Fan Sites Research Articles

Unleashing the role of e-word of mouth on purchase intention in select Facebook fan pages of smart phone users.

This study aims to examine the impact of e-WOM on customer purchase intentions in Facebook fan pages using theories of trust, value co-creation and brand attitude. The present research has set out to explore this emerging domain of study and has thus developed & tested propositions which attempt to establish a relationship between e-WOM and customer's purchase intentions. A deeper understanding of this possible association is obtained by studying the mediating roles of Trust, Value Co-Creation, Brand Image and Brand Attitude. The context for exploring this phenomenon is chosen to be the fan pages of smartphone brands on Facebook. The study involved conducting a sample survey of 490 respondents, comprising of both male and female, who belong to 5 smartphone brands Facebook fan pages-Samsung, Moto G, Lenovo, MI and ASUS are considered for the study. Out of which sample of 100 each has been targeted individually. The findings suggested that e-WOM significantly predicts the purchase intentions of the customers of a specific product and considerable impacted on the purchase decision. The findings of the study also reveal that customer 's trust beliefs, perceived value co-creation, brand image and brand attitude partially mediate in between relationships of e-WOM and purchase intention. The actual presence of different types of consumer electronics brands on the social media, more prominently, the smartphones, which undoubtedly are the most ubiquitous product of this segment. In fact, this indicates that presence on social media is a well- thought organizational strategy developed by companies to gain partial control over the customer 's decision- making process by establishing a close connect with the customers for a long period. This consequence will significantly impact the decision-making process of marketers or practitioners in relation to their marketing tactics. This research also indicates that marketers could devise more effective methods for distributing marketing content through social networking sites, while corporations can cultivate favorable electronic word-of-mouth for their products or services. Through the implementation of social media marketing strategies, companies can increase their sales volume and generate higher revenue. The study examined the role of trust, virtual community participation, and desire to purchase as mediators on smartphone brand fan sites on Facebook. It was observed that these factors had a partial influence on customer purchase intention.

That time I was reincarnated as a problematic trope: Viewer preferences and cultural trends in reincarnation isekai anime

The genre of reincarnation isekai anime, wherein a protagonist dies in their original world only to be reborn in a fantastical one, has grown significantly in global appeal. Yet, this genre’s expansion also normalizes controversial themes such as mental health issues, sexual and violent content, and the sexualisation of virtual minors. This article employs a data-driven approach, analysing user-generated coding of themes and properties from English-speaking fan sites, to critically examine three emergent and interconnected dimensions: the success of series deemed ‘trashy’, the complexities surrounding sexual themes, and the rising appeal of the ‘zero-to-hero’ motif in a post-pandemic world. The findings reveal a paradoxical allure of ‘trashy’ but popular content, complex ethical dilemmas surrounding sexual themes, and an increased resonance of empowerment motifs resulting from the pandemic. These discoveries provoke renewed discussions on anime’s role in shaping and reflecting societal values and raise questions about regulatory challenges in a globalized media setting. The study confirms the need for more nuanced understandings of the genre’s growing global influence, particularly outside of Japan, and calls for continued research to delve deeper into its complexities.

Znaczenie telewizji w lokalnym komunikowaniu politycznym na przykładzie poznańskich mediów lokalnych i sublokalnych

The role of television in Local Political Communication on the Example of Poznan Local and Sub-local Media In the article, the authors, based on audience and readership surveys of Poznan media, in particular those conducted by the CATI method in April 2022 by the Institute for Market and Social Research IBRiS, analyse the possibility of using traditional media, especially local television, in the next local government election campaign in 2024, in provincial cities. The example of Poznań is treated as a case study. The authors attempt to grapple with the increasingly popular hypothesis that, especially in metropolitan areas, new media, mainly social media, are becoming the most important channel of electoral communication. In their analysis, they try to show that despite the dynamic growth in the importance of online news portals, local groups, individual fan sites of politicians and social activists, the growing opinions about the “death” of television are exaggerated (if anything, one can talk about the disappearance of the importance of the printed press), and the choice of media depends on the target group, with traditional media, especially local televisions, continuously serving as an important channel for reaching a part of the electorate.

