Online Fan Research Articles

Breaking down the breakdown in twenty-first-century metal

In this article, I introduce the breakdown as a formal structure identified in certain styles of modern metal, especially metalcore. Breakdowns are widely considered to be distinct sections of a song, much like a verse or chorus: this observation provides the basis for defining breakdowns structurally using music analysis. Responding to the nascent field of research on popular music fandom, I next discuss curatorial practices focusing upon breakdowns, where online fan communities collect their favourites, rate them and compare how they are employed in metal music. Moving beyond their use as extracts of recorded tracks, I investigate some possible uses and accompaniments for breakdowns in live settings. In particular, metal performance scenarios can emphasize breakdowns as opportunities for moshing and other forms of collective motion. Finally, I consider potential listening experiences of breakdowns (and their accessibility), from catharsis and emotional release to communal belonging.

Play moods across the life course in SKAM fandom

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

The fan-networked capital of self-published web serials: A comparison of Worm and Nunslinger

This article evaluates two web serials: novels published in serialised instalments through digital mediums. John C McCrae’s Worm (2011-2013) was self-published online in the style of a blog, and Stark Holborn’s Nunslinger (2014) was published by Hodder & Stoughton as serialised e-books. This article refers to debates on the publishing industry (Young 2007; Thompson2012), self-publishing (Young 2014; Tushnet 2017) and digital publishing (Colbjørnsen 2014; Mustafa & Adnan 2017), andapplies these to a comparative study of Worm and Nunslinger in order to demonstrate how web serials can engage online fan networks that refashion the forms of capital accessed by established publishing houses. This article concludes that webserials such as McCrae’s work as ‘slow’ media that gain traction over a period of years using word-of-mouth and crowdsourcing through online fan networks.

An Analysis of Tobacco Placement in YouTube Cartoon Series The Big Lez Show.

Social media platforms such as YouTube provide largely unregulated opportunities for covert tobacco product placement that immerse viewers in evolving narratives and surrounding fan-created material. A Winfield Blues product placement appeared in series 3 of The Big Lez Show, a "crude comedy," DIY animation web series that has garnered more than 70 million views. We used a netnographic approach that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of ethnography to investigate this online fan and associated paratexts, and conducted a frame-by-frame analysis of the most pertinent 12 minutes and 5 seconds of animation, and 250 pages of paratexts. The Big Lez show links "Winnie Blues" to seemingly authentic virtual content, including memes, merchandise, discussion groups, and even smartphone apps. These para, or secondary texts, surround the original content, provide opportunities for brand co-creation in online fan forums, and integrate tobacco brands in everyday life. The Big Lez Show integrates Winnie Blues with popular culture and raises important questions about how social media facilitates tobacco product placement. Policy responses include encouraging social media platforms to include tobacco within webmaster guidelines and requiring site owners to demonstrate their content reaches only those legally able to purchase tobacco. Contemporary entertainment using social media platforms can create immersive contexts that present an elusive and ongoing challenge to tobacco control policies. The Big Lez Show's use of the Winnie Blues brand imagery spawned memes, merchandise, and smartphone apps that amplified the brand's reach and connection with young people. Policy responses include stronger requirements that webmasters include tobacco product placement within their guidelines or requirements that site owners featuring tobacco imagery demonstrate their sites do not reach those aged below the age at which tobacco may be legally purchased.

Clarifying Privacy, Property, and Power: Case Study on Value Conflict Between Communities

This study analyzes the value conflict of a paper on fan fiction writing that used online fan fiction novels as a source to extract and filter sexual expressions from text. The boundaries of public and private information are ambiguous because users are not always aware of or have agreed to the fact that their content is to be used openly. The case was complicated by the fact that the use of these data by researchers violated an unconsciously infringed upon right of a vulnerable community with a weak legal position. This paper describes the debate on this topic among researchers from engineering and humanities fields on whether the purpose of the research was ethically acceptable; how the systems can be embedded in ethical values; and what ethical, legal, social, and educational lessons are appropriate for governance of artificial intelligence (AI). Our analysis aimed not only to clarify the abstract concept of privacy but also to make changes to the submission guidelines for authors. We hope that our analysis contributes to the governance of ethical AIs and AI ethics on handling sensitive aspects of online activities.

