deals with social aspects in online communial environments. Finally, I will conclude my analysis with an examination of the way that content itself changed fan communities on matters of reception and evaluation, by using John Fiske’s tripartite model of fan productivity, a model that is still discussed and used in fan studies, along with critiques and suggestions by Matt Hills.

The UK’s live music venues play host to significant cultural and heritage value. In recent years the number of active live music venues has dramatically declined. This is largely attributed to a growing number of residential developments. Although there have been recent developments in the National Planning Policy Framework to mitigate the conflict between residential properties and live music venues, this study aims to question whether these changes known as “Agent of Change” go far enough to protect live music venues. It will also present a case for using heritage principles to encourage the preservation of live music venues.

"Azriona's story "The Heart in Him" quoted in the title is an example of Omegaverse slash fan fiction, where characters develop supplementary gender identities at puberty. We can have male or female alphas, and male or female omegas. Male omegas can become pregnant and bear babies. This is an example of how slash complicates gender and sexual identities beyond habitual categories. We could see slash, then, as a liberatory mechanisms for questioning gender and sexual politics (Cicioni 1998; Jenkins 1992; Woledge 2006). However, a more pessimistic way of reading Omegaverse slash would be to suggest that it simply re-assigns strict gender and sexual roles, producing a form of highly essentialised normativity. We can even question the categorisation of Omegaverse fiction as slash because of its homophobic overtones. We could already find forms of covert homophobia in slash. The "we are not gay, we just love each other" trope allows male characters to have sexual relations with other men while distancing themselves from being gay. Moreover, the genre of slash at large has been accused of misogyny in its reimagining a world almost without women. In this paper, I examine examples of sexism, biological determinism and heteronormativity from Omegaverse fan fiction, and consider them in relation to prevalent neoliberal homonormative discourses.

Media portrayals of comic book fandom routinely depict the comics community as a masculine space, one in which the female fan is an anomaly. Yet, women reportedly represent a growing number of comic book purchasers and convention attendees. If women are, in fact, such a large contingent of the comic book fan community, then why do these gendered stereotypes of female fans persist? Moreover, why do we continually see narratives about the ‘exotic’ female comics fan if women are such a large population within comics culture? I theorise that many female comic book fans render themselves invisible in the comics community out of fear of stigmatisation, from both non-comics fans as well as male members of comics fandom. Drawing on the work of Erving Goffman, I use semi-structured interviews to explore how female comics fans in the United States experience fandom as members of a culture that is coded as masculine.

The author discusses the methods of distribution and marketing that gave 1980's Indonesian exploitation films cult status among both local and Western audiences. He describes how both Indonesian producers and Western distributors selected films to fit Western spectators' tastes, while local audiences watched and collected these films through video cassette discs (VCDs) and alternative film festivals. He also explains how Legend films such as "Devil's Sword" and "The Warrior" positioned their villains as symbols of Suharto's New Order regime.

We examined the prevalence rates of mental and neurodevelopmental illness among members of three different fandoms: anime, My Little Pony (brony), and furry. In total, nearly 2,600 fans across these groups self-reported whether or not they had ever been diagnosed with a psychological and/or neurodevelopmental illness. Data revealed that anime fans, bronies, and furries all show higher rates of diagnoses on the autism spectrum than rates observed in studies of the general population. Rates of mood and anxiety disorders were lower than that of the general population. Rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder were lower in anime and brony fandoms, but were not different from the general population for furry fans. Taken together, the results provide an exploratory look at mental health issues in fan communities and suggest both commonalities across fan groups and idiosyncrasies within particular fandoms.

This book examines unintended participatory cultures and media surrounding the American televangelists Robert Tilton and Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner. It brings to light heavily ironic fan followings; print, audio, and video projects; public-access television parodies; and other comedic participatory practices associated with these controversial preachers from the 1980s onwards. For Tilton’s ministry, some of these activities and artifacts would prove irksome and even threatening, particularly an analog video remix turned online viral sensation. In contrast, Bakker-Messner’s “campy” fans – gay men attracted to her “ludicrous tragedy” – would provide her unexpected opportunities for career rehabilitation.