Digital Marketers for Attitudes and Purchase Intentions Towards Modern Personalized Cosmetics, Impact of Manufacturing and Engineering Technology Management

Thailand's e-commerce cosmetics and personal beauty care market has grown by double digits, spawning a new field of competition that has migrated from offline in-store to online platforms. Despite its rapid growth, Thailand is still in the early stages of internet commerce. Not everyone in Thailand is comfortable or passionate about internet shopping. Given this market potential, the study's results will assist luxury cosmetic and skincare firms in better understanding the behaviors and expectations of Thai women, since best practices from other countries may not be applicable to the Thai market and clients. This study looks at the relationship between perceived value and trust in order to predict whether people will buy customized cosmetics online. To assess clients' desire to buy cosmetics online, a critical relationship between brand image, customer trust, and digital marketing must be established. Differences in customer demographics, behaviors, and expectations across physical locations will also be investigated, as will offline and online sales of counter-brand cosmetics and skincare. The study will analyze the elements that influence Thai women's online cosmetics and skincare purchases by using secondary data and observation to obtain information from 500 female participants. The participants were female internet consumers who had used products from the top three brands in the previous year: L'OREAL (LOR), Lancome (LAN), and Maybelline (MBL), and the respondents had "some" comprehension of customized cosmetics. Furthermore, participants must be a Facebook user for more than a year and a member of any Facebook cosmetics fan sites. Customers' demographic and psychographic characteristics, as well as their purchase behaviors, digital marketing strategies, and marketing methods, are among the key elements investigated. The findings of this study are intended to provide a more in-depth understanding of customer shopping behavior and expectations, as well as to identify the critical success factors that brands should prioritize when developing digital marketing strategies to influence female consumers' purchasing decisions through online shopping channels in Thailand.

The Politics of Nordsploitation: History, Industry, Audiences

The Politics of Nordsploitation: History, Industry, Audiences

The System of Modern Russian Specialized Sports Internet Media

The beginning of the XXI century is characterized by the emergence of new media and the development of the Internet space by traditional media. A large number of sports publications have moved to an online format. This article examined the system of Russian specialized sports online media. The study analyzed the one hundred most popular specialized sports online media. We studied the following independent variables: the amount of materials per day/ per week; monthly number of visitors; official registration as a media; period of existence. The research found that the system of Russian specialized sports online media includes specialized professional online media, specialized mass online media, club Internet media, sites of sports federations, fan sites, communication and statistical platforms. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of Internet resources are not officially registered media, although they perform all the functions of media and have the same goal. In conclusion, it can be highlighted that specialized sports sites are divided into the most popular, relatively popular and unpopular in relation to sports.

Alluvial fan development during the Holocene in the Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan

Alluvial fan sediments contain valuable information on environmental change and anthropogenic influences, and function as an archive of landscape development. The purpose of this paper is to describe the analysis of the sedimentary information from core samples taken from two alluvial fans in the Saskatchewan prairies. The analysis assessed grain size, organic matter content, and microfossil presence to identify periods of accumulation and stabilization. Parker, Beavers, and Product weathering indices were used to analyze the modern source soil samples and the borehole cores to determine weathering/leaching conditions. The bed‐load transport sediments showed a higher leaching intensity whereas lower leaching was revealed for periods of stability, silt sheet flows, and sand sheet flows. The Beavers Index was not only a strong indicator of a bed‐load transport layer, but also of calcium accumulation zones marking alluvial fan surface stability. The large Dolomite/Calcite ratio marking the calcium accumulation zones was used for correlation between the two alluvial fan sites on a regional scale. A comparison of the stratigraphy of the two alluvial fans documents that a relationship exists between agriculture and an increase in erosion.