스포츠 팬덤의 집단 지성에 관한 연구 : 김연아 팬덤을 중심으로

Purpose: This study examines the collective intellectual aspects of sports fandom.BR Method: As a result of interviews with 5 researchers who participated in the online fan community in Kim, and analysis through community data, the collective intelligence of sports fandom was as follows.BR Results: First, identification with a star through consumption of star advertisement goods and granting of a unique status to a star. Second, sharing and re-creating information that saves, interprets, frees and distributes content on its own, and produces information without the help of experts through the process of collaboration and interaction. Third, imitating the athletes’ donation activities, the fandom also implements donation culture, and imitates and cultivates its own. Forth, it is a critic that aims to bring about social change through social solidarity and to bring about institutional change.BR Conclusion: Modern pop culture fans have escaped the notion of passive status as a receiver and a simple audience. There is a need to pay attention to sports fandom, which is regarded as a proactive and productive cultural worker.

어느 여자골프선수 인터넷 팬 카페운영자의 ‘팬덤’ 이야기

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore the formation of the fandom inside the Korean women’s golf club and the nature & characteristics of the cheering culture.BR Method: The method of this research is to participate directly inside the fan club as a traditional culture technology magazine and to observe & interview the participants for a long time.BR Results: As a result of the data analysis, they were classified into four majors and 15 sub-topics. First, as the starting time for ‘Fandom’ the main theme is ‘love at first sight’. Sub-topics that follow are ‘attractive’, ‘logging in to the spirit of attraction’, and ‘membership that started with hat’. Second, as a starting point in earnest, the main topic is ‘friendly relationship’. The sub-topics are ‘darkness’, ‘bloody middle-aged women’, ‘loving nature’ and ‘comfortable resting place’. Third, as a leader, the main theme is to lead fans. The sub-topics are ‘inducing self-participation’, ‘brightening the image of the player’, ‘protecting my player’, and ‘managing more systematically’. Lastly, it is ‘boring and vowing’ of fan café activities. The sub-topics are‘ satisfaction’, ‘high interest and envy’, ‘always back to the basic’ and ‘leading culture of manners’.BR Conclusion: Consequently, the active operation of online fan cafés is creating their own unique cheering culture through interaction with players and contributing to the establishment of an open-air culture.

Impact of online community engagement on community loyalty and social well-being

We examined how engaging in an online community affects members’ community loyalty and social well-being. Based on findings in extant literature, we proposed that a sense of collective efficacy would play an important role in addressing the impacts of online community engagement on both community loyalty and social well-being of members. We used data from online fan communities in South Korea and found that engaging in the online community positively influenced both community loyalty and social well-being through enhancing a sense of collective efficacy. Our findings contribute to the literature by revealing the important role of collective efficacy in online communities. Limitations of this study and directions for further research are discussed.

When the world ends: Study of #fakewesteros twitter fan community during the final season of game of thrones

ABSTRACT#FakeWesteros is an online fan community that originated on Twitter when the worldwide blockbuster television series Game of Thrones (GoT) aired its first season in 2011. Fans from around the world live‐tweeted episodes as a role‐playing activity, assuming the identity of a character from the series in their tweets. This poster will present an analysis of this practice during the 2019 airing of the final season of GoT. Preliminary results reveal how fans responded to the controversial last episodes, demonstrating how Twitter was used to express their thoughts and feelings regarding the characters, the narrative and its creators. Findings indicate how this innovative use of the digital space represents evolving forms of information sharing. Findings inform ongoing research into the information‐based practices of fans and provides new insights into the evolution of online communities, particularly how loyalty to a shared identity can extend bonds beyond fandom.

웹툰 공식번역에 대한 팬번역의 함의

Korea’s webtoons are gaining worldwide popularity particularly as major webtoon platforms have recently launched overseas service, offering translation into different languages. However, there has been fan translation of webtoons even before the official translation was introduced, and continues in spite of official translation service. Against this background, this paper explores webtoon fan translation in comparison with official translation in order to examine the reasons behind continued fan translation and its implications. Online fan community discussions are observed to explore what fans think of official and fan translation, followed by a comparison of cultural items in official and fan translation of two Korean webtoons. Webtoon fan translation can be seen as a way of pop cosmopolitanism enabling fans to learn the source text culture and language, thus moving beyond their local context.

Translator Profile in the Discourse around Translation: Promotion and Reception of the English Translations of the Fiction of Bruno Schulz


 The paper discusses the role of (perceived) translator profile in the current promotion and reception of three competing English translations of fiction by the modernist Polish-Jewish author Bruno Schulz (1892–1942): Celina Wieniewska’s 1963/1978 canonical version, John Curran Davis’s ca. 2005–2010 online fan retranslation, and Madeline Levine’s retranslation, publicized since 2012 and forthcoming in 2018. Based on a para- and extratextual analysis of the discourse around these versions, combined with archive research into translator history, it explores the ways in which the translator’s profile is used to promote the translation and develop or support opinions about it. Wieniewska’s personal background, difficult to access due to the invisibility of the ‘historical’ translator, has been ignored by readers and critics, even though it would help understand her choice of translation strategy and thus make the recent criticism of her translation more informed. Conversely, in the case of Davis and Levine, not only are the retranslators visible to the extent that they actively promote their work themselves, but also judgments are passed, boundaries drawn and distinctions made based on their profiles rather than their performance: their work has been assessed to a large extent without reference to their actual translation choices. The retranslators’ lives – educational background, affiliation, professional experience – all turn out to play a major role in the critical discourse around their work, replacing the reading or, in the extreme case of Levine’s yet unpublished translation, even the very existence of the translated text.

