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Volume 9, Issue 3
  • ISSN: 2046-6692
  • E-ISSN: 2046-6706

Abstract

In fan studies scholarship, the term ‘young fans’ tends to refer to university-age fans, thereby often overlooking school-age children and the meaning of fandom among future generations of fans. While it can be difficult to study children due to issues around access and consent, it is important that we do – they can tell us a lot about not only where fan cultures are right now but also where they might be heading in the future. In this article, we offer the results of a large-scale survey presented to approximately 1700 children aged 7–17. The answers reveal why it is important for media studies scholarship to develop new methods for understanding children’s media consumption behaviours. First, despite the ‘mainstreaming’ of fandom in popular culture, our research evinces that the traditional depictions of fans as ‘unruly’ or ‘obsessive’ persist. And second, these young fans are not viewing themselves as fans of specific objects, but rather as ‘fans’ first and foremost, with the specific object of fandom unstated. Fan studies’ traditional view of fandom as being devoted to one thing needs expansion.

© 2021 Intellect Ltd
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/content/journals/10.1386/jfs_00042_1
2021-09-01
2023-06-05
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‘No one’s a fan of anything anymore, like, this isn’t 2002’: Surveying 7–17-year-olds on being a fan and contemplating the future of fandom
Journal of Fandom Studies, The 9, 213 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs_00042_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jfs_00042_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jfs_00042_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): age; child; children; emotional investment; generational; survey; youth

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