Denis J. Bekkering challenges “supply-side” religious economy and branding approaches, suggestions of novelty in religion and “new” media studies, and the emphasis on sincere devotion in research on religion and fandom. He also highlights how everyday individuals have long participated in public negotiations of Christian authenticity through tongue-in-cheek play with purported religious “fakes.”

En este trabajo trato de presentar algunas consideraciones esclarecedoras sobre el fanart, qué es y de dónde viene; la relación que encuentro entre el fanart y el arte que estudiamos en la academia y la importancia de investigar sobre este tema/fenómeno.
    El análisis, desde un punto de vista contemporáneo y académico del fanart a través de algunas obras que nos permiten comprender su complejidad conceptual y estética, creando una línea horizontal entre el arte académico y el fanart.
    Con este trabajo trato de llamar la atención hacia un tipo de arte que ha sido pasado por alto, como hace algunos años el Art Brut o el Grafıti, porque aún no se ha mirado con detenimiento, pasándolo por el filtro que provee una educación académica en artes visuales. Para mí, el discurso que van formando los fans, no sólo a través de las imágenes que producen, sino también en la discusión estética y cultural que se lleva a cabo dentro del fandom, poco a poco va transformando, no solo a quienes participan de ello, si no también lo que consumen y la forma en que enfrentan el mundo. Esta transformación va cambiando también, poco a poco y, casi sin ser detectada, la forma en que los jóvenes consumen la cultura y la van construyendo y transformando. Yo opino que esta razón es suficiente para que comencemos a revisar más a fondo estos nichos.

Women fans have entered the traditionally male domain of the sports stadium in growing numbers in recent years. Watching professional sport is important for women for so many reasons, but their expectations and experiences have been largely ignored by academics. This book tackles these shortcomings in the literature and sheds new light on the many ways in which women become sports fans.

This ground-breaking study is the first to focus on the phenomenon of the feminization of sports fandom. Drawing on original research from football (soccer) and rugby union in the UK ‘sports city’ of Leicester, it looks at the increasing opportunities for women to become sports fans in contemporary society and critically examines the way this form of leisure is valued by women. Drawing upon feminist thinking and intersectionality, it shows how women from different social classes and age groups consume the spectacle of sport.

This book is fascinating reading for any student or scholar interested in sport and leisure studies, sociology and gender or women’s studies.

With its roots dating to popular television shows of the 1960s such as Star Trek, fanfiction has blossomed into an extremely widespread form of creative expression. The transition from printed zines to online fanfiction repositories has facilitated this growth in popularity, with millions of fans writing stories and adding daily to sites such as Archive Of Our Own, Fanfiction. net, FIMfiction. net, and many others. Enthusiasts are sharing their writing, reading stories written by others, and helping each other to grow as writers. Yet, this domain is often undervalued by society and understudied by researchers. To facilitate the study of this large but often marginalized community, we present a fully anonymized data release (via differential privacy) of the metadata from a large fanfiction site (to protect author privacy, story, profile, and review text is excluded, and only metadata is provided). We use visual analytics techniques to draw …

Segunda edición (ampliada).

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Este libro responde a una pregunta que todo aficionado a la saga se ha hecho alguna vez: ¿Por qué nos gusta Star Wars?

Muchas otras películas tienen sus héroes, sus princesas, sus naves espaciales y sus malvados sin haber obtenido tanto éxito. Tampoco los grandes presupuestos económicos ni las poderosas campañas de marketing son suficientes para dar cuenta de su enorme influencia cultural.

El título del libro anticipa la respuesta: nos gusta Star Wars porque, sin que seamos del todo conscientes de ello, nos invita a hacernos preguntas sobre ética, política, religión, historia, relaciones personales…

Hasta ahora ningún libro había rastreado la multitud de ideologías que se entrecruzan en las aventuras de la familia Skywalker. La ideología de Star Wars lo hace, y consigue explicar de un modo familiar y entretenido por qué disfrutamos de la gran saga de nuestro tiempo desde hace más de cuarenta años.

