While recent analyses have helped to challenge commonly-held stereotypes of fans of popular cultural texts as freakish individuals ‘without a life’, few studies have focused on texts produced and/or consumed outside the United States and Europe. Even fewer have considered the particular significance of the advent of the internet as a tool for intercultural fan activity. This is what this study attempts to accomplish through an ethnographic and textual analysis of an online community of fans of Kimura Takuya - one of the most popular Japanese male celebrities of the moment - dispersed across 14 countries. It explores, in particular, how participants defined their fan, gendered and cultural/global identities through their involvement with each other and with their favorite star, and negotiated as a group the complex process of virtual cross-cultural identity formation.
Adorno, T.W. and M. Horkheimer (1997) Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Verso.
2.
Alcoff, M.L. (1995) ‘The Problem of Speaking for Others’, in J. Roof and R. Wiegman (eds) Who Can Speak: Authority and Critical Identity, pp. 97-119. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
3.
Anderson, M.W. and C. Kingsley (1999) ‘Finding Resources for the Study of Multiculturalism on the Internet’, in M. Prosser and K.S. Sitaram (eds) Civic Discourse: Intercultural, International and Global Media, pp. 31-44. Stamford, CT: Ablex.
4.
Aoyogi, H. (2000) ‘Pop Idols and the Asian Identity’, in T. Craig (ed.) Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, pp. 309-326. Armong, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
5.
Arjatsalo, J. (1999) ‘Your Man Online’, Essays on Candadian Writing69 (winter): 140-149.
6.
Awkward, M. (1995) ‘A Black Man’s Place(s) in Black Feminist Criticism’, in J. Roof and R. Wiegman (eds) Who Can Speak: Authority and Critical Identity, pp. 70-91. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
7.
Bacon-Smith, C. (1992) Enterprising Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
8.
Balsamo, A. (1995) ‘Signal to Noise: on the Meaning of Cyberpunk Subculture’, in F. Biocca and M.R. Levy (eds) Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality, pp. 347-368. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
9.
Beaudrillard, J. (1983) ‘The Ecstasy of Communication’, in H. Foster (ed.) The Antiaesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture, pp. 126-134. Port Townsend, WA: Bay.
10.
Biedly, D., L. Harrington and W. Biedly (1999) ‘Whose Stories Are They? Fans’ Engagement with Soap Opera Narratives in Three Sites of Fan Activity’, Journal of broadcasting and Electronic Media43(1): 35-51.
11.
Bobo, J. (1995) Black Women as Cultural Readers. New York: Columbia University Press.
12.
Brundson, C. (1981) ‘“Crossroads”: Notes on Soap Opera’, Screen22(4): 32-37.
13.
Callaghan, D.D. (1995) ‘The Vicar and the Virago: Feminism and the Problem of Identity’, in J. Roof and R. Wiegman (eds) Who Can Speak: Authority and Critical Identity, pp. 195-207. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
14.
Ching, L. (1996) ‘Imaginings in the Empires of the Sun: Japanese Mass Culture in Asia’, in J.W. Treat (ed.) Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture, pp. 169-194. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press.
15.
Chow, R. (1993) Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
16.
Clerc, S. (2000) ‘Estrogen Brigades and ‘Big Tits’ Threads: Media Fandom Online and Off’, in D. Bell and B.M. Kennedy (eds) The Cybercultures Reader, pp. 216-229. New York: Routledge.
17.
Craig, T. (2000) ‘Introduction’, in T. Craig (ed.) Japan Pop! Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, pp. 3-23. Armong, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
18.
Darling-Wolf, F. (2003) ‘Male Bonding and Female Pleasure: Refining Masculinity in Japanese Popular Cultural Texts’, Popular Communication1(3): 73-88.
19.
Dyer, R. (1986) Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: Macmillan.
20.
Dyer, R. (1998) Stars. London: British Film Industry Publishing.
21.
Ehrenreich, B., E. Hess and G. Jacobs (1992) ‘Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have Fun’, in L. Lewis (ed.) The Adoring Audience, pp. 84-106. New York: Routledge.
22.
Fiske, J. (1995) Television Culture. New York: Routledge.
23.
Fukuyama, F. (1992) The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.
24.
Herring, S. (1996) ‘Posting in a Different Voice: Gender and Ethics in Computer-mediated Communication’, in C. Ess (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives on Computer-mediated Communication, pp. 115-145. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
25.
