China Fan Research Articles

Why is “K-pop” popular in China: Research on the consumption behavior patterns in the New Media Environment

With the entertainment industry and the prevalence of consumerism today, the birth of the fan consumer culture in recent years has shown more and more powerful influence, fan economic market is growing. The emergence of new media communication channels, so that the emergence of new ways of communication, and then to provide a broader fan consumption exchange, trading platform. “Hanyu” also has many loyal fans in China, especially “K-POP” fans.This paper takes the “K-POP” fans in China as the main research object, studies their consumption behavior, analyzes the causes of this phenomenon and the factors that affect the consumption behavior of fans, further enrich the research results in the field of cultural consumption, explore the unique advantages of fan consumption culture for better manufacturing of Chinese products and dissemination of Chinese culture.

Nationalism or cosmopolitanism? How Chinese football fans viewed the Japanese team and Japanese fans during the 2022 Men’s World Cup

ABSTRACT This study focuses on Chinese football fans’ reactions to the Japanese national team and their fans’ behaviour during the World Cup 2022. Despite the historical and contemporary problems that make friendly relations with Japan difficult to achieve, football fans in China largely welcomed the good performance of the Japanese national team. This attitude may be described as ‘thin cosmopolitanism’ because Chinese fans’ major frame of reference was still nationalistic. For them, the impressive performance of the Japanese national team means that Asians and the ‘yellow race people’ can also play good football. However, the Japanese fans, whose cleaning up of stadia received wide coverage during the World Cup, were criticized by the Chinese fans who interpreted the Japanese fans’ action as reinforcing the existing global racial order. The findings of this paper help reveal the limits regarding football’s role in contributing to a more cosmopolitan worldview.

Becoming a Chinese football fan: an examination of the influence of national and local identities on the development of Chinese football fandom

ABSTRACT The article explores how national and local identities influence Chinese football fandom. Previous research has failed to provide detailed analysis about how these two social identities influence the process of fans’ self-identification. This study uses fans of Henan Jianye Football Club and Shenzhen Football Club because they can typically represent native and internal immigrant fans in China as examples to fill the knowledge gap. By combining the experiences of these two fan groups, the article reveals that international games and the feeling of supporting the nation can strengthen the influence of national identity on fandom for the national football team. It also reveals that fans’ recognition of their teams’ local symbolic status stimulates local identity in developing native fans’ support for local football clubs. Although internal immigrant fans do not share their local identities, their desire to acquire local affiliation also allows local identity to affect their fandom.

An Empirical Research on the Cultural Production of Online Fan Communities Based on Celebrity Micro-blog Super Topic

Due to the reform of the traditional entertainment system and the development of the new decentralized entertainment industry, a great promotion has been achieved to the prosperity of China's fan culture and entertainment industry, and a new generation of fan groups has been established gradually. Taking the network as the medium, the major social media as the platform and micro-blog super topic as the center, they have formed an online fan community with strict discipline, a clear hierarchy and a strong action force. Due to the mutual entanglement between fan culture and platform in the platform society, an algorithmic culture is formed. Data-driven algorithmic governance has become an important tool for fan management. Since some fans represented a tendency to become professionalized on this basis, a new business operation mode under the empowerment of online communities has been established to conduct cultural production and complete the anti-commercial incorporation. In this context, the research question of this paper is: What is the organizational composition of the online fan community for cultural production? How does this structure work in today's network environment?

How Characteristics of Virtual Communities Influence the Identity of Online Fans in China? Using Sina Weibo as An Example

This paper introduces the relationship between fans' identity reconstruction and the characteristics of virtual communities via the rise of new media. The research will explore fans' ego and social identity perceptions in online platforms, and state phenomenon that occurs in virtual communities that influence fans' identity. Sina Weibo platform will be used as an example to explore the model of online star-chasing activity in China by subjecting fans as the research object. Method of interview will be adopted to explore the changes in fans self- recognition and behaviors in virtual communities, and explained by the identity theory to give the final conclusion.

Research on Fan Identity of Chinese Entertainment Industry in the New Media Era

With the development of the entertainment industry, China's fan economy is becoming an integral part of the popular culture and entertainment economy. The current Chinese fan economy and entertainment market is traffic-driven, with fans organizing support activities on Internet and new media platforms, forming a extremely unique fan culture phenomenon in the world. This paper attempts to study the construction of fan identity and its influence in the new media era, using methods such as qualitative and quantitative research to set up questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The research results found that in the construction of fan identity, it can be divided into three parts of idol-making participation, emotional connection and group identity for in-depth analysis, which involves fan behaviors such as fan consumption, text poaching and organizing support activities. Among them, continuous investment and the formation of fan group rules are important features. As for the influence of fan identity construction, the research explains it in terms of both positive and negative influences, include the impact on individual fans and the impact on the social level. The construction of fan identity not only brings positive development and positive emotional value to fans at the individual level, but also promotes the development of related industries in the social aspect. However, negative effects, such as the lack of individual rationality and the occupation of public resources, can not be ignored and require the joint efforts of the government, platforms, idols and fans to make fan culture develop in a healthy way.