This chapter focuses on the linguistic practices of fans and other media consumers as evident in their contributions on social media platforms. The digital environment has had significant impact on such practices, as summarized by Jenkins (2006a: 141-142):
• It has increased the speed with which fans can communicate with each other and the development of new fan communities.
• It has allowed fans to access a much wider range of perspectives online and to practice more effective activism.
• The international reach of the internet has made the community larger and transnational.
• It has moved fandom towards the mainstream.
Nevertheless, fandom-and audience engagement more generally-has mainly been considered in non-linguistic disciplines, with only a few exceptions. This chapter discusses relevant linguistic practices through which audience members respond to narrative mass media texts on social media platforms. It does so with reference to fictional TV series and focuses primarily on the linguistic studies that have been undertaken in this field so far.

Media researchers have begun to move beyond studying violent media content effects and have, instead, showed greater interest in studying the relationship between prosocial media content and helping behavior. The present study contributes to this endeavor by both testing the role of empathy as a mediator of this relationship and by doing so within a relatively novel sample: Self-identified fans of a prosocial television show. Fans of the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic were compared to fans of Rooster Teeth (a studio producing online video content) in a cross-sectional study assessing their respective content consumption, a measure of affective empathy, and a self-report measure of prosocial behavior. For My Little Pony fans, unlike Rooster Teeth fans, emotional empathy mediated the relationship between media consumption and helping behavior. The results conceptually replicate and extend prior media and fandom research, offering both practical applications and potentially fruitful future directions for researchers.

Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete): https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

http://sainsbury-institute.org/news-events/legislating-manga-workshop/

This talk will explore the implications of the Prohibited Images of Children section of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 for Boys' Love and Yaoi in the UK. The British legislation will be set in context briefly with regard to the legal situation in North America, Australia, Japan and China. Anna is Chair of Qualitative Inquiry in the School of Psychology at the University of Leeds and is author of 'Boys’ Love manga for girls: Paedophilic, satirical, queer readings and English law' in Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation (2015). Her online BL fandom survey can be found at https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey

In the present study we tested the hypothesis that cosplayers experience greater well-being than non-cosplayers within the anime fandom in part because they are more likely to disclose their fan identity to non-fans. Anime fans indicated whether they engaged in cosplaying or not, and rated the degree to which they disclose their anime fan identity to non-fans, satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and depression. Compared to non-cosplayers, cosplayers reported greater self-disclosure and better well-being across a number of indicators. Mediation analyses revealed that the relationship between cosplaying and well-being was consistently mediated by disclosure, a finding in-line with existing research. These are discussed within the context of existing research, providing both a conceptual replication of past findings from related fandoms (i.e., the furry fandom) while also suggesting a myriad of possible directions for future research on the subject.

La televisión estadounidense, es fuente de información que se ofrece al público mexicano. Pero, ¿qué reciben los espectadores? No solamente reciben una imagen o un sonido, sino contenido cultural, ya que los medios son vías principales de penetración y consolidación de valores culturales en la sociedad (García León, 2002). Esta investigación cualitativa buscó conocer las percepciones de 25 estudiantes universitarios de México que han visto, o que ven actualmente la serie Modern Family. Se encontró que estos programas no manipulan la identidad y cultura mexicana, sino que es una oportunidad de aprendizaje y adaptación a la realidad familiar presentada en la temática de la serie

Palabras clave
Modern Family, identidad, globalización, imperialismo cultural

The authors examined perceived discrimination directed toward one’s fan group and toward oneself in multiple groups of fans. Specifically, furries, bronies, anime fans, and a group of miscellaneous fans completed measures assessing the extent to which they perceived discrimination toward both their fan group and toward themselves. Across all samples, participants reported greater discrimination directed toward their fan group than toward themselves, suggesting denial of personal discrimination. The difference between personal discrimination and fandom discrimination is a reliable one, as suggested by its persistence despite considerable differences between the groups with regard to the level of societal stigma. The implications of these results and future directions for this line of research are discussed

