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Personer har genom YouTube-videos och andra sociala medier uppmärksammat och gjort nytt material av äldre mockbustersfilmer. Den här studien granskar och analyserar vilka faktorer som möjliggjort för en sådan utveckling på internet. Metoden som använts för att kunna svara på studiens syfte och frågeställningar var varit mottagandeteori, som bland annat har använts för att granska mottagandet av en mockbustersfilm. Studien har analyserat materialet: YouTube-videon Felix Recenserar – Djurens Konung, fans kommentarer till videon och YouTube som plattform. Resultatet visade att YouTube-videon omvandlade mockbusterfilmen som fenomen till en mer lättillgänglig, underhållande och mer samtidsanpassad version för YouTube-kanalens målgrupp. Fans har också varit betydande och har på flera sätt bidragit till att mockbustersfilmen utvecklats och spridits. YouTube som plattform har haft en betydande roll i hur mockbusters kunnat utvecklats på internet och tilltala en ny publik.

Danmei fandom is a subcultural community of young women in China. In the context of strict online censorship in China, they engage in the practices of writing, sharing, and reading Danmei fanfic, which is fan secondary works that focuses on the romantic relationship between male characters in media content and popular culture productions. This thesis proposes three research questions: 1) What kind of gendered exploration do female fans do through their participation in the reading and writing of Danmei fanfic? 2) How do fans engage in communication in the Danmei fandom online community? and 3) How do fans’ understanding of censorship guide their practices of circumventing censorship? This thesis uses textual poachers, subculture theory, and heterotopia theory to construct a theoretical framework to explore the subcultural practices of female Danmei fans and the tensions between Danmei subculture and mainstream ideology. To better understand Danmei fandom in a specific context, this project adopted the qualitative research methods of in-depth interviews and netnography to collect empirical data. This research discovers that Danmei fanfic can be a tool for female empowerment, providing a space for women to freely explore their sexuality and challenge traditional gender roles and stereotypes. This creative space offers an alternative perspective that diverges from mainstream values and norms, allowing for resistance against dominant ideologies. However, Danmei fandom is connected to mainstream society in a broader ideological sense and reproduces hegemonic discourses and systems to some extent. Additionally, Danmei fandom not only makes diverse gender explorations, but also shows resistance to authoritarian censorship. By imagining the procedures and standards of censorship, they develop collective media use strategies and symbolic meaning systems to circumvent censorship. This thesis focuses on Chinese women’s daily leisure activities to understand female youth subcultures in Chinese contexts and broaden the understanding of slash fanfic in non-Western as well as non-English contexts.

This study examines the academic concept of pop cosmopolitanism—an interest in global popular culture that leads to start of a global perspective and provides an escape route out of the parochialism of local community/culture—as posited by Henry Jenkins in its lived, experienced context. The online English-speaking overseas fandom of the Japanese male pop idol talent agency, Johnny & Associates, framed as a community of pop cosmopolitans, serves a case study to evaluate this concept. These global fans demonstrate through their engagement with and investment in a form of Japanese popular culture that they are able to obtain a competency in Japanese culture that would have not otherwise been available to them. The obtainment of this cultural competency is driven by the personal notion of fandom, with emotional affect and identification between the fan and the fan object at its core, and access to new media technologies such as the Internet. However, it is noted that Jenkins's original definition of pop cosmopolitanism does not account completely for the complexity of the lived experience and a distinction of local pop cosmopolitanism and comprehensive pop cosmopolitanism is necessary. Furthermore, the pop cosmopolitans studied discount the idea of escape embedded into Jenkins's definition and instead emphasize the positive influence of their pop cosmopolitanism on their own (fandom) identity construction.

This study examines how pop culture fandoms are formed, based on five communications theories: Escapism, Mood Management, Parasocial Relationships, Identification, and Social Capital. The researcher examined the Harry Potter fandom specifically because of its global pervasiveness. Using Q Methodology, 47 respondents fell into one of four categories: Relationship Experts, Happy Introverts, Identifying Isolationists, and Isolated Self-regulators. Relationship Experts like Harry Potter because of parasocial relationships with the characters as well as the story's capacity for escapism, and Happy Introverts focus on liking Harry Potter for their own enjoyment (not that of others) and mood management. Identifying Isolationists like Harry Potter because they identify with the characters and enjoy discussing the books with those around them, while Isolated Self-regulators do not have any parasocial relationships and focus on the books' mood management capacity. It is interesting to note that Escapism played a supporting (but never leading) role in each of these Factors. All respondents agree that Harry Potter has been, and will continue to be, an important part of their lives. It is hoped that this conclusion can form the foundation of future popular culture studies.

Online fandoms are capable of various feats; from influencing the TV shows they watch to funding half-baked convention scams, Tumblr fandoms in particular are infamous across the internet. Their chaotic and intense nature simultaneously leads to intense bouts of creative activity, pumping hundreds of thousands of fan works into the Tumblr ecosystem every year. In November of 2022, the Tumblr community collectively invented a fake Martin Scorsese movie named Goncharov, creating massing amounts of fanart, fanfiction, memes, and posts for a “lost piece of media” that never actually existed. While existing studies have focused on the construction of identity through Tumblr fan communities, or the experiences of LGBTQ social media users on Tumblr, there is little to no research on individual fandom events that affect Tumblr as an entire community. In turn, this study aims to answer the following questions: 1) “How did Goncharov fans collaboratively tell and maintain a cohesive story through the production of transmedia Tumblr posts?” 296 transmedia posts produced by the Goncharov fandom were analyzed by a framework developed around an adapted approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Additional theories were incorporated into later analysis, including discussion of transmedial storyworlds, narrative transportation, and collaborative storytelling. The results suggested that the Goncharov fandom was more committed to providing context about its invented nature, rather than committing to a strong sense of immersion. Furthermore, its posts resulted in cases of accidental narrative transportation while simultaneously lacking character and story consistency.

This study explores how knowledge and reality is constructed within an online fandom’s communication, with a focus on LGBTQ+ discourse within Taylor Swift’s fans on Reddit. This is done through a qualitative digital ethnographic method and uses LGBTQ+ symbols and parasocial relationships as tools to analyse 75 posts and 850 comments total. The theoretical framework mainly consists of Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) theory on the social construction of reality and Couldry and Hepp’s (2017) reinterpretation of their work that considers the effects of digitalization and how our construction of reality has changed with it. The analysis showed that the group uses symbols to build a shared collection of facts and continuously follows an us-versus-them narrative to construct their community. Their foundational belief that Swift herself is secretly queer is not to be too closely questioned within the group and they often use the version of Swift that outsiders have built up to discuss hypothetical what-ifs. To participate in the community and be seen as “logical” it appears to require that you to some extent correctly consume the media in a way that aligns with pre- existing facts that the group shares. Meaning that the group has unspoken rules that dictate the knowledge hierarchies within it.

This research investigates the impact of transmedia storytelling through a case study of Arcane, a Netflix TV show set in the League of Legends universe. Grounded in the combination of transmedia storytelling theory, audience engagement theory and reception theory, we utilised semi-structured interviews to probe and understand viewer perceptions. Participants, composed of Arcane viewers who have played the League of Legends game and those who have not, provided wide-ranging insights. Findings reveal that not only previous experiences with the League of Legends universe affected participants’ engagement and reception of Arcane, but also that Arcane enriched the audience's perception of the League of Legends. This enhancement stemmed from the show's in-depth storytelling and character development, amplifying viewer understanding and emotional connection. These results highlight transmedia storytelling's potential to shape audience perceptions, offering vital cues for gaming and television content creators.

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No description available.