Fan activism
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Fan activism is the efforts of a fan community to raise awareness of social concerns or otherwise support the ideals expressed by objects of the fandom. The rise of fan activism has been attributed to the emergence of new media.[1][2] A 2012 quantitative study by Kahne, Feezell, and Lee suggests that there may be a statistically significant relationship between youths' participation in interest-driven activities online and their civic engagement later on in life.[3]
Fan activism has become more politically and societally focused, and fandoms take up collective action often for issues that are not inter-fandom. Scholars share that "Fan and consumer activism are more visible than ever before, and the lines between these and traditional civic and political activities are blurring in today's increasingly "participatory" media and entertainment landscape".[4]
Examples of fan activism include campaigns for social equality, representation of minorities in entertainment media,[5] fundraising for organizations with common values,[6] campaigning for the continuation of a television program[7] or sporting team[8] and defending fan works from commercial exploitation and allegations of copyright infringement.[9][10] Fans may be mobilized to support such causes in response to celebrity endorsements;[11][12] however, activists may also leverage content worlds and fan-like activities as resources to be reconfigured for political engagement, as in the cases where real-life rights groups have used imagery and tropes from Avatar (2009 film) to attract mainstream media attention in the West Bank village of Bil'in[13] and Orissa, India.[14]
Notable groups that are historically associated with fan activism include Fandom Forward (formerly the Harry Potter Alliance), Fans4Writers, Nerdfighteria and the Organization for Transformative Works. More recently, K-pop fans have organized for a variety of political causes.