What does Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey have in common? What can these two series of novels possibly share? Twilight is a mostly chaste fantasy romance between a 104-year-old vampire and a teenage girl, whereas Fifty Shades of Grey is an erotic series dealing with a college graduate and a young business magnate who is into BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism). Apparently they have a lot in common since both series have struck a chord in our society, becoming full-fledged cultural phenomena. Bearing in mind that Fifty Shades of Grey was in origin fan fiction of Twilight, this chapter deals with what happened since 2005, when Twilight was first published, and 2012 when Fifty Shades of Grey became the biggest hit, topping bestseller lists for months. There are both cultural and ideological implications emerging from the transformation that the Twilight series has undergone. From a set of novels and films written by a Mormon American author and addressing a young adult audience, Twilight has turned into Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic saga labeled by the media “mommy porn,” written by a British fan of Twilight and addressing an adult female audience. The story of this journey is worth exploring in full since it also shows a common tension in contemporary culture, that between corporate-driven and consumer-driven processes, between commercial culture and grassroots creativity.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo geral entender a construção e funcionamento das relações de proximidade estabelecidas entre fãs e webcelebridades. Partindo deste eixo central de investigação, analiso aqui a relação entre a hiperexposição da vida privada das celebridades da internet, especificamente os YouTubers brasileiros, e a forma como
o público consome e ressignifica este tipo de conteúdo. Em termos teóricos, rediscuto o conceito de relações parassociais e a conexão de tais relações à ideia de ilusão da intimidade. Como hipótese principal, proponho que a partir de uma reconfiguração das relações construídas entre fãs e celebridade, sobretudo os YouTubers, há uma rediscussão sobre a ilusão da intimidade, que aqui apresento como de reconfiguração da ilusão da intimidade. Para tanto, investigo os YouTubers brasileiros Felipe Neto e Kéfera Buchmann e seus respectivos fandoms, “Corujas” e “Kélovers”, através de uma análise das práticas midiáticas das celebridades, que é conjugada com entrevistas
realizadas com os seus fãs. A investigação culmina, então, em uma reflexão acerca da reconfiguração desses laços e da construção da ideia de reconfiguração da ilusão da intimidade. A fronteira, muitas vezes confusa, entre as esferas pessoal e profissional que percebi entre os fãs corrobora para a compreensão de uma redefinição das relações
parassociais construídas com as webcelebridades.

Researchers across disciplines have been studying the psychology of fans for decades. Seeking to better understand fan behavior and the various factors motivating fans, researchers have studied dozens of variables in hundreds of studies of different fan groups. To date, however, there have been relatively few attempts to integrate this sizable body of work, pulling together findings across from the field to with a broader, more holistic perspective. This book does exactly that, identifying and concisely summarizing research on 28 separate lines of inquiry on the psychology of fans and integrating it all into an empirically-validated model known as the CAPE model. Useful as a textbook for a fandom studies course and as a handbook for fan researchers, this book is essential reading for anyone looking to better understand the state of fan psychology and wanting to conduct their own research exploring the ins and outs of fans of all sorts!

When the Disney studios announced that they had cast Halle Bailey in the role of Ariel, aka The Little Mermaid, for their latest live-action remake, there was a wave of reactions and most of all: criticism. Twitter hashtags #NotMyMermaid and #NotMyAriel became trending topics and Halle was ridiculed in words as well as in ‘anti-fan art’. This blog post explores the history of Mermaids of Colour and argues in favour of the casting of Halle Bailey.