“Who are you?”: representation, identification, and self-definition in Black Panther

Well in advance of its premiere, the online fan community was already celebrating Black Panther’s inclusivity of production (written and directed by black auteurs), positive representation of black...

Perception is the fairest of them all: Online fan perception of Once Upon A Time's Evil Queen

In the Brothers Grimm 1812 folklore version of the Snow White story, the Evil Queen is the main antagonist in the narrative. However, over time, as methods of storytelling have advanced, the Evil Queen has undergone numerous transformations in the manner in which she is portrayed and the medium through which her story is presented. Several scholars have undertaken the study of these changing narrative portrayals, from folklore to fairy tale, of which Zipes (1981; 2006) is arguably the most prominent. This article investigates how the Evil Queen’s character evolution and transformation has altered fan perception. Jenkins’ theory of participatory culture serves as the theoretical basis for this analysis. Several online sources, including the Once Upon A Time Fan Blog, and the Spoiler TV Plus page on spoilertv.com, have been selected for analysis, as these provide a satisfactory sample of fans’ perception across a varied spectrum of opinion. At the hand of six themes ranging from “dislike” to “acceptance”, the article argues that the developing discourse and narrative of the character as depicted in the Once upon a time television series (2011) played a role in the evolution of fans’ perception of the character of the Evil Queen.

Newly generated ritual in the age of digital technology

Abstract This study aims at re-constructing the philosopher Walter Benjamin’s celebrated contention from his 1936 article, ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’, regarding the disappearance of aura and ritual within widely replicated artworks. By introducing artworks that circulate within virtual space, I will demonstrate how, in the era of digital technology, numerous examples show us that mass reproduction helps aura to exist; leads to the creation of new ritual phenomena; and both recuperates and transforms the idea of the ‘disappearance’ of rituals. In this article, transformation of these newly generated rituals appears via the generation of online fan fiction. First, the article details rituals created by the character, Spock, in the television series, Star Trek (Roddenberry, 1966–69), followed by the phenomenon of 1990s Korean popular culture, fan fiction. In addition, the scope expands to include an example of ‘after school programs’ incorporating K-pop, allowing digital spaces to produce and foster new forms of ritual via online artworks. This article references sociocultural examples from film and aura in American television, and then highlights two Korean fan communities to suggest an extended interpretation of Benjamin’s ideas to include artworks circulating in digital environments.

Aligning Adolescents to the Public Sphere: The Teen Serial Skam and Democratic Aesthetic

The Norwegian online teen serial Skam, produced by public broadcaster NRK, makes up an interesting case for exploring the role of popular culture within the public sphere. Since first premiered in 2015, Skam has become an international phenomenon, engaging and connecting teenagers all over the world in online discussions mainly concerning the serial’s characters and romantic plots. Through empirically based reception studies and analysis of online fan activity, we find that these discussions have civic potential and may “build” teen audiences as citizens. Furthermore, we argue that the genre-specific and aesthetic characteristics of Skam facilitate for this to happen. Melodrama, as well as the liveness created by the publication method, are the main features of the serial’s democratic aesthetic.

"This is why we play"

Professional sports constitute an important part of people's modern life. People spend substantial amounts of time and money supporting their favorite players and teams, and sometimes even riot after games. However, how team performance affects fan behavior remains understudied at a large scale. As almost every notable professional team has its own online fan community, these communities provide great opportunities for investigating this research question. In this work, we provide the first large-scale characterization of online fan communities of professional sports teams. Since user behavior in these online fan communities is inherently connected to game events and team performance, we construct a unique dataset that combines 1.5M posts and 43M comments in NBA-related communities on Reddit with statistics that document team performance in the NBA. We analyze the impact of team performance on fan behavior both at the game level and the season level. First, we study how team performance in a game relates to user activity during that game. We find that surprise plays an important role: the fans of the top teams are more active when their teams lose and so are the fans of the bottom teams in an unexpected win. Second, we study fan behavior over consecutive seasons and show that strong team performance is associated with fans of low loyalty, likely due to "bandwagon fans." Fans of the bottom teams tend to discuss their team's future such as young talents in the roster, which may help them stay optimistic during adversity. Our results not only contribute to understanding the interplay between online sports communities and offline context but also provide significant insights into sports management.

