Fandom and identity construction: an analysis of Thai fans' engagement with Twitter

Fandom has become a globally influential phenomenon, particularly amplified in the digital age. This study focuses on Thai fans' online engagement, specifically on Twitter, investigating how their language use contributes to identity construction. The increasing participation of younger generations in fan cultures through social media platforms like Twitter highlights the importance of understanding this evolving landscape. Unlike previous research focusing primarily on Western fan cultures, this study delves into the specific context of Thai fandom, examining how fans utilize online platforms to express their identities and interact within their communities. Traditional media models, which view media as either shaping society or reflecting it, are challenged by the constructivist perspective, where media selectively presents reality. Stuart Hall's reception model underscores the audience's active role in interpreting media texts, leading to varied interpretations based on individual contexts and cultures (dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional positions). The concept of 'discourse' extends beyond linguistics, encompassing how language shapes actions and identities. Foucault's work on discourse analysis highlights the relationship between discourse and power, with discursive practices shaping societal norms and identities. Fandom itself is a discourse, historically viewed negatively but now recognized as a more positive and productive aspect of online culture. This study aims to understand how this social construction plays out in the context of Thai fans engaging with Twitter.

Early fan studies, beginning in the late 1980s, focused on power dynamics and representation, viewing fandom as a form of resistance against media industries. Fans were initially stereotyped negatively, but scholars challenged these perceptions, emphasizing their active role as consumers who 'poach' from source texts to create new meanings. Henry Jenkins's work on 'convergence culture' highlights the interplay between old and new media, participatory culture, and collective intelligence, where both producers and consumers actively shape media content. The rise of the internet has significantly impacted fandom, making fan practices more visible and accessible. Fan discourse has influenced other discourses, including star and political discourses. Research emphasizes the role of fandom in identity construction, with fans basing part of their identities on their appreciation of their fandom. The performative nature of identity, as proposed by Judith Butler, is significant in fandom studies, as fans perform various aspects of their identities through fan activities like writing fan fiction or role-playing. While the internet has augmented fan practices, it hasn't fundamentally altered them, providing diverse platforms for creativity and community building. Fan studies highlight the active interpretation of media texts, with fans not only negotiating meanings but also actively producing and reproducing them. Jenkins's concept of 'textual poaching' builds on de Certeau's work, describing how fans 'poach' from source texts to create new fan texts like fiction. The focus on fan text production often centers on fan fiction, but also extends to songs, poems, visual arts, and videos. However, the rise of online platforms has broadened the definition of fan text to include tweets and comments. While western fan culture is extensively studied, Asian fan studies, especially focusing on East Asian contexts, tend to emphasize the concept of intimacy between fans and their objects of fandom. Thai fan studies have primarily focused on fans of Thai pop music and K-pop, highlighting the global influence of Korean pop culture. This study addresses the gap in research on Thai media fandom beyond K-pop, exploring its nuances and unique characteristics.

This study employed a qualitative methodology using content analysis and semiotic analysis to investigate Thai fans' engagement with Twitter and its relation to identity construction. The unit of analysis comprised 100 fan tweets from four diverse source texts: the South Korean boy band Wanna One, the Thai drama 'Buppae Sunniwas', the Chinese survival show 'Idol Producer', and Marvel's 'The Avengers'. These diverse sources aimed to capture the varied aspects of fandom across different cultures. The tweets were selected based on recency and popularity, using relevant hashtags to identify top tweets. Content analysis systematically categorized and analyzed the tweets' content, using an inductive approach to identify meaningful categories and sub-categories. The units of analysis were concepts (clusters of words related to certain ideas) and themes (shared underlying meanings). The 100 tweets were divided into 25 tweets per source text. Semiotic analysis provided the framework for examining how fans construct identities within their narratives. This framework, drawn from Barthes's concepts of denotation and connotation, and Kristeva's concept of intertextuality, explored how meaning is generated and how multiple meanings are intertwined within the fan texts. Information on each of the four source texts is provided to establish the context of the fan tweets and their creation. This included a description of the source text along with information about popular pairings or 'shipping' within each fandom.