Resumen:
Con el creciente acercamiento de culturas, producto de la globalización, el K-pop ha logrado
estratégicamente impactar en diversos lugares del mundo, lugares remotos, lugares lejanos a su
lugar de origen: Seúl, Corea del Sur. Esta industria perteneciente a la Ola Coreana (Hallyu), es
ahora una gran influyente en la cultura pop global, por medio de sus canciones, bailes y
performances, es un llamativo producto cultural coreano que nos ha atrapado a millones de fans
alrededor del mundo. Colombia no es la excepción, la constante influencia de la cultura pop en
la juventud del país hace que se fije la atención en esta puesta en escena, generando aficiones,
pasiones y sentimientos en las personas que se convierten en fans de este tipo de música. Las y
los fans impulsadas por estas emociones, son creadoras de comunidad, la cual se convierte en
el lugar seguro y común para compartir en torno a estas pasiones. Al estar conectados en la
comunidad, baile (dance covers), canto (vocal covers), gestión de comunidad (fandoms), redes
de compra-venta (WTS, WTT), el objetivo de este proyecto es describir las relaciones, lazos y
experiencias que se presentan en la comunidad de fans del K-pop en Colombia. Este trabajo es
entonces una apuesta autoetnográfica donde expongo mi experiencia como fan de K-pop desde
la comunidad K-pop en Colombia , hasta las memorias de una visita a Corea durante la
pandemia por COVID-19, acompañado por un breve análisis desde una perspectiva feminista y
de género.
Palabras Clave: K-pop, Hallyu, Fans, Comunidad, K-pop en Colombia.

Abstract:
Due to the growing rapprochement of cultures, as a consequence of globalization, K-pop has
impacted diverse places in the world strategically, remote places far away from its
origin place: Seoul, South Korea. Belonging to the Korean Wave (Hallyu), this industry is
nowadays a big influencer in pop culture through songs, dances, and performances, becoming
then a flamboyant cultural product. K-pop has caught the attention of millions of fans around
the world and makes us part of it; Colombia is not an exception, the influence of pop culture in
the young people of the country have focused the attention on this scene, creating hobbies,
passions and feelings through people who become K-pop fans. Fans who are driven by these
emotions are community creators, and this community would become a shared and safe place
to share all-around passions. When they’re connected through community, fans share dancing
(dance cover), singing (vocal cover), community management (fandoms), merch exchange
networks (WTS, WTT), therefore the objective of this project is to describe relationships,
boundaries, and experiences that are created in the Colombian K-pop fans community. Then,
this project is an authoetnographic desire, where I present my experience as a K-pop fan
belonging to the fan community of Colombia, and the memories of a trip to South Korea during the
pandemic, all of this description matching a short analysis from feminist and gender
perspective.
Key Words: K-pop, Hallyu, Fans, Community, K-pop in Colombia

""This paper explores the reasoning behind studying television as a form of literature in academia through several modes of literary criticism and interpretation, and the difference between the existing area of television studies and the proposed study of television as literature. Critical analysis was applied to the ABC television series, Castle, in support of this argument. Also explored is Castle's place within the genre of detective fiction, as well as the value of the critical analysis within the fan community of the series.

[EDIT] May 2013: View my prezi presentation here: http://prezi.com/oup9i3aoccyu/television-as-literature/; Revised & expanded for my ENGL 400 - Senior Seminar capstone paper.  The original paper is still available via the Tumblr link"

This article explores new forms of serial structure found in transmedia story worlds, with particular attention to the innovations of amateur transmedia works.  Although the term transmedia has most often been associated only with corporate media at the center, taking amateur works as the paradigmatic example produces new insights into the affordances of digital technology, beyond the industry’s limitations, namely how transmedia creativity can function in the absence of the need to remain marketable, to maintain a coherent brand, and to work within a corporate family of conglomerated media companies.  This study thereby focuses on fan fiction, art, and “vids”, a form of remix video collage, to demonstrate how contemporary amateur production interacts with professional content, but also produces its own type of complex narration through unique forms, aesthetics, and story structures, likewise encouraging alternate reception practices as a result.  This article identifies at least three types of transmedial seriality elucidated by studying amateur fan media.  First, fan works emphasize the increasingly complex nature of seriality in all transmedia and the way in which serial effects do not vanish, but increasingly depend upon the viewer’s choices. Secondly, fan works create their own kind of flexible and multiple serial effects wherein meaning does not depend on consuming a specific sequence of narratives, but instead upon reading any collection of narratives within larger cycles or tropes to assemble a sense of flowing norms, genres, and preferences. Finally, fan works also uniquely analyze and reconfigure the serial effects of tropes found not only across the transmedia components of individual stories, but also across the breadth of popular culture. By remixing and reimagining repeated structures of representation, fan works often call attention to latent forms of seriality within popular culture as a collective whole.

