Co-creating communities: Fandoms in tourism spaces

Abstract

Fandoms as expressions of popular culture are characterized by common interests and a sense of belonging and community. Creating and participating in communities is an inherent part of fandom, with tourism providing spaces for this community building to occur face to face. Overlaps between tourism and fandoms have been identified in popular culture (e.g. film tourism contexts); previous research, however, is characterized by disciplinary fragmentation and ambiguous transferability. This article introduces a conceptual framework of fan-based community co-creation, taking into account different intensities of fan involvement as well as factors that contribute to a psychologically perceived sense of community. The framework’s applicability to on-site tourism activities and fan-based events is illustrated, and recommendations for its empirical verification are provided.

Reaching audiences through travel vlogs: The perspective of involvement

“…Fandom refers to a subculture -forming communities of shared-interest people who may interact with each other (Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2017). Two important dimensions of fandom encompass perceived membership and communication with other members (Reichenberger & Smith, 2019). As a label in this coding scheme, the term fandom indicates the video content that stimulates fandom communications through showing vloggers themselves and shaping the membership of fan communities.…”

Popular culture shaping tourism

“…Popular culture and the future of tourism Popular culture related travel thus holds special meaning to those who consider themselves fans, and travel provides them with two opportunities: One is an immersion in the often fictional world depicted on screen or in books (Waysdorf and Reijnders, 2016), the other consists of face-toface interactions with other fans, transferring the fandom community from digital to physical contexts (Kington, 2015). Although Croy (2018) points out that only a small percentage of, for example, film tourists consider themselves deeply involved fans, for these travelers it is the community building and subsequent sense of belonging and membership that lies at the core of their activities (Reichenberger and Smith, 2019). It signifies their affiliation with the fandom community (Coppa, 2014), contributes to both social and collective identity ( Jenkins, 1992), and can be considered a form of serious leisure (Gibson et al, 2017).…”

“…The intersections of popular culture and tourism will remain alsobooks and movies will be set in locations that fans seek to engage with, the need for belonging and communities is likely to increase in a world that will continue to be characterized by disruption and diaspora (Oliver-Smith, 2009) and will be sought out digitally as well as physically. Here, it is the notion of community building through fandoms that will drive popular culture tourism in the futurewhile co-creational components already contribute to successful popular culture tourism related activities (Reichenberger and Smith, 2019), visitors are expected to place increasing value on connecting with others with shared interests. More immersive, interactional, personalized, meaningful and engaging experiences are required that allow for community building that does not remain spatially and temporally restricted but extends beyond the space and place of the respective activity.…”

Understanding Film Fan Tourism: An Inventory of 15 Years of Research

“…Yet despite the identification of a relationship between fans and tourism, our understanding of the specific characteristics of a fandom and its members, and of the types of interaction and participation that occur, is still limited Smith, 2020). Numerous studies indicate that the proportion of tourists whose sole and/or main travel motivation is a fiction film or TV series is in fact marginal (Busby;Klug, 2001;Croy, 2018;Di Cesare et al, 2009;Rattanaphinanchai, 2015;Macionis;Sparks, 2009).…”

“…While it is true that there are many researchers who have analysed the travel motivations and experiences of film tourists, very few have done so from the perspective of film fan tourists. Another possible explanation for this is the lack of interdisciplinary collaboration Smith, 2020), which, according to Zubernis and Larsen (2012), may in turn be the result of an aversion to the fan phenomenon: although over the last thirty years numerous efforts have been made to rehabilitate the image of fans, a persistent feeling of embarrassment pervades fan spaces and academic approaches to the subject. Moreover, as Fiske (1992) suggests, the cultural capital of popular culture, which can be built up by fandom activity, is different from the official cultural capital associated in particular with the conventional cultural activities of the elite, as popular cultural capital can extinguish quickly.…”