What do they think and why it matters? Views of administrators and faculty on the use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games for Learning

Administrators and faculty lead play salient roles in technology integration projects in higher education. Yet, there is little to no availability of information regarding their shared experiences and perceptions as leaders and as decisionmakers in such projects. This article reports the findings of an investigation on problems and challenges associated with technology integration in classrooms and adapting video game in curriculum reform projects, using a Hermeneutic Phenomenological lens in the context of administrator and faculty perceptions. For this study, the researcher interviewed 6 administrators/ faculty members who were key stakeholders in a technology integration in curriculum projects using Massively Multiplayer Online video games in Business courses. The researcher was the lead designer of the project and the data for this study was gathered pre- and post-project completion and reporting of results. The data produced some absorbing and novel results including the motivational pull of video game content versus gameplay usage, developing perspicacity for design project collaboration, and effective procedural approaches to curriculum design/re-design using technology. These findings suggest a paradigm shift in the way video games may be used for education, based on compelling discussions that non-gameplay related contents from video games may be as motivational as playing the games. These contents include the information on game characters and settings within game sites, game wikis, video tutorials, blogs, and game fan sites. The article shares discussions on the possible development of an Instructional Design Model, fusing gameplay with game content in the curriculum. Implications for future research are also shared.

Creative Misreadings of “Thai BL” by a Filipino Fan Community: Dislocating Knowledge Production in Transnational Queer Fandoms Through Aspirational Consumption

Creative Misreadings of "Thai BL" by a Filipino Fan CommunityDislocating Knowledge Production in Transnational Queer Fandoms Through Aspirational Consumption Thomas Baudinette (bio) While browsing the internet one night in late December 2014, I encountered a Thai television soap opera, or lakhon, named Lovesick: The Series. As a scholar of Japanese queer popular culture who investigates boys love (hereafter BL), a genre of homoerotic media produced and consumed primarily by heterosexual women,1 I quickly recognized that Lovesick conformed to the generic tropes associated with classic Japanese BL texts.2 Unbeknownst to me at the time, I had serendipitously stumbled upon an emerging genre of popular culture known in Thailand as "series wai."3 But in 2015, as I scoured the internet to learn more about this intriguing series, I came across English-language fan spaces on Facebook where Lovesick was being discussed as representative of a phenomenon that fans called "Thai BL."4 Curious, I began to observe these English-language fansites for "Thai BL" and determined that the majority of the people participating in the space were young Filipino men and women and that most sites were curated and administrated by Filipino men who identified as gay. In fact, the Philippines has emerged as an important space for fandom of so-called Thai BL, a point recently recognized by Philippine media.5 As I observed such fan sites over several years, it became increasingly apparent that the Filipino men and women participating in this fandom viewed BL as fundamentally Thai and that they actively attempted to differentiate it from what they called "Japanese yaoi."6 For these fans, BL was positioned as a form of Thai popular culture and was therefore understood to be categorically not Japanese. Previous work exploring the transnational circulation of BL has tended to advance theory which firmly centers Japan within its analysis, exploring how "culturally Japanese" products such as BL are adapted or "glocalized" to new contexts.7 Many of these studies draw upon Koichi Iwabuchi's seminal exploration of the transnational circulation of Japanese popular culture throughout East and Southeast Asia in the late 1990s.8 Iwabuchi develops a sophisticated [End Page 101] framework for understanding how the "cultural odor" of a product—that is, a product's recognizability and desirability based in its embeddedness or centering within a specific cultural context—plays an influential role in its reception. Iwabuchi further contends that the Japanese government has played an active role in bolstering the Japanese "cultural odor" of certain popular culture products such as anime and manga by essentializing what he terms Japan's "national brand."9 Throughout his scholarship, Iwabuchi calls upon scholars to "re-center" Japan within processes of globalization and to draw upon this re-centering of Japan as a space for critical reflection on the politics of transnational cultural flow. In so doing, Iwabuchi suggests, scholars can account for the influence of national producers on the reception of Japanese cultural products outside Japan.10 Iwabuchi's theories of transnational flow are useful in understanding the processes of adaption when a Japanese cultural product such as BL leaves Japan and enters a new national space. But Iwabuchi's theories become less useful for understanding how a glocalized product further transnationalizes and potentially develops new meanings and associations through this process. Iwabuchi's insistence on "centering" analysis on the point of production (i.e., Japan) thus fails to account for situations when the so-called cultural odor of Japan is diminished or even extinguished. Furthermore, Iwabuchi's emphasis on critical reflection based in "centering" analysis on Japan may lead one to conclude that consumers who fail to recognize the "Japaneseness" of a cultural product such as BL are somehow "mistaken." While I am broadly sympathetic to Iwabuchi's scholarly project, I am concerned by his criticisms of fans whose reading practices are positioned as "misunderstanding" Japan's role in the production of the texts that they consume. Like Bertha Chin and Lori Morimoto, I am also troubled by Iwabuchi's conflation of nation and culture and his lack of engagement with the intensely affective nature of fannish consumption.11 Taking inspiration from Eve Sedgwick's call to read data through...

Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey Julie Anne Taddeo Downton Abbey 2019 Directed by Michael Engler Distributed by Carnival Productions; Perfect World Pictures https://shop.pbs.org/downton-abbey-the-movie 122 minutes For six seasons (ITV, 2010-15), the world fell in love with the aristocratic Crawley family and their household staff featured in the ITV production Downton Abbey. At the height of its popularity, as many as 15 million viewers tuned in to a Sunday evening episode, and visitors to Highclere Castle, the model and setting for the series, continue to number at 50,000 a year. Downton Abbey-branded teas, china, jewelry, makeup, ornaments, stuffed dogs, and cookbooks, among other items, have allowed fans to consume this series in multiple ways long after it bade farewell in 2015. Since it first aired in 2010, Downton Abbey has become a crucial part of TV history, heralding a new "golden age" of the period drama genre not witnessed on our small screens since the 1970s. Its international success not only spurred a butlering industry in China (Buckley & Kan 2017) but, more importantly, is indicative of how many people now get their history: from televisual historical fictions. Further, the material culture the series has generated (its extensive wardrobe, kitchen equipment, dinnerware, furniture, etc.) remains on display in an exhibition currently touring throughout the US, meticulously curated to become a part of history itself. Therefore, it's no surprise that social media fan sites were abuzz with anticipation for the release of the Downton Abbey movie, four years after the TV series signed off. Facebook and Twitter feeds shared and mused about the movie trailer and posted photos of costumed fans once again holding Downton-themed parties. Downton's creator and writer, Julian Fellowes, had ended the TV series with the Crawley family still comfortably ensconced at the Abbey in 1925, yet anxious about the future and the place of both master and servant in it. The film leaps ahead to 1927—sandwiched between the General Strike of 1926 and the Crash of 1929—two significant historical moments Fellowes seems determined to ignore. With only two hours, instead of an eight-episode season, to fill, he instead creates a fairly a- political event around which excitement and drama as well as humor, can be generated: the visit of King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) to the Abbey, as part of a Royal tour of the country (based loosely on a tour stop the Royal couple actually made in 1912 to a different estate in South Yorkshire). The film's opening scene is reminiscent of Downton's inaugural TV episode—the telegram delivering the news of the Abbey's heir's death on the Titanic has now been replaced with a letter originating in London, headed by steam train, then bicycling postboy, to the Yorkshire estate, announcing the impending visit. The intricate workings of the postal service, followed by the days-long preparations of the feast, the proper laying of the table, and the dressing of the ladies of the Abbey, are just some of the period details intended to satiate our longing for an elegant bygone era. The staff are just as excited to be waiting on the Royal Family as the Earl (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife and daughters are to dine and dance with them, and when the former are told the King's servants will cook and serve the meal in their place, their disappointment is palpable. To modern viewers, the extra work might seem like a burden—wouldn't they enjoy a day off?—and only Daisy (Sophie McShera) utters anti-monarchist views but, not surprisingly, eventually gets caught up in the excitement herself. Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle), who since the series ended, has embarked on a teaching career, relishes his temporary return to service at the Abbey, providing corny comic relief over his faux pas of speaking directly to the Royals. With so many characters, it's impossible for the film to flesh out anyone's story line, but we get a few glimpses into some favorite characters: the Bates, now parents and finally without any legal battles hanging over their heads, are growing contentedly into...

