4TH APNG CAMP : On-line fan’s community

A preliminary study on power and A preliminary study on power and hierarchy in on- line fan’s community : hierarchy in on- line fan’s community :

Case study of Johnny’s fans in TaiwanCase study of Johnny’s fans in Taiwan

TAIWAN

RACHEL HUICHIEH PANGGRADUATE STUDENT OF NCCU, DEPT. OF JOURNALISM

Why Talking About On-line Fan’s Community?

Virtual Community V.S. Fan Community

•Similarity!!

Similarities between virtual and fan’s community

•Chemical reactions while meeting!!

CMC influences and transforms the meaning of fan community.

Why Talking About Johnny’s fans in Taiwan?

• Fashion of ‘Ha-zi’ (Japanophile) has become a heat cultural issue in Taiwan

• Internet enhanced the imaginative relation between transnational idols and local fans

Main question of the research

•What are the fan’s community’s interactions, on-line and off-line respectively?

•What is the hierarchical difference in fan’s community?

•What is the power relationship in fan’s community?

Review on important concepts concerned:

• Hierarchy in on-line fan’s community

– related to fan’s knowledge, class, how close they can get to the idol, and their leadership and administrative performances.(fan capital)

– the mode of promoting hierarchy and accumulating power is closely related to the member’s real life background (social/economical/cultural capital).

– Different hierarchy can have various ‘power’ that can impose intentional influence on other hierarchies.

Describing the target group 1

CIA BBS, Group of Johnny’s fans

1. The community was built up on February 2000

2. The number of registered members reached 286 on January 2003.

3. Their activities can be divided into two main arenas: on-line and off-line.

Describing the target group 2

CIA BBS, Group of Johnny’s fans

4. On-line, fans use the board to share information with others or talk about related issues.

5. Off-line, fans get together to share information and develop friendship in the real world.

6. Different mode of interaction may cause divisions inside the community.

Interactions in fan’s community (1):On-line activities

On-line activities

Browsing articles

Posting articles

•asking questions, supporting proposals/opinions• providing information •what one has learned, commentary, creation.

1. The interactions on-line is closely related to the fan’s ability to control information. And the ability may be influenced by the capitals fans own in the real world.

2. Members of fan’s community will also gather in small groupsto create their own website or board to communicate in private.

Interactions in fan’s community (2):Off-line activities

Off-line activities

Public gathering

•initiated by the manager of community

•opening to general members.

•Only talk about things related to idols or community.

Private gathering

•with fewer members, and more ‘collective memories’ .

•Talk about many things, and even develop relationships similar to ‘primary group’ .

•Private gathering shows that fan’s community will not only gather as specific hermeneutic community, but also form community with social characters.”

Hierarchical difference in fan’s community (1):

Standards for hierarchical division in fan’s community

Amount & quality of

information

Those who can provide more and higher quality information are more likely to win the support from other members, and also have greater influence on those who don’t.

Personality (fan’s role on-line and personality

off-line.)

Is he/she being nice to other members in the community ?Is she/he judging information about the idol rationally

Identity if the fan has the authority of a board master regulated by the station?a member of the community (fan or non-fan)? joining any fraction ?

Hierarchical difference in fan’s community (2):

Conditions mentioned above :

•Are standards fan members use to Judge others.•Can be transformed into fan’s social capital.•Can be used to obtain specific hierarchy in fan’s community.•May influence the divisions in fan’s community.

But, because of the character of Internet, the hierarchy possessed by members are in fact very flexible, full of the possibility of variation.

Hierarchical difference in fan’s community (3):

Hierarchical Division in J-Fan’s community

General participant

Central participant

Marginal participant

Central participant: with high-level fan’s symbolic capital

General participant: with mid-level fan’s symbolic capital

Marginal participant: with low-level fan’s symbolic capital

Hierarchical difference in fan’s community (4):

Analysis of hierarchical division in J-fan’s community

1. Fan’s hierarchy in fan’s community is related to his/her fan capitals and real life capitals.

2. Hierarchy in on-line fan’s community is quite fluid and full of possibilities of diversities and alternation.

Power relations in fan’s community (1):

Demonstration of power relations in J-fan’s community

The power relation is mainly demonstrated through:

1) regulation of reward and punishment : The governor of the community can reward or restrain

member’s announcement through the function of BBS station.

