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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.

The purpose of this study is to investigate members’ reactions to the forced closure of a narrative video game brand community and its participatory culture.

The BioWare Social Network forums closure was announced in a thread, which attracted 8,891 posts. These were analysed using thematic analysis, facilitated by the software program Leximancer and non-participatory netnography.

The brand community and participatory culture members were predominantly distressed because they would lose their relationships with each other and access to the participatory culture’s creative output.

Previous research suggested that video game players cannot be fans and that player-generated content is exploitative. However, members, self-identified as fans, encouraged BioWare’s use of their player-created content for financial gain and articulated the community’s marketing benefits, all of which have implications for Fan and Game Studies’ researchers. Research using primary data could identify brand communities and participatory cultures’ specific benefits and their members’ attitudes about brands’ commercial use of their outputs. Further research is required to identify other products and brands not suitable for establishing brand communities on social media to determine the best ways to manage them.

Addressing narrative brand communities’ complaints quickly can prevent negative financial outcomes and using social media sites for brand communities may not be suitable structurally or because of members’ privacy concerns. Furthermore, consumers often have intense emotional bonds with narrative brands, their communities and participatory cultures, which marketers may underestimate or misunderstand.

This study of the unique phenomenon of the forced closure of a narrative brand community and its participatory culture increased understandings about them.

Sports leagues, such as Major League Soccer (MLS), aim at expanding their audience at global level through alternative media other than television (TV). Brazil stands out among football media consumer audiences as one of the main markets worldwide. Brazilian MLS consumers play the role of fans to converge between TV media and digital platforms, in a phenomenon that has been called Social TV.

The aim of the current research is to investigate how Brazilian MLS fans' consumption process is established through Social TV; it was done based on netnography performed between 2018 and 2020.

Results have indicated that Social TV is a catalyst of practices associated with fan culture: cultural convergence, technologies appropriations, poaching experiences and production of a collective intelligence.

Current research reinforces how ethnography methodology has been gaining room as likely consumer market research, working as alternative method based on the prevalence of focus group and survey techniques.

Social TV phenomenon presents itself as a possibility to expand and direct marketing strategies focused on sports management, just as the media often consumed by fans.

From the results, it is possible assuming that connections between fans are punctually guided by their relationship with the cultural object consumed by them in a network relationship whose actors deindividualize sociocultural practices such as consumption. Thus, the main contribution of the study lies on identifying how fan culture can be autonomously established in the market arena in comparison to other cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between cultural value orientations and sport fan motivations.

Data were collected from American and Korean college students. Three separate multivariate analysis of covariance revealed sport fan motivations differ across nationality and cultural value orientation.

The current study provided empirical support for the assumption that individualism-collectivism influences sport fan motivations and geographically different sport consumers. Also, the outcomes were consistent with the previous literature which found sport fan motivations differ across nationality (the USA and South Korea).

In combination with prior research, the findings of this study offer suggestions for how marketers could differentiate their marketing strategies for culturally diverse sport consumers.

To date, many mainstream ILS practitioners and educationalists have ignored fan‐produced literature due to the inherently ephemeral nature of the material and the fact that the majority of the information is outside normal bibliographic control. The advent of the Internet has provided fans with a new forum to create and exchange information, much of which is unparalleled in its richness and depth. This material can enrich library collections, while the growing sub‐cultures of electronic fan information can benefit from the skills offered by information professionals. Using case studies, the paper illustrates the range and depth of fan information on the Net and proposes a model to enable information professionals to utilise and control the wealth of fan‐based literature that is now becoming visible. The paper concludes that information professionals should re‐examine the world of fan‐based literature in order to become better informed about the information seeking activities of potential library users and to use their existing expertise to make links between the world of fan literature, and the resources of public and academic libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how both producers and consumers of user-created music videos on YouTube communicate emotional information.

In total, 150 filmic documents containing fan-generated versions of U2’s “Song for Someone” were purposively collected. The author used discourse analysis to understand the types of videos created, the communication of emotional information from both the producers and the consumers, the social construction of emotion in the filmic documents, and elements of intertextuality that represented emotion.

Fans created videos containing cover versions, original versions of the song with new visual content, and tutorials about how to play the song. Producers of cover versions communicated emotional information, especially tenderness, through facial expression, their surroundings, and corresponding musical elements. Producers’ visual content expressed emotion through meaningful photographs and sad stories. Producers’ descriptions revealed emotion as well. Emotions were individually experienced and socially constructed. Consumers conveyed emotion through likes, dislikes, and expressive positive comments. Intertextuality communicated passion for U2 through tour references, paraphernalia displays, band photographs, imitating the band, and musical mashups.

Information science can work towards a new generation of multimedia information retrieval systems that incorporate emotion in order to help users discover documents in meaningful ways that move beyond keyword and bibliographic searches.

This is one of the earliest research papers in the area of emotional information retrieval (EmIR).

The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for the behaviors of consumers engaged in fan activity and test to see if that model simulates the movement of consumers among the proposed levels of fan behaviors.

Support for the proposed model is examined through the literature, a series of structured interviews with fans are evaluated using first qualitative, then quantitative methodologies for evidence of the hypothesized model.

The research indicates moderate support for the three‐level model first proposed by Hill et al.

Given the moderate support found for the model, further research could serve to offer stronger evidence, as well as to examine the extinguishing process by which a fan exits the subculture.

The research identifies members and levels of the fan subculture that marketing professionals should target when offering products and services aimed at those segments.

This paper tests a model which has previously only existed as a theory, utilizing methodologies that integrate qualitative and quantitative research.

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.

As the global economy expands, it would seem to be in the interests of the major professional sport leagues of the US to move into new markets, especially China, one of the fastest growing and largest in the world. In order to sell effectively in this market, it is vital to gain an understanding of the potential fan base. To explore national differences in fandom, a survey was completed by sports fans in both China and the US to assess which sports participants followed and which media they used, to identify fan motives and their feelings about expansion. This study determined that there are clear differences between Chinese and Americans. While many of the Chinese were fans of American sports, they tended to follow individual athletes rather than teams and had relatively low fan identity but high levels of fan motivation. Motives also varied by country, with aesthetics and affiliation the primary motives among the Chinese sample. These distinctions can be utilised to create marketing strategies.