The subculture of urban global popular-culture youth fans is believed to be a resistance-subculture against the hegemony of dominant power. This study, however, found that the subculture given rise to by the urban, global popular-culture youth fans of ‘the Mortal Instruments’ in Indonesia is in opposition to the Neo-Gramscian thought which has become the foundation of popular-culture studies. In constructing their identity, some of the digital fandoms of global popular culture have been critical of the content of cultural texts as a form of resistance against texts produced by cultural industries. However, they have only been developing artificial forms of resistance within the system, that is, in fan sites. This study found that the urban youths joining digital fandoms are not free from the hegemony of capitalism because they have become playlabourers, engaging in free digital labour for the powers of the global culture industry. This critical attitude of urban youths, in building their digital fandom-subculture identity, is incapable of standing against the system. They even position themselves within the network of cultural-industry capitalism – identified by the Frankfurt School as the domination and superiorization of the industry power of global entertainment that is continually self-restoring.
ChambersI (1987) Maps for the metropolis: A possible guide to the present. Cultural Studies1(1): 1–21.
11.
CohenS (2002) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, New York: Routledge.
12.
DanesiM (2002) Understanding Media Semiotics, New York: Oxford University Press.
13.
DuffettM (2013) Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to The Study of Media Fan Culture, London: Bloomsbury.
14.
FaircloughN (2003) Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research, London: Routledge.
15.
FuchsC (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age, New York: Routledge.
16.
FuchsC (2011) Foundations of Critical Media and Information Studies, New York: Routledge.
17.
FuchsC (2014) Digital Labour and Karl Marx, New York: Routledge.
18.
FuchsC (2015) Culture and Economy in the Age of Social Media, New York: Routledge.
19.
GelderK (2007) Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice, New York: Routledge.
20.
GeraghtyL (2010) Popular Media Cultures, Fans, Audiences and Paratexts, New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
21.
GrayJ (2010) Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts, New York and London: New York University Press.
22.
GreenJJenkinsH (2011) Spreadable media: How audiences create value and meaning in a networked economy. In: NightingaleV (ed.) The Handbook of Media Audiences, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 109–127.
23.
Habermas J (1987) Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeworld and System: A Critique of a Functionalist Reason (trans. TA McCarthy). Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
24.
HumphreysAGraysonK (2008) The intersecting roles of consumer and producer: A critical perspective on co-production, co-creation and prosumption. Sociology Compass2(3): 963–980.
25.
JenkinsH (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York University Press.
26.
JenksC (2005) Subculture: The Fragmentation of the Social, London: Sage.
27.
JohnNA (2012) Sharing and web 2.0: The emergence of a keyword. New Media & Society15(2): 167–182.
28.
JohnsonD (2012) Cinematic destiny: Marvel studios and the trade stories of industrial convergence. Cinema Journal52(1): 1–24.
29.
LuschRF (2007) Marketing’s evolving identity: Defining our future. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing26(2): 261–268.
30.
McKeeA (2003) Textual Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide, London: Sage.
MasseyD (2005) The spatial construction of youth cultures. In: SkeltonTValentineG (eds) Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures, London: Routledge, pp. 122–130.
33.
MuggletonD (2000) Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style (Dress, Body, Culture), New York: Bloomsbury.
34.
NashR (2013) What is the business of literature?Virginia Quarterly Review Spring89(2): 14–27.
35.
RamirezR (1999) Value co-production: Intellectual origins and implications for practice and research. Strategic Management Journal20(1): 49–65.
36.
RedheadS (1997) Subculture to Clubcultures: An Introduction to Popular Cultural Studies, Oxford: Blackwell.
37.
RitzerGJurgensonN (2010) Production, consumption, prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital prosumer. Journal of Consumer Culture10(13): 13–36.
38.
SayreSKingC (2010) Entertainment and Society: Influence, Impact and Innovation, Florence: Taylor & Francis.
39.
Scholz T (ed.) (2013) Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory. New York: Routledge.
40.
StoreyJ (2015) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, 7th edn. London: Routledge.
41.
StrinatiD (2004) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, 2nd edn, New York: Routledge.
42.
TapscottD (2009) Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World, New York: McGraw Hill.
43.
TerranovaT (2004) Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age, London: Pluto Press.
44.
ThorntonS (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity Press.
45.
TofflerA (1980) The Third Wave, New York: Bantam Press.
46.
WebsterJG (2008) Structuring a market place of attention. In: TurowJTsuiL (eds) Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age, Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, pp. 23–38.
47.
WilliamsR (1980) Culture and Materialism, London: Verso Books.
48.
WyrwollC (2014) Social Media: Fundamentals, Models, and Ranking of User-Generated Content, New York: Springer.
49.
ZwickDBonsuSKDarmodyA (2008) Putting consumer to work: Co-creation and new marketing govern-mentality. Journal of Consumer Culture8(2): 163–196.
