Journal of Fandom Studies, The - Current Issue

Framed within cultural studies, this article offers a longitudinal case study on how the symbolic and cultural value of Japanese male idols is constructed through fan practices and subsequently transformed into economic value. Drawing on ethnographic research – including participant observation, in-depth interviews, and informal conversations with fans in Japan (2008–19), as well as digital ethnography through 2024 – the study reveals how production agencies design idol personas with symbolic attributes that encourage ritualized fan engagement. These practices involve the sacralization of places, objects and experiences, reinforcing fans’ sense of identity and community. In turn, this sustained engagement generates economic benefits across multiple sectors.

This article uses multimodal discourse analysis to address responses to perceived sexualization on Tumblr through the explication of a specific post and its reblogs. Tumblr’s particular affordances in the period around 2018–19 prevented (and continues to prevent) discussion between and among fans, in contrast to other online spaces, such as message boards. Instead, this post, utilizing content from anime Kill la Kill (2013) serves as material for a process of digital assemblage, by which Tumblr users reblog these posts, sometimes appending additional content and sometimes without adding anything, as part of an online construction of self, steeped in conflict. Rather than participating in a discussion about sexualization intended to persuade or influence, these reblog chains instead become the materials of an online assemblage of self, always subject to transformation based upon the context in which they appear.

This study uses fandom as a conceptual foundation to ascertain how self-identities and personality traits are reflected across library and information sciences (LIS), a field with varied specializations based in diverging skills and interests. By analysing the relationship between librarians’ Hogwarts house affiliations, LIS specializations and Big Five personality trait adjectives, this interdisciplinary research of fandom studies, LIS and psychology results in interesting insights into personal and professional self-identity. A survey of 875 librarians found statistically significant differences indicating that LIS workers self-identify with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses more than a US normative population. Additionally, this survey found that librarians’ self-identities emphasize traits associated with Openness to Experience and Agreeableness factors, which significantly correspond to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses. This research demonstrates that fandom and popular culture can provide an accessible and engaging lens to discuss personality psychology and group identity. Additional conclusions and implications of these results, as well as the moral and ethical dilemmas of researching and writing about a harmful and problematic author, are discussed.

The SCP is a body of user-submitted fiction often compared to other user-submitted horror such as Creepypasta. While these comparisons have been made in research and among the SCP community, the SCP seems to function differently than other such sites. Very little research has been done on the SCP and what exists examines it as a work of horror and as an example of emerging online folklore. This article further expands upon this research by examining how the unique community participating in the SCP Wiki shapes the text, and how the SCP comments on modern media and storytelling through transfictionality and transmediality. This article will examine the SCP community through the stories told in the SCP entries and the rules and structure of the SCP Wiki. In doing so, this article not only provides a better understanding of an under-researched text but will also attempt to uncover a community’s hopes and anxieties surrounding democratized storytelling, and the changing means of sharing information. This thesis also draws attention to and provides opportunity for further research focusing on the increasingly prevalent act of audience participation through user-submitted fiction.

Review of: Contested Kingdom: Fan Attachment and Corporate Control at Disneyland, William Mccarthy (2024)

Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 236 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-49685-472-8, p/bk, USD 30

Review of: Fandom Is Ugly: Networked Harassment in Participatory Culture, Mel Stanfill (2024)

New York: New York University Press, 264 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-47982-496-0, p/bk, USD 30.00

Review of: Fandom, Now in Color: A Collection of Voices, Rukmini Pande (2020)

Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 247 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-60938-728-0, p/bk, USD 75