2) information control Since fan’s community is integrated on the basis of

‘information’, ‘information’ becomes the component to produce power in the community. Fans may demonstrate personal power through spreading or monopolizing information.

Power relations in fan’s community (2):

Influence of power relation to J-fan’s community and members

In fan’s community, the influence of power relation displays on :

• fraction and conflict

• Chilling effect

• Turning activities underground, and finally change the meaning of the community.

Conclusion

1.Fan’s community exchange information on-line, develop relationship off-line.

2.Real life capital, fan’s capital and hierarchy in fan’s community are inter-related.

3. Contradictory relation between characters of CMC and the hierarchy in fan’s community

4.The power is demonstrated by regulation and information control, which re-write the mode of interaction of community

1.Similarities between virtual/fan community

Both of them are social groups that has shared consensus on ‘identity, character, preferences or interests’

Virtual community

--social aggregations

-- with public discussions

--obtain certain interests

Fan community

--significant audiences who highly involve in the text

-- concentrate of those who highly involve in the same text

2. How CMC influences fan community

Both are related to fan’s real life background and CMC’s characteristics.

•Internet has changed the ways to communicate with other member.

•Internet has also established a different way to upgrade hierarchy and accumulate power .

Fashion of Japanophile in Taiwan

• Trendy drama, Japanese idols and commodities has become a fashionable index for young people in Taiwan.

• The historical complex between Taiwan and Japan made the Fashion of Japanesephile a much more complicated cultural issue.

• A ‘Phenomenon of Johnny’s in Taiwan’ has formed through mass media and fan’s involvement.

Internet as a mediation for fans

Distance

The distance between locan fans and transnational idols

No Information

The lack of transnational idol’s information

Are two main problems for transnational idols and local fans

Internet•enhanced the imaginative relation between idols and fans .enables information that originally be monopolized to flow around.

Main question of the research Q1

• What are the fan’s community’s interactions, on-line and off-line respectively?

1. How do members of fan’s community interact between each other, on-line and off-line?

2. What do these interactions mean to them?

Main question of the research Q2

• What is the hierarchical difference in fan’s community?

1. Based on what standard do fans distinguish from one another?

2. What are the hierarchies in fan’s community? What are their characters?

3. How do different hierarchies in the community mean to fans?

Main question of the research Q3

• What is the power relationship in fan’s community?

1. How do power relationship between different hierarchies demonstrate?

2. How does that influence fans to participate in the community? How about the community itself?

Hierarchical difference in fan’s community (4-1):

Transformation of RL capitals, fan capitals and hierarchy

Social

capital

Economical

capital

Cultural

capital

Real lifeCapital

Transformation

Fan

social capital

Fan

cultural capital

Fan

Capital

Fan’s symbolic capital

xxxxxx

General participant

Central participant

Marginal participant

Hierarchy in fan’s

community

Hierarchical difference in fan’s community (4-2):

Internet, virtual community and fan’s hierarchy

1. The character of Internet force virtual community to adopt regulation and restraint, however, the punishment imposed by regulation not only help materialized the emergence of power, but also cause class division.

2. Internet also provide the possibility to evade and resist. Fans can form their own fractions, to re-divide or even challenge the hierarchical division in the community.

Although hierarchy does exist in the virtual space,its content and meaning are full of possibilities of diversities and alternation.

Power relations in fan’s community (2-1):

Fraction and conflict in J-fan’s community

As fans realize the differences between their viewpoints or values,they begin to split up and form their own fractions. Some of them may even challenge the original values or consensus of the community as a whole.

For example, one interviewee mentioned that:

‘[in the past] the articles on the board made you feel that those who like Tokio care more about how you feel… But it changed later, some people just keep proclaiming their own preference.’ (R01, female, age 25)

Power relations in fan’s community (2-2):

Chilling effect

As members aware of the existence of other fractions, they may reduce or give up participating in the community to avoid argument.

Like one interviewee pointed out,

that ‘[about the affair event] I just made my announcement in mild tone, but in fact I was very angry inside… Though there are only five persons in Tokio, but they all have their own supporters… So when you are posting an article, you have to be careful. I will keep my position neutral, mentioning all five of them in my article, and that will be better. But that’s also the reason why I rarely post articles.’ (R14, female, age 25)

Power relations in fan’s community (2-3):

The meaning of on-line fan’s community has changed

As fans tend to keep silent and move activities underground. They take the community solely as origin of pure information, while leaving the share of interest and feelings to private activities.