Breaking up with my idol: A qualitative study of the psychological adaptation process of renouncing fanship.

This study aimed to explore the psychological adaptation process of renouncing fanship due to para-loveshock in the context of fandom culture. We adopted netnography to explore social media platforms used by fans in China (Weibo, WeChat, and Douban) as research fields for 3 years. (1) The process of "breaking up with" or renouncing an idol can be divided into three phases: the resistance phase with acute stress, the negotiation phase with bargaining, and the recovery phase with attachment reconstruction. In the resistance phase, fans displayed acute stress responses due to loveshock in psychological, physical, and behavioral aspects. In the negotiation phase, fans faced four barriers to renouncement: cognitive dissonance, emotional attachment, behavioral dependence, and social threat. They bargained within the three types of cognitive framework before deciding to "leave" or "re-follow" their idol. In the recovery phase, fans adopted two types of strategies to promote recovery: healing the past and facing the future. Healing the past involved public outcry, sharing their breakup plans, cognitive reconstruction, and seeking closure to the fan role. Facing the future involved switching environments, seeking new interests, and inhibiting the re-intrusion of trauma cues. (2) Internal factors affecting the psychological adaptation process of renouncement include the level of initiative, attribution styles, experience, attachment status and core belief systems, and alternative lifestyles; external factors include social support, peer pressure from the fan community, life stressors, and types and impact of traumatic events. (3) Based on the two dimensions of orientation and commitment, fans were classified into four types: short-term rational, short-term passionate, bounded loyal, and unconditionally loyal, corresponding to non-traumatic, stressful, accumulated, and traumatic breakup processes, respectively. (4) The post-renouncement growth of fans mainly manifested in the development of mental modes, coping skills toward trauma, emotional adaptation experience, and behavior patterns. This investigation of the recovery process from para-loveshock after renouncement of fanship can provide theoretical and practical insights into the development of psychological resilience for fans, reduction of the psychological distress and negative outcomes, and public governance on social media platform and cyber pop culture industry.

Virtual identities and women’s empowerment: the implication of the rise of female esports fans in China

Esports has attracted many online fans due to the unique advantages of online competition. The number of female esports fans is increasing rapidly accordingly. Under the guidance of cyberfeminism, this study examines the current situation of Chinese female esports fans. It discusses their virtual identities in cyberspace and its potential for enhancing female fans’ self-empowerment with ethnographic data. The findings demonstrate numerous types of female esports fans based on their roles in the Chinese esports fans community, which suggests a shift in the status of female fans as objects of the gaze. It implies that how female esports fans interact with online communities is crucial to forming their virtual identities and shows that they can use virtual identities to resist discrimination, assert their voice, and shape their style.

Examination of Esports Fans’ Live Streaming Experiences Using an Extended Expectation-Confirmation Model: A Case Study of the King Pro League

Live streaming is an essential means through which spectators view and engage with esports. In this study, an extended model is proposed and tested based on the expectation confirmation theory to examine esports fans’ live streaming experience and the factors contributing to their intention to continue using particular live streaming platforms. Survey data (N = 1004) were collected from King Pro League fans in China and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate that effort and enjoyment expectancies are important factors driving fans’ confirmation of expectations regarding live streaming services. The findings also confirm that both spatial presence and co-presence positively relate to viewers’ satisfaction with a live streaming platform and their continued intention to use it. This study provides new insights into esports fans’ viewing practices and the experiences they find most engaging via live streaming platforms.

Fanwork Communication through Social Media: A Dynamic Practice of Celebrity Fans in China

Contemporary Chinese celebrity fans mainly engage in two innovative types of fanwork communications through social media: 1) digital relays of sequentially creating and presenting their own complete fan art and fiction and 2) dissemination of fan-made non-digital peripheral materials by mail or in person after online showcasing. Based on unobtrusive observation and semi-structured interviews, this paper presents the specific steps in both types of communication activities among fans of two Chinese musical actors, Ayanga and Yunlong, on the Weibo platform. Exceeding fans’ traditional sole emphasis on cataloging their creations, these fanwork communications comprise the information creation (organization), dissemination, and preservation stages of an information communication chain. Fans also show an impulse to dynamically archive every step of their activities in the moment. While these fans mainly intend to enjoy their fanworks and support fan creators, their online archival records facilitate broader communications and development of contemporary fan culture while allowing fans to negotiate their own hierarchies in what they believe to be transparent ways.

Contested fandom and nationalism: How K-Pop fans perform political consumerism in China

In post-THAAD period, anti-Hallyu sentiments in China have never faded out, exemplified by outbursts of anger from staunch nationalists. Social media has been considered by scholars as a force for fandom nationalism, meaning that the nation is an idol for online nationalists to love. Worshiping different idols from the nationalists, K-pop fans in China appear to take on the self-effacing ethos, while, their enthusiasm towards Hallyu has never been incinerated. This study sets out with how Chinese K-pop fans behave as deliberate consumers of Hallyu despite the authorities’ informal tamping down on South Korean media products and domestic nationalists’ constant outpouring of anti-Hallyu sentiments. After conducting digital ethnography on Weibo, this study finds that consumerism is political and employed by China’s K-pop fandom as a unique form of fan activism, while it also works as a safety valve for them to negotiate with the nationalists without undercutting the ideology.