Latina fans agitate respectability: Rethinking antifans and antifandom

This piece proposes that the fields of ethnic studies, fat studies, and sexuality studies (with a focus on racialized sexualities) can help us think about antifans and antifandom from a different lens. I utilize identity hermeneutics to analyze some of my own fan sites that center fat women of color, nonnormative sexualities, and Latina deviance. I offer the heuristic of agitation and agitated discourse to think through the hater (antifan) comments that Latinas encounter online about their fat racialized flesh.

Online Fandom: Social Identity and Social Hierarchy of Hallyu Fans

Hallyu fans are people who are dedicated to popular culture in South Korea, including music, drama and film. This study focuses on fans of Korean pop music, which is known as K-pop. Developments in digital communication technology have given rise to media such as forums, websites, video channels, and fan sites that are consumed by K-pop fans. Fans participate in multiple fandoms because these websites are easily accessed by public audiences. However, problems arise when fans start to compete, using their knowledge to help validate their existence and to help the perception of authentic identities within fan communities. This paper is based on virtual ethnographic fieldwork that identified fans’ constructions of their own identities and the building of a social hierarchy through various online practices. The research findings are based on four months of fieldwork with two online Hallyu fandoms; ELF (Ever Lasting Friends) and A.R.M.Y (Adorable Representative M.C. for Youth). The findings reveal that conflicts exist in certain fandoms which aid in defining fan identities and, at the same time, fans undertake positive socialising actions which contribute to the fandom itself. Interactions between fandoms also need to be recognised, since online fandoms can be seen as borderless.

케이팝 팬덤의 “홈,” “홈마” - 팬 사이트에서 암시장으로, 파파라치에서 문화 생산자로 - : From Fan Sites and Paparazzi to Black Market and Cultural Producers

케이팝 팬덤의 “홈,” “홈마” - 팬 사이트에서 암시장으로, 파파라치에서 문화 생산자로 - : From Fan Sites and Paparazzi to Black Market and Cultural Producers

The importance of CSR practices carried out by sport teams and its influence on brand love: the Real Madrid Foundation

PurposeThis paper aims to to provide a better understanding of the effect that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices might have on brand love. It also analyzes the importance of making supporters be aware and involved in such initiatives.Design/methodology/approachThis study focuses on the Real Madrid Foundation, which is the most followed charitable sport institution worldwide. Data have been collected through a survey that was available online from January through April 2016. Participation has been solicited among the supporters of Real Madrid on fan sites. This produced a total of 402 completed questionnaires. In addition, the Managing Director of the Real Madrid Foundation has been interviewed.FindingsThe CSR activities carried out by the team positively influence fan commitment toward the club. Keeping the supporters updated about such initiatives through social networks also helps to increase the bonds between the club and its followers. Moreover, the fans’ use of the club’s website and their involvement in the club’s CSR activities may have a positive impact on the love the supporters profess toward the team’s brand. This claim, however, must be treated with some caution because it has not been proved to be statistically significant.Originality/valueThis study suggests that developing a website is not enough to get brand love from supporters. Experiential marketing does not seem to have statistical impact on brand love either. Conversely, the CSR actions and the use of social networks to keep followers updated about the social initiatives carried out by the team do provide new opportunities to achieve an emotional attachment toward the club and therefore, positively affect brand love.

