Abstract
Due to our hybridized media lives and civic engagement, today’s general public more often represent their social and political identities and visions in a language borne directly from popular culture and through mechanisms and practices of fandom, that is an emerging space where people are both implicitly and explicitly working through historical experiences and social diversity. This study explores under-theorized perceptions of widespread cultural engagement by fans often entering civic discourse as the most active segment of the media audience. Also examined is the new relationship between fan activism and participatory politics, which cultivate a particular mode of maker identities and enable emergent forms of fan-based cultural production. As preliminary research, this study selects visual performativity as a core concept of participatory politics, focusing on internet memes and do-it-yourself citizenship. In particular, this study pays close attention to a recent South Korean case, including appreciative, appropriative, resonant memes, most of which originated from the Korean fandom culture and continued to evolve as resistant memes toward South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution and its DIY citizenship.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Fan Activism, Visual Politics, DIY Citizenship, Internet Meme, Korean Fandom