Content analysis of the 100 fan tweets revealed five main categories of fan engagement: 1. **Hypothetical Interpretation:** Fans speculated about the unspoken romantic relationships between characters, often based on subtle cues in photos or videos. This was particularly prominent in tweets featuring unofficial pairings within fandoms. 2. **Fan Art:** The study included eleven examples of fan art, ranging from traditional drawings to digitally edited photos. These often depicted 'shipping' couples. 3. **Narrative of Personal Anecdotes:** Fans shared personal experiences related to the source text, often using specific fan terminology only understood within the fan community. 4. **Expression of Personal Opinions and Feelings:** This was the most prevalent category (43 tweets), revealing fans' intense emotions (love, lust, curiosity, frustration) toward the source text. 5. **Fan Parody:** These tweets employed humor and exaggeration, reinterpreting characters, plotlines, or merchandise. They involved both original creations and sharing of existing parodies. The study also identified key aspects of identity construction: 1. **Fan Talk:** A shared lexicon comprising specialized codes and communication styles that create a sense of community among fans and differentiate them from non-fans. These codes often require prior knowledge of the fandom. 2. **Fans as Relatives and Friends:** Fans often used terms of endearment and kinship (e.g., 'senior brother,' 'junior sister') when referring to the media personalities from the source texts, expressing intimacy. 3. **Multicultural Elements:** Thai fans incorporated elements from the source texts' cultures (e.g., Korean, Chinese) into their tweets, but also integrated Thai cultural elements and humor, showing a form of cultural hybridity. The study highlights the humorous nature of fan tweets, likely contributing to their popularity. The use of internet language (slang, symbols, emojis, etc.) was also prevalent. The study notes a hint of heteronormativity in how fans 'ship' same-sex couples, potentially reflecting societal gender norms. While fan fiction is a significant form of fan text production, fan tweets offer a different form of engagement, characterized by brevity, direct emotional expression, and a space for identity play. The findings show a reinterpretation or restatement rather than a rewriting or re-plotting of source material.

The findings demonstrate how Thai fans actively engage with source texts on Twitter, using various modes of expression to create meaning and express their identities. The predominance of emotional expression and personal anecdotes in fan tweets suggests that Twitter serves more as a platform for self-expression than a structured community space. The humorous tone frequently observed in fan tweets warrants further investigation to determine whether it stems from Twitter's nature, Thai culture, or both. The subtle presence of heteronormativity within fans' representation of same-sex pairings reflects societal influences on identity construction within fandom. Fan talk, with its specialized codes and shared understanding within the fandom, facilitates both inclusion and exclusion, highlighting the role of language in creating community boundaries. The integration of various cultural elements in fan tweets showcases the transcultural nature of fandom, demonstrating how local and global cultures interact and influence fans' expressions. This transcultural dimension extends not only to different national cultures but also to different time periods, as seen in the incorporation of outdated language from historical periods into fan interactions. Therefore, fan identity and textual production are inherently transcultural and dynamic, shaped by the interplay of local and global influences.

This study contributes to understanding Thai fandom and social media engagement, offering insights into the dynamics of identity construction within online fan communities. It highlights the varied ways fans interact with and reinterpret source texts on Twitter, emphasizing the humorous, expressive, and transcultural aspects of fan tweets. The study contributes to the broader understanding of fan communities in an Asian context and emphasizes the role of social media in shaping identity. Future research could explore the evolution of fan talk across different fandoms, examine the long-term impact of social media on fan identity construction, and further investigate the interplay between humor, culture, and identity in fan engagement.

This study's findings are based on a sample of 100 tweets, limiting the generalizability of the results to the broader Thai fan community. The selection criteria for the tweets (recency and popularity) might also bias the results towards particular types of fan engagement. The study focuses solely on Twitter, neglecting other platforms and methods of fan engagement, potentially overlooking diverse aspects of fandom. Further research could use larger and more representative samples of fan texts from varied social media platforms to explore the diverse range of fan identity constructions.