Probable Impossibilities: Historical Romance Readers Talk Back

Probable Impossibilities:Historical Romance Readers Talk Back Suzanne Keen (bio) I take as my starting point Phelan's conception of narrative progression: "the synthesis of textual dynamics and readerly dynamics" (12). I accept Phelan's claim that "[t]extual dynamics are the internal processes by which narratives move from beginning through middle to ending, and readerly dynamics are the corresponding cognitive, affective, ethical, and aesthetic responses of the audience to those textual dynamics" (13). The responses of readers are hard to get at, but collaboration between rhetorical narrative theory that admits a role for audiences (narrative, authorial, and actual) and reader research is desirable. To illuminate the bridging "interpretive, ethical, and aesthetic judgments" (13) enacted by readers in response to narrative encoding, I consider a small sampling of the copious social media and paratextual evidence of readerly dynamics in responses to Diana Gabaldon's as yet unfinished time-slip historical romance sequence, the Outlander novels (1990–2014).1 My response underscores the efficacy of Phelan's model by showing that it illuminates the vital role of audiences of [End Page 127] narratives quite different from those he presents (passing a fundamental test for a proposed theory, which should work as well to account for popular as for scholarly readerships). If, as Phelan argues, the authorial audience has attributes "assigned by the author but on the basis of the author's assumptions about likely readers," then the author's communication with her diverse actual readers (in this case, by means of her blog and through her published commentary, The Outlandish Companion) highlights some of those assumptions. Some methodological challenges arise from a commitment to considering readerly dynamics that allows actual audiences onto Phelan's chart. Gabaldon's readers are legion: she commands a worldwide audience for books that have sold more than twenty million copies and have been translated into thirty-eight languages.2 The New York Times bestselling novels have received a boost from their adaptation into a popular Starz television series. Though most of Gabaldon's readers are presumed to be women, the millions of viewers of her television series include many men: the series premiere, "Sassenach," drew equal proportions of men and women in the strongest multiplatform debut of a new series in the history of the network (West).3 With a potential authorial audience of that scale, we must assume recruitment from an actual audience of great diversity. Authorial audience members, as inferred from among other data points on her Website and those reproduced in The Outlandish Companion (369–95), enjoy reading very lengthy novels (9,073 paperback pages so far), sustain interest in a fiction delivered serially, and tolerate fairly long gaps between installments—though potentially they require the "methadone" of Gabaldon's book recommendations to tide them over (571–77). Whether they read for the sex scenes, for the historical reconstructions of events, because they find eighteenth-century medicine fascinating, or simply to follow familiar characters, can and must vary. That Gabaldon engages with her readers shows in her acknowledgement of "… the Readers, who both instigated this book and supplied me with a great deal of its content by asking questions, suggesting Things They Would Like to Know, and providing all sorts of interesting miscellanea" (Outlandish Companion v). Though Gabaldon tries to teach these readers about the error of presentism (343), their responses include passionate presentist denunciations of her representational choices, which (valuing plausibility and verisimilitude) she defends as influenced by the historical period and not under her own control at all (129, 191, 341).4 The author [End Page 128] meets her readers more than partway, blithely admitting minor errors and oversights caught by readers (136, 374), but she stoutly defends her rights as a maker. Rather than joining in the self-deprecating assessment of Gabaldon readers as Obsessenachs, who turn to fan sites to endure Droughtlander periods between novels, I suggest that Gabaldon's real audience talks back and the real author engages with them, within limits. The fictional world of Outlander consists on the one hand of a rigorously researched eighteenth century (with persuasively rendered locations and episodes in the Scottish Highlands, Paris, the Caribbean, coastal and mountain colonial North Carolina, and...