Brand-Image Communication Through Social Media: The Case of European Professional Football Clubs

Social-media platforms have become an important tool for sport marketers to communicate their brand image and engage with fans. This study analyzed 1,115 Facebook posts and 16,308 tweets from 10 of the most valuable European professional football clubs to identify the range of brand associations communicated and the level of online fan engagement. Statistical analysis captured correlations between and among selected brand attributes, time periods of posts (in and off-season), and levels of fan engagement. On both Facebook and Twitter, football clubs posted more frequently during the season, while content associated with product-related attributes was the focus of such communication. Product-related content was found to generate higher levels of online fan engagement. The study extends the literature on sport teams’ brand management through social media and offers practical recommendations on how to enhance fan identification and engagement and ultimately make financial and reputational gains.

“Loser” aesthetics: Korean internet freaks and gender politics

ABSTRACTIn the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, a new Internet freak culture emerged in South Korea in response to the rapid development of the Internet as well as the country’s neoliberal reforms. At this time, images of losers, freaks, and other surplus populations circulated online. This article examines the gender politics of Internet freaks through an analysis of one online fan forum, the Lee Joon Gi gallery of DCinside.com. Lee’s fan forum acquired a reputation through sexually charged posts from its female-user base in the late 2000s and is still active today. By appropriating attributes of online male culture and forms of communication, such as absurd statements, rudeness, and aggressive sexual expression, the users of this fan community created a carnivalesque space for themselves and subverted rigid Korean gender ideologies. Such parodies have transformed the fear of misogyny and sexism in the offline world into laughter online and become fertile ground for changes in gender politics in online spaces.

The athletic labour of femininity: The branding and consumption of global celebrity sportswomen on Instagram

This article explores the relationship between consumer culture, female athletic representation and online fan engagement on the photograph-based social media platform Instagram. It argues that social media interaction between female athletes and fans is governed by gender norms and arrangements that expect and reward female athletic articulations of empowerment, entrepreneurialism and individualisation in the context of postfeminism and consumer self-fashioning. Examining the Instagram feeds of five global sport stars, this study demonstrates that the feedback of fans and followers plays a critical role in influencing the gendered work undertaken by female athletes to present an appealing consumer ‘brand’, according to the desires of the market. We propose a new conceptual framework – the athletic labour of femininity – to understand the ways in which elite sportswomen cultivate an authentic brand in the sports marketplace. More than a type of ‘bodywork’, the athletic labour of femininity responds to consumer expectations that women demonstrate a successful feminine subjectivity characterised by notions of personal choice, individual responsibility and self-management. It takes the form of emphasising empowered femininity, celebrating hetero-sexiness and revealing personal intimacies as part of crafting a feminine sporting persona which draws online comment and likes from followers and fans. By focusing on the role online fan interaction plays in shaping the athletic labour of femininity, this research advances existing studies of how representations of sportswomen are produced and consumed by paying particular attention to the social conditions influencing how sportswomen represent the self online and the gender power relations that serve to govern expressions of desirable athletic femininity.

Back to traditional stadium names

PurposeDespite the growing number of corporate-sponsored sport facilities, public resistance to naming rights sometimes arises. In line with other supporter-based financial instruments such as fan bonds or shares, the possibility arises that a sport club’s supporters could invest in the stadium naming rights to secure a traditional name, possibly by initiating a crowdfunding project. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the factors separating potential capital providers from non-participants and to determine which factors influence the investment decision.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used an online questionnaire to evaluate respondents’ willingness to participate in a crowdfunding project. The data were analyzed by logit and probit regressions. The link was posted to selected online fan forums as well as to clubs’ fan group caretakers in Germany. In total, 708 respondents fully completed the questionnaires. Additionally, the authors provided the initial results of a proposal for a hypothetical reward-based crowdfunding project that was also part of the questionnaire.FindingsThe findings indicate that the most involved participants who support traditional values in sports are the most willing to participate in a crowdfunding project. Thus, crowdfunding can actually be seen as a supporter-based instrument that is an alternative to existing sport facility naming rights models. However, the analysis also indicates that the sums that can be generated through crowdfunding are limited.Originality/valueInsight into a relatively new financial instrument is provided, and an alternative approach to sport facility naming rights management is offered. Ultimately, a combination of a crowdfunding project with financing by a certain number of sponsors supporting a traditional name is proposed, which may be a possible future solution that sport facility naming rights management groups can pursue.