Research On The Identity Of Fandom Based On Traffic Logic

With the development of mediatization,the scale of fans continues to expand and has some new group characteristics.In the research of fan culture,scholars have begun to focus on fandom.At the same time,the modernity destroys people’s identity.However,the member of fandom is seeking a new identity by using new media technology based on interests."Data practice" replaces text consumption and production becoming the core logic in fandom and the definition and identification of fandom are also related to "traffic" and "data".In consequence,it is of great importance to study the identity of member in fandom under the traffic logic in order to understand the identity of people in media society.Combining the perspectives of journalism and communication,sociology,and psychology,this essay focuses on how members of fandom construct their identity with "traffic" and "data" as a mediator based on identity theory.This study uses netnography,depth interview and questionnaire as main research methods.In first chapter,the research reviews the studies on fan culture and identity and two key concepts——"traffic logic" and "fandom"——are explained.The second chapter describes the development and expansion of fandom from diachronic perspective and finds that because of the infiltration of "traffic logic" the core logic in fandom becomes data practice rather than text practice.Selfidentity and group identity are the main ways for fans to construct identity.In third chapter,based on social identity theory,the study finds that fans realize self-identity by projection,empathy and taking data practice as transitional object.The creation of data,data meaning and data competitions play an important role in group identity.In the fourth chapter,Marxism’s alienation theory is used to analyze the alienation of fan’s identity,which also results in the alienation of leisure,consumption and power.On the one hand,the special action "Qinglang" has effectively regulated the "disorder" in fandom,but it has also caused some crisis such as existential crisis,self-identity and group identity anxiety.Finally,the government,platform,idol,and fans should work together to solve problems above in order to crack the data myths in fandom.