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Construction of knowledge in online fandom spaces: Sexuality discourse in Taylor Swift fans' subreddits
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
2023 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This study explores how knowledge and reality is constructed within an online fandom’s communication, with a focus on LGBTQ+ discourse within Taylor Swift’s fans on Reddit. This is done through a qualitative digital ethnographic method and uses LGBTQ+ symbols and parasocial relationships as tools to analyse 75 posts and 850 comments total. The theoretical framework mainly consists of Berger and Luckmann’s (1966) theory on the social construction of reality and Couldry and Hepp’s (2017) reinterpretation of their work that considers the effects of digitalization and how our construction of reality has changed with it. The analysis showed that the group uses symbols to build a shared collection of facts and continuously follows an us-versus-them narrative to construct their community. Their foundational belief that Swift herself is secretly queer is not to be too closely questioned within the group and they often use the version of Swift that outsiders have built up to discuss hypothetical what-ifs. To participate in the community and be seen as “logical” it appears to require that you to some extent correctly consume the media in a way that aligns with pre- existing facts that the group shares. Meaning that the group has unspoken rules that dictate the knowledge hierarchies within it. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023. , p. 45
Keywords [en]
Knowledge construction, Fandom studies, LGBTQ+ studies, Taylor Swift, Reddit, Community, Parasocial relationships
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-211367OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-211367DiVA, id: diva2:1779261
Subject / course
Magister Thesis in Media and Communication Studies
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Available from: 2023-07-04 Created: 2023-07-03 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

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Construction of knowledge in online fandom spaces(809 kB)1407 downloads
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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf