Fandom in My Pocket: Mobile Social Intimacies in WhatsApp Fan Groups

From Information Seeking to Social Support: Utilities of WhatsApp Group for Health Education and Postpartum Healing among CS Mothers in Nigeria

“…Littlejohn and Foss‖s (2009) submission that self-disclosure may yield supportive responses that may lead to a stable social support network is equally affirmed by this finding. The fact that the group afforded the mothers a communal life (Rosenberg & Asterhan, 2022) and intimacy (Liew, 2020) motivated them to freely share significant information about themselves, as they saw group members as like minds whom they have shared affinity with (Koçak & Vergiveren, 2019;Jailobaev, Jailobaeva, Baialieva, Baialieva & Asilbekova, 2021). Such information disclosure was necessary because the mothers needed social or emotional support (Knop, Öncü, Penzel, Abele, Brunner, Vorderer & Wessler, 2016;Esteve-Del-Valle, Costa & Hagedoorn, 2022), relationship building (Sharif, Soroya, Ahmad & Mahmood, 2021) and anticipation of some positive gratifications (Krämer & Schäwel, 2020).…”

“…According to Chan, Yong, and Harmizi (2020), WhatsApp‖s features such as its visual components (e.g., emojis) enable users to connect without the barrier of distance and strict face-toface interactions (Hasan, 2018). To maintain interpersonal relationships via this medium, users enjoy some level of social connection (Liew, 2020;Jailobaev, Jailobaeva, Baialieva, Baialieva & Asilbekova, 2021), though its over-reliance on interpersonal communication may disconnect them from the reality of off-WhatsApp interactions (Chan, Yong & Harmizi, 2020).…”

“…One important reason WhatsApp users join WhatsApp groups is to satisfy their communication needs (Raiman, Antbring & Mahmood, 2017) as well as be exposed to a mediated communal life (Rosenberg & Asterhan, 2022) and social intimacy (Liew, 2020). That is, WhatsApp groups draw users closer to a community structure by ‗bringing together people across time zones, creating communities of similar-minded/tasked people, and giving a sense of belonging to group members' (Nobre, Ferreira & Almeida, 2021:63).…”

The transnationality of mobile media and contemporary racisms: A future research agenda

“…These technologies have enabled individuals to imagine their relationships in expansive ways that transcend “technological, geographic, psychological, physical and temporal differences” (Hjorth & Lim, 2012, p. 478). Their ubiquity also means, however, that people now literally carry the tensions of these globally entangled relationships “in their pocket” (Liew, 2020). The various mobile media that individuals constantly have on them—like the array of apps they use on their watches, phones, tablets, and laptops—can materialize in wide-ranging ways the contemporary racial dynamics that entwine the racial logics of our different societies.…”