Hinerman, S. (1992) ‘“I’ll Be Here with You’: Fans, Fantasy and the Figure of Elvis’, in L. Lewis (ed.) The Adoring Audience, pp. 135-159. New York: Routledge.
26.
Ivy, M. (1995) Discourse of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
27.
Iwabuchi, K. (2001a) ‘Becoming ‘Culturally Proximate’: the Ascent of Japanese Idol Dramas in Taiwan’, in B. Moeran (ed.) Asian Media Productions, pp. 54-74. Honolulu: Hawaii University Press.
28.
Iwabuchi, K. (2001b) ‘Uses of Japanese Popular Culture: Transnationalism and Postcolonial Desire for “Asia”’, Emergences11(2): 199-222.
29.
Iwabuchi, K. (2002) ‘From Western Gaze to Global Gaze: Japanese Cultural Presence in Asia’, in D. Crane, N. Kawashima and K. I. Kawasaki (eds) Global Culture: Media, Arts, Policy and Globalization, pp. 256-273. New York: Routledge.
30.
Jenkins, H. (1992) Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge.
31.
Lee, M. and C.H. Cho (1990) ‘Women Watching Together: an Ethnographic Study of Korean Soap Opera Fans in the United States’, Cultural Studies4(1): 30-44.
32.
Lowenthal, L. (1961) The Triumph of Mass Idols. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific.
33.
Mahathir, M. and S. Ishihara (1995) The Voices of Asia. Tokyo: Kodanshan International.
34.
Marcuse, H. (1964) One-dimensional Man. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
35.
Marshall: D. (1997) Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
36.
Ong, A. (1988) ‘Colonialism and Modernity: Feminist Representations of Women in Non-Western Societies’, Inscriptions3-4: 79-93.
37.
Painter, A. (1996) ‘Japanese Daytime Television, Popular Culture and Ideology’, in J.W. Treat (ed.) Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture, pp. 197-234. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
38.
Parameswaran, R. (1999) ‘Western Romance Fiction as English Language Media in Postcolonial India’, Journal of Communication49(2): 84-105.
39.
Press, A. (1991) Women Watching Television: Gender, Class and Generation in the American Television Experience. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania.
40.
Radway, J. (1984) Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
41.
Rheingold, H. (1993) The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
42.
Sawhney, S. (1995) ‘The Joke and the Hoak: (Not) Speaking as the Other’, in J. Roof and R. Wiegman (eds) Who Can Speak: Authority and Critical Identity, pp. 208-220. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
43.
Schickel, R. (1985) Intimate Strangers: the Culture of Celebrities. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
44.
Scodari, C. and J.L. Felder (2000) ‘Creating a Pocket Universe: ‘Shippers’, Fan Fiction and the X-Files Online’, Communication Studies41(3): 238-257.
45.
Smith, M.J. (1999) ‘Stands in the Web: Community-building Strategies in Online Fanzines’, Journal of Popular Culture33(2): 87-99.
46.
Spivak, G.C. (1988) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, pp. 271-313. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
47.
Stevens, C. and S. Hosokawa (2001) ‘So Close and Yet So Far: Humanizing Celebrity in Japanese Music Variety Shows, 1960s-1990s’, in B. Morean (ed.) Asian Media Productions, pp. 223-246. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
48.
Valdivia, A.N. (1995) ‘Feminist Media Studies in a Global Setting: Beyond Binary Contradictions and into Multicultural Spectrums’, in A.N. Valdivia (ed.) Feminism, Multiculturalism and the Media: Global Diversities, pp. 7-29. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
49.
Varis, T. (1999) ‘Values and the Limits of the Global Media in the Age of Cyberspace’, in M. Prosser and K.S. Sitaram (eds) Civic Discourse: Intercultural, International and Global Media, pp. 5-18. Stamford, CT: Ablex.
50.
Vrooman, S. (2000) ‘Flamethrowers, Slashers and Witches: Gendered Communication in a Virtual Community’, Communication Quarterly48(4): 33-41.
51.
Wakefield, S.R. (2001) ‘An Electronic Community of Female Fans of the X-Files’, Journal of Popular Film and Television29(3): 130-137.
52.
Wu, W. (1999) ‘Cyberspace and Cultural Identity - a Case Study of Cyber community of Chinese Students in the United States’, in M. Prosser and K.S. Sitaram (eds) Civic Discourse: Intercultural, International and Global Media, pp. 75-89. Stamford, CT: Ablex.