This study investigates how professional sports organizations are using socialmedia to develop long-term relationships with supporters. Professional sports clubs are important businesses with large communities of followers which present an ideal context to better understand the potential that social media have to help forge strong bonds withfans. This qualitative comparative case study uses relationship marketing as the base theory and semi-structure interviews as the method of data collection. The interviews were performed with key marketing and communication personnel of the St. Louis Rams
(Rams) of the National Football League (NFL) and the LA Galaxy (Galaxy) of Major League Soccer (MLS) in order to gather valuable insight into this phenomenon. The findings indicated that both clubs are using social media to introduce key elements and constructs of relationship marketing, which, in accord with theory, are critically
important to the development of enduring relationships with the fandom. The findings showed as well that the St. Louis Rams and the LA Galaxy utilize social media as a customer service and data collection tool in their attempt to better understand supporters’ needs and preferences to help them deliver a more effective message and forge strong and
lasting relationships with supporters, also known as their fandom.

Pagans constitute a minority of long standing in society; even in Lithua-nia, the last state of Europe to be Christianized, they've endured for over six hundred years. This persistence probably indicates that the movement meets certain religious and spiritual needs in society, but may also reflect something about how Pagans function as a movement. Here we report an ethnographic investigation of a Pagan group in Lithuania where we find evidence for a Pagan ideological influence on the movement's organizational functioning. These Pagans not only seek inspiration in their national heritage and folklore but in the concept of darna, which relates to harmony, morality, honor, and fruitfulness. Our research shows that darna is one factor affecting a Pagan group's organization and functioning.

In the present article we discuss three studies aimed at better understanding elitism in the context of fan groups. The studies assess different facets of elitism, predictors of elitism and the potential outcomes associated with holding elitist beliefs. The survey studies were conducted on members of three distinct fan groups: furries (fans of media featuring anthropomorphized animal characters), bronies (adult fans of the television series My Little Pony) and anime fans (fans of Japanese animation). Elitism was found to include both self-inflation and other-derogation and is predicted by two components of fan identity (fanship and fandom). Elitism was also significantly associated with pro-gatekeeping attitudes and behaviours. Practical and theoretical implications for fan culture are discussed. We also discuss the limitations of the studies and their ability to contribute to a discussion about creating inclusive fan spaces.

We examined associations between ingroup identification with one's fan community, perceived social connections gained through engagement in the fan interest, and well-being. Fans of a variety of different interests completed measures regarding degree of fandom with a favorite fan interest, functions of fandom engagement, and well-being. The results showed that ingroup identification was positively related to well-being. Fans' motivation to participate in the fan community for social connections, but not purpose in life or escapism, mediated the relationship between ingroup identification and well-being. The results support prior fan, and general group, research concerning the benefits of membership in groups. Furthermore, the results highlight the important psychological needs and well-being gained through engagement with fan communities.

Across two studies, we examined the extent to which popular anime series contained sexist content and tested whether anime consumption and genre preference were associated with viewers' ambivalent sexism. In Study 1, we content-coded episodes from nine of the most popular anime series and found that women (vs. men) were underrepresented in anime and were more likely than expected to be sexualized (vs. men), curvaceous (vs. secondary characters), and provocative (vs. secondary characters), while men (vs. women) were more likely to use a weapon but were not typically portrayed as hypermasculine. In Study 2, we measured anime consumption, genre preference, and ambivalent sexism in a group of self-identified anime fans. Anime consumption was positively associated with both benevolent and hostile sexism. Preferences for the drama and hentai drama genres mediated the relationship between consumption and hostile sexism, while preferences for drama, slice of life, mecha, and action mediated the relationship between consumption and benevolent sexism. The results support the notion that anime contains sexist content and that consumption of this content is related to sexist beliefs. The findings also illustrate genre-specific differences, likely driven by genre-specific content, a finding that is consistent with other research on media exposure effects (e.g., violent media and aggression).

