"Ate, pa-fansign!": The Subculture of Fans on Twitter

Rey, M. (2018). “Ate, pa-fansign!”: The Subculture of Fans on Twitter, Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis. University of the Philippines. College of Mass Communication.

Abstract

The development of social media gave sports fans more opportunities to communicate with their favorite athletes and do other things related to their fandom. In this study, I looked at how social media affected fans in their subculture. Specifically, I looked at how fans of UAAP women’s volleyball athletes used Twitter and evaluated if their demeanor exhibited any of the five characteristics of fans introduced by Jenkins. I examined how Twitter affected how fans exhibited these characteristics online.

I selected five fans who used Twitter for interacting with their favorite athletes and used their tweets, Twitter profile, and following as my units of analysis. I looked at the demeanor of these fans on Twitter and analyzed if any of these exhibited the five characteristics of fans according to Jenkins. I then looked at the role of Twitter in how fans exhibited these characteristics online.

I found that Twitter played a weak role in allowing the fans to exhibit their characteristics online. The social media platform had features that were too basic to allow fans to fully express their characteristics online.

Keywords: audience studies, Henry Jenkins, Twitter, sports fans