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Antifans, Nonfans and Complex Emotions: On the Revival of Audience Research after Three Waves of Fan Studies—Academic Interview with Professor Jonathan Gray
ZHANG Shichao, YIN Yiyi, XIE Zhuoxiao
Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2024, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (2) : 161-176.
PDF(1200 KB)
PDF(1200 KB)
Antifans, Nonfans and Complex Emotions: On the Revival of Audience Research after Three Waves of Fan Studies—Academic Interview with Professor Jonathan Gray
Professor Jonathan Gray, from the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has dedicated over twenty years to media and audience research, particularly emphasizing fan studies, television audience research, and other audience-related topics. Jonathan consistently maintains a critical and reflective approach, focusing on antifans, nonfans, and audiences expressing passionately negative emotions toward specific media products. He highlights the opportunities and challenges faced by audience research in the contemporary new media landscape. In this interview, we delve into Jonathan’s academic background, examining the evolution of fan studies through its three waves and exploring the latest advancements in the field. Subsequently, our conversation centers on his latest book, Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste, which concentrates on a distinct audience type—those openly expressing their “dislike”. We conclude by revisiting “Reviving audience studies”, engaging in a broader reflection on the factors contributing to the decline of the research paradigm and its adaptation within the framework of the new media environment.
Jonathan Gray / fan studies / audience studies / negative emotions / cultural studies
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The major developments of mass communication research, particularly in Britain, during the last fifteen years are reviewed critically. A new revisionist movement has emerged that challenges the dominant radical paradigms of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This has taken the form of contesting the underlying models of society, the characterization of media organizations, the representations of media content, the conception of the audience and the aesthetic judgements that underpinned much `critical' research. The author argues that this revisionism is in part a reversion to certain discredited conventional wisdoms of the past, a revivalism masquerading as new and innovatory thought. However, part of the new critique can be seen as a reformulation that could potentially strengthen the radical tradition of communications research.
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Drawing on a case study involving mediated vitriol targeting cheerleaders, this article identifies two potentially problematic aspects of the media studies concept of antifandom. First, it critiques the classification of vitriolic texts produced by antifans as belonging primarily to the field of audiences and reception. It argues that this move risks sidelining the fact that antifan discourse also constitutes a set of influential texts authored by a group of powerful textual producers. Second, it questions the designation of the human targets of antifandom as texts. This risks underplaying the ethical dimensions of the en masse articulation of vitriol towards human targets.
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