Transnational Fandom: Creating Alternative Values and New Identities through Digital Labor

Abstract

This article examines the collaboration of audiences with a commercial enterprise to translate non-English TV shows. The aim is to explore the ways in which people engage in the circulation of international media products through privately owned digital platforms while shedding light into new and complex forms of collaboration between audiences and media industries. Drawing on notions of labor value, affect, and re-subjectivation by Gibson-Graham, the purpose is to understand the motivations and values that people find in their digital volunteering, and how they reconcile their positions as both fans and co-producers of content. I argue that the recognition and social connections that people obtain through their online practices provide satisfactions that positively impact their offline activities and daily lives. This is how they turn their collaboration into a worthy exchange, challenging positions that underestimate people’s digital engagement as a form of alternative economic activity producing nonmonetary gains.