The rise of platforms has reshaped fan participation. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study examined celebrity fandom in China, where the Internet-powered entertainment industry and fan economy have flourished. We propose an operationality perspective as a wider-angle lens to conceptualize the multitude of fan practices emerging in platform-mediated environments. Moving beyond the text-centered approach, the operationality perspective sees fans’ platform practices (e.g. cross-platform engagement, curation of fan texts, data work) as a new logic of participation in digital fandom that could generate distinct identities and lifestyles. Operationality can be understood as a set of strategies fans employ in response to the growing influence of platformization. Operationality not only enables fans to align their practices with platform interests, but also affords them opportunities to negotiate their identities and adjust their degree of involvement in fandom.
BaruchF (2021) Transnational fandom: creating alternative values and new identities through digital labor. Television & New Media22(6): 687–702.
2.
BaymNK (2018) Playing to the Crowd. New York: New York University Press.
3.
BoothP (2010) Digital fandom: New Media Studies. New York: Peter Lang.
4.
BoothP (2015a) Crowdfunding: a spimatic application of digital fandom. New Media & Society17(2): 149–166.
5.
BoothP (2015b) Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.
6.
ChenZT (2021) Poetic prosumption of animation, comic, game and novel in a post-socialist China: a case of a popular video-sharing social media Bilibili as heterotopia. Journal of Consumer Culture21(2): 257–277.
7.
CouldryN (2012) Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge: Polity.
8.
FiskeJ (1992) The cultural economy of fandom. In: LewisLA (ed.) The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. New York: Routledge, pp. 30–49.
9.
FungAY (2019) Fandomization of online video or television in China. Media, Culture & Society41(7): 995–1010.
10.
GrayJ (2006) Watching with the Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality. New York: Routledge.
11.
GrayJSandvossCHarringtonL (2007) Introduction: why study fans? In: GrayJSandvossCHarringtonL (eds) Fandom: Identities and Communications in a Mediated World. New York: New York University Press, pp. 1–16.
12.
HallS (1980) Encoding/decoding. In: HallSHobsonDLoweA, et al. (eds) Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972-1979. London: Hutchinson, pp. 128–138.
13.
HighfieldTHarringtonSBrunsA (2013) Twitter as a technology for audiencing and fandom: the #Eurovision phenomenon. Information, Communication & Society16(3): 315–339.
14.
HillsM (2013) Fiske’s “textual productivity” and digital fandom: Web 2.0 democratization versus fan distinction. Participations10(1): 130–153.
15.
JenkinsH (1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge.
16.
JenkinsH (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.
17.
JenkinsHItoMboydd (2015) Participatory Culture in a Networked Era. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
18.
JungS (2012) Fan activism, cybervigilantism, and othering mechanisms in K-pop fandom. Transformative Works and Cultures10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2012.0300
19.
LashSLuryC (2007) Global Culture Industry. Cambridge: Polity.
20.
LiaoCFuP (2022) Love your idol in a “cleaned” way: fans, fundraising platform, and fandom governance in China. Media International Australia185(1): 57–78.
21.
LicoppeC (2004) Connected presence: the emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communication technoscape. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space22(1): 135–156.
22.
LiebesTKatzE (1990) The Export of Meaning: Cross-Cultural Readings of “Dallas.” Oxford: Oxford University Press.
23.
MadianouM (2014) Smartphones as polymedia. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication19(3): 667–680.
24.
MadianouMMillerD (2013) Polymedia: towards a new theory of digital media in interpersonal communication. International Journal of Cultural Studies16(2): 169–187.
25.
NieborgDBPoellT (2018) The platformization of cultural production: theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society20(11): 4275–4292.
26.
PlantinJCPunathambekarA (2019) Digital media infrastructures: pipes, platforms, and politics. Media, Culture & Society41(2): 163–174.
27.
RadwayJA (1984) Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
28.
ReckwitzA (2002) Toward a theory of social practices: a development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory5(2): 243–263.
29.
SandvossC (2005) Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity.
30.
SantoA (2018) Fans and merchandise. In: ClickMAScottS (eds) The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. New York: Routledge, pp. 329–336.
31.
StanfillM (2019) Exploiting Fandom: How the Media Industry Seeks to Manipulate Fans. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.
32.
SunM (2020) K-pop fan labor and an alternative creative industry: a case study of GOT7 Chinese fans. Global Media and China5(4): 389–406.
33.
ThorhaugeAMGregersenA (2019) Individual pastime or focused social interaction: gendered gaming practices among Danish youth. New Media & Society21(7): 1444–1464.
34.
ThorsonKWellsC (2016) Curated flows: a framework for mapping media exposure in the digital age. Communication Theory26(3): 309–328.
35.
WangENGeL (2023) Fan conflicts and state power in China: internalised heteronormativity, censorship sensibilities, and fandom police. Asian Studies Review47(2): 355–373.
36.
YanQYangF (2021) From parasocial to parakin: co-creating idols on social media. New Media & Society23(9): 2593–2615.
37.
YinY (2020) An emergent algorithmic culture: the data-ization of online fandom in China. International Journal of Cultural Studies23(4): 475–492.
38.
YinYXieZ (2024) Playing platformized language games: social media logic and the mutation of participatory cultures in Chinese online fandom. New Media & Society26(2): 619–641.
39.
ZhangQNegusK (2020) East Asian pop music idol production and the emergence of data fandom in China. International Journal of Cultural Studies23(4): 493–511.
40.
ZhangYHuangSLiT (2023) “Push-and-pull” for visibility: how do fans as users negotiate over algorithms with Chinese digital platforms?Information, Communication & Society26(2): 321–339.
