Coming of Age in Online Media Fandom: A Longitudinal Study of Young Women's Romantic Expectations

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Cultural Consumption

Abstract

The last several decades have seen a change in the way that young women organize their romantic ands sexual relationships; many young women delay commitment and attachment until later in life as well as invest new significance in the importance of deep emotional connection with their eventual romantic partner. As these changes in family and union expectations have arisen, so too has fandom media culture, a subculture made more accessible by the internet. Even as online media fandom has risen to recent prominence in journalist accounts of media culture, scholarship around fandom has tended to focus on fan subcultures as sites of social organization rather than on the role of fandom within individuals' lives. With a three-year longitudinal study of 50 young American women who are actively interested in the relationship between Kurt and Blaine from the American television show Glee, we ask questions about fandom's role in the lives of the young women who participate. Particular attention is paid to the role of fandom participation in the formulation and maintenance of romantic ideals, sexual identity and practice, and larger community participation. This paper presents an early report on the first wave of interviews in our study as well as the preliminary results of a text analysis of 20 stories of fan fiction, and explores how interactions with texts and narratives that present a young engagement in parallel with a 'soulmate' narrative interact with how young American women think about their own romantic prospects.

Authors

• Carrie Clarady, University of Maryland-College Park

• Jessica Paula Wiederspan, University of Michigan