This lecture deals with the following 6 topics:
1) Presentation of the notion of “culture” and concrete examples.
2) Discussion of the notion of “cultural identity” is.
3) The scope of intercultural (or “cross-cultural”) communication.
4) Typical and recurrent obstacles that impede a successful intercultural communication.
5) (Negative or positive) impact of cultural (mis)communication
6) Possibilities to improve intercultural communication.

We examined whether the psychological needs fulfilled by group membership predicted fanship (identification with a fan interest) and fandom (identification with other fans) among anime fans. Self-identified anime fans completed measures of fanship and fandom, as well as measures assessing the psychological needs met by their participation in the anime community. The results showed that there are similarities and differences between male and female anime fans in the needs met by fandom participation. Furthermore, these differences in fulfilled needs predicted differences in fanship and fandom scores. However, overall, there existed few differences between male and female anime fans in motivation to engage with the anime fandom.

This Bachelor's Diploma Thesis focuses on depicting angst in real person fiction through inspecting two different approaches to it. One closely analyzes the angst-related motifs appearing in the text, while the other interconnects the relevant passages with real-life angst, and it elaborates on their emotional relevance. It draws its conclusions from analysis alongside the related fan comments.
The theoretical part introduces fan communities and emphasizes their role in the context of the whole thesis. The analyzed fan fiction are milmat’s “Two Sides of a Coin” and darkmochecoffee’s “Aqua Lung”.

A LOOK INTO ANIME BASED ON FANDOM AND POPULAR
CULTURE: A CASE STUDY ON ANIME FANS
Animes short or long animations that originate from Japanese culture and are rooted in the history of this culture, holding an important spiritual and material place for Japan. Animes in Japan are not just viewed as animations. They have been used as important soft power for Japan for a long period of time.

Anime fascination is not limited to Japan. There are anime viewers/fans
from all over the world and the number of fans is increasing day by day. There are
some concepts under this amount of increaser on which animes are based. The two
most important concepts are ‘popular culture’ and ‘fan culture’. When analyzed in
the anime axis, popular culture leads fans to short-term and quick consumption, while
the fan culture creates a well-grounded faithfulness to what fans watch.

This study focuses on the question of whether Turkish anime audiences are
fed by ‘fan culture’ or ‘popular culture’. Semi-structured interviews, which is a
qualitative data collection method, were conducted to understand the
possible perspectives of 30 Turkish anime fans within the scope of the research
universe. The data obtained as a result of these interviews were analyzed through the
concepts of ‘fan culture’ and ‘popular culture’ in line with the views of anime fans.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, interviews with the determined anime fans were made
over the phone by voice recording with their permission. Detailed qualitative data
analysis has been made on the deciphers.

Considering the findings obtained, it was revealed that Turkish anime fans
within the scope of the research universe saw anime as an important culture and found many traces of their emotions in them. Anime fans interviewed therein stated that the most important reason for the existence of the anime in Turkey is its ‘fans’. The effect of popular culture on the marketing of anime and its appeal to more people has also been affirmed by the fans. Within the scope of this research, it was concluded
that anime is a product of ‘fan culture’.

The ways that mainstream game designers incorporate sexuality into video games is replicated by fans that declare their access to sexualized bodies, which leads to limiting presentations of sexuality in the medium. The presentation goes through the logics behind that incorporation and replication as well as models for designing a new approach to sexuality in games. (Download the PowerPoint for a transcription of the presentation slide-by-slide.)