What do fans care? The ambivalence towards celebrity involvement in social issues on Weibo
(2018) MKVM13 20181Media and Communication Studies
- Abstract (Swedish)
- The thesis sets out to explore how fans understand and respond to celebrity mobilization on social media. In March 2017, a famous Chinese singer Xue ZhiQian reposted a controversial weibo on Chinese social platform Sina Weibo. His involvement in news circulation and his mobilization on civilized behavior set off a huge wave on the Internet and highly triggered public concern about celebrity behavior.
To investigate fans’ understanding of online celebrity performance, thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Xue’s fans. Moreover, this research also sheds some light on fans’ participation in social issues with the influence of celebrity’s call. The main findings of the research center around the ambivalence of celebrity... (More) - The thesis sets out to explore how fans understand and respond to celebrity mobilization on social media. In March 2017, a famous Chinese singer Xue ZhiQian reposted a controversial weibo on Chinese social platform Sina Weibo. His involvement in news circulation and his mobilization on civilized behavior set off a huge wave on the Internet and highly triggered public concern about celebrity behavior.
To investigate fans’ understanding of online celebrity performance, thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Xue’s fans. Moreover, this research also sheds some light on fans’ participation in social issues with the influence of celebrity’s call. The main findings of the research center around the ambivalence of celebrity involvement: The imaginary intimacy and indistinguishable authenticity of celebrity performance, the dispersive attention and ambivalent attitude towards celebrity involvement and inactive respond to celebrity mobilization. Thereby this study unravels the online celebrity activism from the perspective of fans and probes how fans practice their understanding. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8944404
- author
- Yao, Li Bin LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MKVM13 20181
- year
- 2018
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- social media, celebrity activism, fandom, parasocial relationship, participation
- language
- English
- id
- 8944404
- date added to LUP
- 2018-06-15 09:50:24
- date last changed
- 2018-06-15 09:50:24
@misc{8944404, abstract = {{The thesis sets out to explore how fans understand and respond to celebrity mobilization on social media. In March 2017, a famous Chinese singer Xue ZhiQian reposted a controversial weibo on Chinese social platform Sina Weibo. His involvement in news circulation and his mobilization on civilized behavior set off a huge wave on the Internet and highly triggered public concern about celebrity behavior. To investigate fans’ understanding of online celebrity performance, thirteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Xue’s fans. Moreover, this research also sheds some light on fans’ participation in social issues with the influence of celebrity’s call. The main findings of the research center around the ambivalence of celebrity involvement: The imaginary intimacy and indistinguishable authenticity of celebrity performance, the dispersive attention and ambivalent attitude towards celebrity involvement and inactive respond to celebrity mobilization. Thereby this study unravels the online celebrity activism from the perspective of fans and probes how fans practice their understanding.}}, author = {{Yao, Li Bin}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{What do fans care? The ambivalence towards celebrity involvement in social issues on Weibo}}, year = {{2018}}, }