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The facilitation of digital spaces, in lieu of urban material spaces, for social interaction through computer gaming and other play activities has become particularly important to children in the wake of the 2020–2021 Coronavirus pandemic, to combat the negative effects of physical lockdown restrictions. Pre-pandemic, autistic children living in urban areas may already experience exclusion from physical society and may consequently already be isolated from current imposed normative societal groupings due to their neuro-difference, sensory sensitivities to the surrounding environment, communication comprehension, and social understanding. However, an exploration into personally and independently chosen play activities by autistic youth has identified how such isolation can be overcome and positive social experiences created. A particular play practice, cosplay, and related companionable fandom activities are providing and creating digital spaces for autistic youth to be social. Character play is also enabling the use of limited physical spaces within urban contexts and as such combatting anxiety from sensory overstimulation. Thematic analysis of online content together with semi-structured interviews with autistic young people have indicated a positive connection between cosplay practice, increased social activity, and reduced levels of sensory overload, anxiety, and depression, with early findings suggesting transferrable elements that could inform more effective support for others with social, environmental, and communication challenges or restrictions.

This research is positioned at the intersection of youth subculture consumption and religious affiliation, through the study of observant Muslim women involved in the highly engaging and codified activity of cosplay. Given authenticity is central to the cosplay visual impact and performance, this study aims to understand the way hijab cosplayers negotiate tensions between authentic body performativity and the observance of religious dressing codes.

A qualitative interpretive approach was used to address the research questions. In-depth semi-structured online interviews were conducted with 25 members of a hijab cosplayers from South East Asia.

The concept of authenticity emerged as multifaceted for hijab cosplayers, where they manage three different aspect of the authentic cosplay performance as follows: authenticity as a cosplayer (social dimension of authenticity), authenticity to the character (personal dimension of authenticity) and authenticity to their religious identity (religious dimension of authenticity). The subsequent malleable authenticity is used to legitimate cosplay as an acceptable performative practice from a religious and from subcultural view.

The research highlights how tensions between identity and performativity of the body are negotiated. More specifically, the study contributes to the understanding of the way hijab cosplayers reconcile tensions between religious identity and the performativity of the body. Given the role of the body as a site for negotiating identity, this study provides important insights in the tensions and strategies at the intersection of authenticity, embodiment and religious identity in youth cultures.

This study explored the information practices of cosplayers, as well as the social norms, social types and information infrastructure of an online cosplay Facebook group, the Rey Cosplay Community (RCC).

To better understand individual behavior, the authors made use of ethnographic methods and semi-structured interviews. Observation of the RCC was combined with information gleaned from select participant interviews.

The results suggest that the RCC can be conceived of as an information community where fans obtain and share information about cosplay costume making. Sufficient and well-organized information and positive community culture greatly help community members make their costumes.

This works serves as a bridge between fan studies and information science research in its exploration of online communities, shared information practices and creating non-toxic virtual environments. It also lends support to the idea that positivity, respect for community rules and a tight-knit connection between members play essential roles in building a non-toxic fan and information community.

Fans are proactive consumers of pop culture products, who can be seen as prosumers. Fanvideo production is one of their most widespread practices in the participatory culture scenario. Thus, the aim of the present study is to analyze how ludic prosumption is featured on plays performed in Brazilian fanvideos based on successful pop culture franchises.

Research based on the interpretive content analysis of fanvideos of plays produced by Brazilian fans based on five emblematic pop culture franchises and published on YouTube.

Results have shown six play types in the analyzed fanvideos – i.e. child's play, performing powers, cosplay, play in social rites, teaching to play and “zuêra” –, which revealed a way of having fun in different situations through different practices based on ludic consumption experiences in different spheres of social life.

CCT-based studies focused on investigating plays as ludic consumption phenomenon, as well as fan culture, remain at early research stage. Thus, the main contribution of the present study lies on associating such concepts based on the concept of prosumption.

This study focuses on analysing Japanese pop culture events to determine whether they may be useful marketing tools for a location with a distinctive culture from where they are organized. It also examines how the popular culture events differ from other events and what impacts they have on these destinations.

A mixed-method approach is used to analyse data from a questionnaire provided to 364 participants from these events and seven semi-structured interviews with event organizers or their representatives from events on this topic in Portugal, France, Spain, Denmark and North America.

According to the research, these events are regarded as unique and unusual from the perspective of the customer due to the variety of activities they offer, the use of imagination they inspire and the engaged fan participation. These occasions have been found to strengthen and propagate Japanese popular culture outside of its place of origin and arouse interest in it.

Several studies have examined the appeal of Japanese pop culture, but few have investigated the impact of events to enhance the destination's image where they are held, as well as their potential outside of Japan. With already over a hundred official events of this theme held annually, with a sizable number of participants, a study of this paradigm exposes its potential for promoting a culture that is growing in popularity outside of its place of origin and understanding the effects it has on these various regions.

Using brand netnography (analyzing consumers' first‐person on‐line stories that include discussions of their product and brand use), this article aims to probe how visitors interpret the places, people, and situations that they experience while traveling in Japan.

Through analysis of online consumer stories about their trip experiences, Heider's balance theory is applied to visitors' trip experiences. Follow‐up contact with the consumers allows application of autodriving methodology to gather additional post‐trip insights.

The results show immediate and downstream positive and negative associations of concepts, events, and outcomes in visitors' stories. Maps of consumer stories identify kernel concepts and include descriptions of how visitors live a specific destination's unique promises (e.g. distinct cultural history). Using the kernel concepts as a basis, Holt's five‐step strategy for building icons is applied to the travel destination to show how a destination can create a brand identity.

Bloggers reporting their travel experience may not be representative of the population of travelers. On the other hand, travel blogs potentially can influence trip planning by other visitors collecting travel information.

Blog reports represent an unobtrusive method of collecting emic interpretive information from consumers. Emic reporting provides deep insights about consumers' trip interpretations. Tourism and hospitality managers can use this information to improve service experiences and design communication strategies to strengthen positive iconic imagery reported by consumers.

Emic and etic interpretations of travel experiences create a bricolage of the travelers' experiences. Autodriving methodology is extended to tourism research to gather additional insights and to better clarify informants' interpretations. This article also expands on a revisionist proposal to Holt's five‐step strategy for building destinations as iconic brands and suggestions for tourism management.