Youth fans of global popular culture: Between prosumer and free digital labourer

The subculture of urban global popular-culture youth fans is believed to be a resistance-subculture against the hegemony of dominant power. This study, however, found that the subculture given rise to by the urban, global popular-culture youth fans of ‘the Mortal Instruments’ in Indonesia is in opposition to the Neo-Gramscian thought which has become the foundation of popular-culture studies. In constructing their identity, some of the digital fandoms of global popular culture have been critical of the content of cultural texts as a form of resistance against texts produced by cultural industries. However, they have only been developing artificial forms of resistance within the system, that is, in fan sites. This study found that the urban youths joining digital fandoms are not free from the hegemony of capitalism because they have become playlabourers, engaging in free digital labour for the powers of the global culture industry. This critical attitude of urban youths, in building their digital fandom-subculture identity, is incapable of standing against the system. They even position themselves within the network of cultural-industry capitalism – identified by the Frankfurt School as the domination and superiorization of the industry power of global entertainment that is continually self-restoring.

Online social network interactions: A cross-cultural comparison of network structure on McDonald’s Facebook sites between Taiwan and USA

A cross-cultural comparison of social networking structure on McDonald’s Facebook fan sites between Taiwan and the USA was conducted utilizing the individualism/collectivism dimension proposed by Hofstede. Four network indicators are used to describe the network structure of McDonald’s Facebook fan sites: size, density, clique and centralization. Individuals who post on both Facebook sites for the year of 2012 were considered as network participants for the purpose of the study. Due to the huge amount of data, only one thread of postings was sampled from each month of the year of 2012. The final data consists of 1002 postings written by 896 individuals and 5962 postings written by 5532 individuals from Taiwan and the USA respectively. The results indicated that the USA McDonald’s Facebook fan network has more fans, while Taiwan’s McDonald’s Facebook fan network is more densely connected. Cliques did form among the overall multiplex and within the individual uniplex networks in two countries, yet no significant differences were found between them. All the fan networks in both countries are relatively centralized, mostly on the site operators. URL: http://ijkcdt.net/xml/12710/12710.pdf

Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity and Self-Narrative by Rebecca Williams

Reviewed by: Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity and Self-Narrative by Rebecca Williams Nicolle Lamerichs (bio) Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity and Self-Narrative by Rebecca Williams. Bloomsbury. 2015. $114.00 hardcover; $62.99 e-book. 248 pages. In a time of convergence and transmediality, endings of television shows seem to have lost some of their meaning. The recent revivals of shows such as Arrested Development (Netflix, 2013) and The X-Files (Fox, 2016) have also breathed new life into fan cultures that had been considered dead. This rise of revivals and nostalgia projects runs parallel to important changes in our media landscape, characterized by an increase in transmedia projects and a [End Page 171] participatory culture around television. A text may be continued through on-demand services, graphic novels, or fan creations themselves. Moreover, the rise of Netflix and other on-demand streaming services has changed how television is viewed, produced, and experienced. Television is in a moment of transition. How do fans deal with storyworlds that are increasingly expanded on? When does a text end, and how do fans respond to endings? These and many more questions are central to Rebecca Williams’s Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity and Self-Narrative, which makes endings the starting point of an exhaustive study of fandom.1 Through an analysis of online discussions at fan sites, she investigates the lines between fandom, self-identity, and narrative closure. Post-Object Fandom is an important, and timely, contribution to the fields of television and cinema studies, audience studies, and cultural studies on identity. Williams builds on previous studies of fans and audiences, with her focus on endings being particularly new. She connects formal studies on television endings and fan responses to the psychological interrogation of fandom as a narrative of the self. Her cases include The West Wing (NBC, 2000–2006), Lost (ABC, 2004–2010), Doctor Who (BBC One, 1963–1989, 2005–), and Firefly (Fox, 2002). Methodologically, Williams relies primarily on studies of online forums such as Television without Pity. Williams’s online research is restricted to message boards rather than a wider array of (social) media platforms, and she argues that “forums continue to be useful sites for fan research, given the space they offer for lengthy conversations as well as their ability to archive and maintain older discussions in the future.”2 Williams supplements her online analysis with surveys that enable her to ask more detailed questions; however, the full results are not shown systematically, which makes it hard to comment on the quality of the questionnaire. Williams is always careful in phrasing that the end of a television show does not mean the end of a fandom. Fans still engage in post-object fandom and experience shows anew through DVDs, streaming services, and fan creations. By using the terminology of Anthony Giddens, Williams argues that fan objects create stability in one’s life, or “ontological security,” which endings threaten on various levels. Similar to divorce and bereavement, endings in fandom necessitate closure. Williams is concerned not just with narrative closure but also with periods of transition for fans themselves, whether that ending is when a source text concludes or when members leave a fandom. Similar to the experience of joining a fandom, endings are affective moments and life-changing events. They require “a period of adjustment and re-narration of the self.”3 Engaging with post-object fandom “offers a way to preserve that sense of established self-identity, not just as a fan, but as the broader cultural self who was embodied across the period of fandom.”4 Rather than providing a formal analysis of an ending, and responses to it, Williams theorizes the meaning of endings in fan cultures. The ways endings are written and produced by the industry itself is also significant to Williams and her respondents. An unplanned ending or sudden cancelation inspires different fan activities and discussions than does a purposeful ending. Williams [End Page 172] compares the endings of Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008–2013) and The Sopranos (HBO, 1999–2007) to Lost and The West Wing, allowing an aesthetic of endings to emerge. Fans consider some approaches to endings more fitting than others and...

