Date of Award
2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program
Popular Music and Culture
Supervisor
Dr. Norma Coates
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This thesis explores the way that music fandom has changed on sites like Twitter. It establishes a framework for understanding changes in the relationship between fan and performer, and introduces the term “dynamic fandom” to describe new ; possibilities for online fandom. My approach is influenced by Eve Sedgwick's discussion o f paranoid and reparative reading positions, and affect studies more generally. I demonstrate scholars' tendencies to read the fan/performer relationship in a paranoid way, and illuminate the problems with this approach. Through discussion of fan/performer interaction on Twitter, I illustrate the benefits of reading this relationship reparatively. I synthesize my observations to develop the idea of a fannish feedback loop: a mechanism with which fans process their affective relationships with performers. With this concept, I determine that an important difference between dynamic fandom and earlier modes of fandom resides in a change in fans' affective responses to performers.
Recommended Citation
Francis, Meghan R., ""I'M YOUR BIGGEST FAN (I’LL FOLLOW YOU UNTIL YOU LOVE ME)”: SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES, FANS, AND AFFECT" (2011). Digitized Theses. 3233.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/3233