The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures

This book is special. The collection confidently addresses fan cultures across politics, economics, production, consumption, identity and performance. It covers the diversity of ordinary fans, superfans and anti-fans, on topics from sports and music, to toys and television. If you want to understand fans then get this book. Annette Hill, Lund University, Sweden This volume is excellent evidence of how fan studies have matured and diversified in the past decades. It brings together all the experts in the field, and shows an impressive range of theoretical perspectives and inspiring case studies. Well written and well researched, this is a must-have for scholars of fandom and media culture. Liesbet van Zoonen, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and Loughborough University, UK 'The Ashgate Research Companion to Fan Cultures details a range of approaches to fan studies, and examines a range of fan communities, fan texts and definitions of fandom. The questions asked and examples provided makes it an essential read for students of fan studies, academics, and those who are interested in what fandom can tell us about ourselves and the world we engage with ...' LSE Review of Books "The strength of the collection is that it includes work from a range of disciplines, bringing together media studies perspectives (like Bennetts on celebrity) and sociological perspectives (like Sinclair and Hagens use of subcultural theory). There is also a good mix of fandom sites (e.g., music, sports, television) and global and digital locales, as well as mixture of theoretical and empirically based chapters." Rosemary Lucy Hill, University of Leeds "The book shows why fan commitments and fan labour give a sense of worth, purpose and achievement, while fans themselves continue to abide as a powerless elite. It presents some fascinating empirical work, displays a good deal of expertise and brings established and emergent scholars together between two covers." Michael Pickering, Loughborough University

Linda Duits is an affiliate researcher with the Institute for Cultural Inquiry at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and publicist specialized in popular culture. Koos Zwaan is Associate Professor in Media, Culture and Citizenship at the Inholland University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, and co-editor of Adapting Idols: Authenticity, Identity and Performance in a Global Television Format. Stijn Reijnders is Associate Professor in Cultural Heritage at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and author of Places of the Imagination: Media, Tourism, Culture.

Introduction; I: Re-defining the Fan; 1: Returning to Becoming-a-Fan Stories: Theorising Transformational Objects and the Emergence/Extension of Fandom; 2: Populating the Universe: Toy Collecting and Adult Lives; 3: Much Ado about Keanu Reeves: The Drama of Ageing in Online Fandom; 4: Music for (Something Other than) Pleasure: Anti-fans and the Other Side of Popular Music Appeal 1; 5: A Severe Case of Disliking Bimbo Heidi, Scumbag Jesse and Bastard Tiger: Analysing Celebrities Online Anti-fans; 6: Fandom as Survival in Media Life; 7: From Interpretive Communities to Interpretative Fairs: Ordinary Fandom, Textual Selection and Digital Media; II: Fans and Producers; 8: Fan/Celebrity Interactions and Social Media: Connectivity and Engagement in Lady Gaga Fandom; 9: Fans of Folklore Performances: Identifying a New Relationship Between Communication and Marketing; 10: Investors and Patrons, Gatekeepers and Social Capital: Representations and Experiences of Fans Participation in Fan Funding; 11: Music Fans as Mediators in the Age of Digital Reproduction; 12: Celebrity: The Return of the Repressed in Fan Studies?; 13: Fans Who Cut Their Soaps Queer: A Queer Theoretical Study into Online Fandom of Gay Television Representation; III: Localities of Fandom; 14: Transnational Cultural Fandom; 15: Retreating Behind the Scenes: The Less-Civilizing Impact of Virtual Spaces on the Irish Heavy Metal Scene; 16: Kvlt-er than Thou: Power, Suspicion and Nostalgia within Black Metal Fandom; 17: A Decade in the Life of Online Fan Communities; 18: Placing Fan Cultures: Xenites in the Transnational Spaces of Fandom; 19: Embodied Fantasy: The Affective Space of Anime Conventions; 20: Watching Football in the Fan Park: Mediatization, Spectatorship and Fan Identity; 21: Were Not Racist, We Only Hate Mancs: Post-Subculture and Football Fandom