This paper explores how TV fans use social media. By revtewmg academic perspectives on fandom ofTV shows and social media in past several... Show moreThis paper explores how TV fans use social media. By revtewmg academic perspectives on fandom ofTV shows and social media in past several decades, this paper discusses the way that audiences react to TV shows using the affordance of social media. At the begirming, this article traces the image, activities, and meaning of fandom. Fans were portrayed as deviant creatures until the late 80s. This image was clarified when people looked into fans and their creative works. Scholars realized that fans productively generated creative products based on the given materials, which reflected the social experience of the creators. Therefore, fandom was soon understood as a way of fans to resist the dominant culture in the society. Later on, social media offer fans an immediate, widespread platform to contribute to the TV conversation. With this platform, normal fans show up. Different from productive fandom, median fans are less active in making new meanings of the TV program. Interestingly, a large number of TV audiences are using social media during the broadcast, participating in the discussion of shows. This evidences the convergence of the traditional media, TV, and the new media, social media. It is also found that comments of TV viewers on social media in turn, influence the content of the TV show. Rather than merely spectators, fans are a part of the TV production. As a special case, gender is discussed from the perspective of fandom. Female composers dominant the fan-writing world. Study the producers and products of fan fiction may provide valuable insights into gender dilemmas in the real world. At the end of this essay, 1 summarize how social media atTect the participation of TV fans and discuss remaining questions worthy of future research. Since fandom becomes ubiquitous in the social media age, it is possible to explore fandom as a way to better understand our daily life. M.S. in Information Architecture, May 2015 Show less
Through analyzing data from posts and about users, we describe how one particular Facebook group helps immigrants to the U.S. use social media... Show moreThrough analyzing data from posts and about users, we describe how one particular Facebook group helps immigrants to the U.S. use social media to build a local community. As a preliminary study in intercultural communication through social media, we analyze one case, the Asian American Chicago Network (AACN) Facebook group, and uncover common topics users discuss and relationships between user tenure and various indicators of leadership and interaction. Our small finalized results from this preliminary project suggest that members of AACN likely use it (1) to build a professional network in the U.S.A., and (2) to reinforce and affirm their Asian culture and identities. Sponsorship: National Science Foundation Award Number 1525662 Rao, X., & Hemphill, L. (2016). Asian American Chicago Network: A Case Study of Facebook Group Use By Immigrant Groups. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Companion (pp. 381–384). New York, NY, USA: ACM. http://doi.org/10.1145/2818052.2869077 Show less