Hello Sha-kitty-peare?: Shakespeares Cutified in Japanese Anime Imagination

The first decades of the twenty-first century witnessed a great proliferation of partial adaptations of and references to Shakespeare and his works, in Japanese manga comics and animation films. Such heterogeneous and fragmentary pieces of Shakespeare range from literal or visual quotations from his plays to sacrilegious cute recreations of the playwright himself. This essay will not only illuminate diverse ways of animating Shakespeare’s texts by primarily discussing three recent animated films, Romeo x Juliet (2007), and Zetsuen no Tempest [“The Blast of Tempest”] (2012), but also consider transmutations of Shakespeare himself in animated films such as Romeo x Juliet and Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere (2011), where the playwright is both demystified and cutified in the current fashion of manga-animation characters. This essay will also explore the ways in which the fans of such manga comics and animated films (are often expected to) collaborate and interact with each other to recognize and interpret Shakespearean texts in those works via blogs and fan sites on the Internet. How Shakespeare haunts the contemporary Japanese imagination will be expounded through the analyses of manganized-animated texts that bear “the signature of the Thing ‘Shakespeare’” (Derrida 25).

Walter J. Koch: two decades, one mission.

Temple University Professor and Chairman of Pharmacology Walter J. (“Wally”) Koch, PhD, has been on a career-long mission to elucidate molecular mechanisms of heart failure. Studying a family of kinases that regulate adrenergic receptors and other G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) in the heart, Koch has focused on one such kinase, GRK2,1 which at high levels impairs myocytes and promotes cell death. Two decades of basic and preclinical work with GRK2 have put the 54-year-old Koch and his colleagues on the threshold of human trials using adeno-associated viral-mediated myocardial gene delivery to try to reverse heart failure.2–4 Koch has also shed new light on GRK5, including showing how this enzyme enters a heart cell’s nucleus, where it contributes to hypertrophy.5,6 Koch, a native of Bryan, Ohio, first pursued his interest in science by following a friend’s path to pharmacy school at the University of Toledo. Koch earned his PhD in pharmacology and cell biophysics from the University of Cincinnati, completed a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship at Duke University, joined the Duke faculty, and advanced to a tenured professor of surgery. In 2003 he moved to Philadelphia to launch Thomas Jefferson University’s Center for Translational Medicine, and in 2012 established the Center for Translational Medicine at Temple. In 1995, when Koch started his own lab, he knew he wanted to be the “champion” of GRK2 in the heart and develop GRK2 inhibitors for heart failure. “Twenty years later,” he says in describing his journey, “we’re almost there.” Walter J. Koch My father was a truck driver, a World War II veteran. He hauled steel between Cleveland and Chicago, so he was not home during the week. My mom stayed home. There were five kids; I’m the baby. I went to Catholic grade school and …