Useless Tribute, Desirable Exotics

Abstract During the premodern era, folding fans were among the few handicrafts that China imported from Japan. The availability of Japanese folding fans in China changed along with Sino-Japanese relations. They were rare during the Northern Song due to the suspension of diplomatic relations, but after the Ming court reestablished a tributary relationship with the Ashikaga shogunate in the early fifteenth century, many more Japanese folding fans entered China via tribute trade. The scholar-officials, who generally admired the delicate Japanese-made folding fans, chose to emphasize different values of the fans in different contexts. The Japanese folding fans were “useless tribute” in the scholar-officials' public writings, but in reality the “Japan” brand actually increased the commercial value of the fans in the market.

The study on the relationships among film fans’ willingness to pay by film crowdfunding and their influencing factors

The present study examined the relationship between film fans’ willingness to pay by film crowdfunding (WPFC) and the incentives of film crowdfunding (FC) in China, which include material and non-material rewards. Moreover, this paper examined the mediating effects of film fans’ perceived conveniences and risks of film crowdfunding platforms (FCPs) and the moderating effect of fans’ individual characteristics such as gender, age, monthly income, monthly investment, and monthly expenditure on watching movie on the relationship between WPFC and incentives of FC. An online questionnaire was developed to investigate film fans in China, and 505 valid reports from film fans with a monthly expenditure for movies higher than zero were included in the data analysis. Structural equation modeling showed that most Chinese fans tend to sponsor projects published in FCPs, and their WPFC were affected by perceived values of non-material feedback but not by perceived values of material feedbacks. Moreover, film fans’ perceived risks of FCP have significant mediating effects on the relationship between WPFC and incentives of FC, whereas their perceived convenience of FCP did not have a significant mediating effect. Furthermore, film fans’ gender, age, monthly income, monthly investment, and monthly expenditure for watching movies had a moderating impact on these relationships.

我国球迷骚乱行为研究评述与展望

我国球迷骚乱行为研究评述与展望

QUEERLY INTIMATE:

This article examines the rise of the Girls' Love (GL) fan fiction community in contemporary China. More specifically, we focus on the ‘Pink Super Girl Bar’, an online fan fiction community devoted to the pairing of the contestants of the 2006 season of Super Girl, an entertainment program featured on Hunan Satellite TV that enjoys great popularity in the Sinophone world. Through an ethnographic account of the formation, convention and performativity of identities and socialities in this community, we demonstrate how Super Girl GL fans mobilize their emotional capital to create artworks, to have fun and to enrich their everyday lives. We argue that the GL fan fiction community has become a space of female homosociality, intimacy and affect in which a new generation of young Chinese women actively enact friendship and female subjectivity in a way that refuses the normalization of gender, sexuality and social relations. Moreover, by linking fan studies to affect studies and emotional geography, and by paying particular attention to indigenous concepts and cultural practices in mainland China's fan communities, we wish to contribute to fan studies with feminist, queer and transnational perspectives.

Professional basketball fans in China: a comparison of National Basketball Association and Chinese Basketball Association team identification

Professional basketball has developed into a major spectator sport in China during the past 20 years. Chinese basketball fans can now choose between watching the Chinese Basketball Association and the National Basketball Association. This study compared fans’ team identification of teams within the two competing professional basketball leagues in China. The sample included spectators at four different CBA games (N = 549). Respondents completed measures of team identification (Wann and Branscombe, 1993) with their favourite NBA and CBA teams and behavioural involvement based on television and merchandise consumption for both leagues. Chinese fans’ overall team identification and behavioural involvement were found to be significantly higher for favourite NBA teams. Team identification was also compared for segments grouped by age, gender, ticket type, and income. The study has implications for leagues, teams, sponsors, and other sport organisations interested in attempting to attract fans in China.

Implementing CIMS in Shenyang Blower Works

Computer‐integrated manufacturing (CIM) has been paid serious attention in most of the industrialized countries. Shenyang Blower Works (SBW), the largest enterprise developing, designing and fabricating turbine compressors, blowers and large fans in China, made its production plan according to orders due to its single or small batch production mode. For this SBW decided to adopt the CIM philosophy and build CIM systems (CIMS) to increase the enterprise’s market competitiveness. SBW has begun to develop CIMS going through the steps of feasibility study, primary design, detailed design and a partial implementation‐breakthrough project since 1990. A relatively perfect computer support environment for the computer‐integrated manufacturing system in Shenyang Blower Works (SB‐CIMS), especially for the primary integrated application software systems, has been completed. This accounted for various economic benefits.