[Air-L] CfP: 'fan' issue of M/C Journal, articles due 13 June 2025

[Samantha Vilkins]

Dear colleagues,

We're delighted to share the following call for papers for the upcoming <https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#fan> 'fan' <https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#fan> issue of M/C Journal<https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/information/authors#fan>:

In the contemporary online landscape, fan activity and political participation have become fundamentally intertwined.  Both groups have always engaged in similar practices of collective interpretation and identity-building, but their convergence in action and impact grows. Even the term “fan” itself spans from casual appreciation to intense partisanship, encompassing varying levels of emotional, ideological, and financial commitment.

As online spaces have evolved – from fan-run fora to massive centralised platforms, through the degradation of Twitter/X and the rise of alternatives and emphasis on cross-posting functionalities –, localised community norms have been disrupted, affecting both communication and the sociopolitical importance of online discourses.

For example, communities have evolved from foundational behaviours of interpretive knowledge-building to share a rise in conspiratorial thinking and dark participation patterns, mediated by platform affordances, with activity that regularly gains mainstream media attention. These practices are at once organic and strategic: fan groups function as political publics and vice versa, from political campaigning to marketing tactics, while fans grow increasingly aware of their own capacity to mobilise across entertainment and political spaces.

These developments highlight deepening intersections as discourses across entertainment and politics are increasingly conflated, polarising along both affective and ideological lines. On this, the politics of ‘against’ are just as powerful as 'for'. Fan studies scholars have examined these dynamics through paired concepts – fan/anti-fan, like/dislike, beautiful/ugly – which nuance the benefits and detriments of such engagement. These nuances are particularly important where strong emotions, collective knowledge creation, and identity formation are concerned.

We invite submissions that explore what the concept of “fan” means and does in current communication contexts in a broad sense. This issue thus seeks to explore the evolving relationships between fandom and political communication, examining how fan practices, communities, and identities intersect with political discourse, activism, and social movements across cultural contexts.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

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Affect, emotion, and parasociality in political identity formation
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Interpretational polarisation and collective identity
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Fandoms as political movements and vice versa
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Political and economic weaponisation of fan practices
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Anti-fandom and political opposition
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Forensic fandom and interpretive or conspiratorial practices
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Dark participation and ambiguous engagement
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Cross-platform dynamics of political fan movements
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Platform-specific political fan cultures
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Identity, privacy, and conflicts thereof
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'Data fandom’ and strategic focus on engagement metrics
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The role of play in political participation
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Depictions of fan activity in media
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Transmedia political narratives
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Historical perspectives on political fandom

Prospective contributors should email an abstract of 100-250 words and a brief biography to the issue editors.

Abstracts should include the article title and should describe your research question, approach, and argument. Biographies should be about three sentences (maximum 75 words) and should include your institutional affiliation and research interests. Articles should be 3000 words (plus bibliography).

All articles will be double-blind refereed and must adhere to MLA style (6th edition).

Details:

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Article deadline: 13 June 2025
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Release date: 13 August 2025
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Editors: Samantha Vilkins and Sebastian Svegaard

Please submit articles through the website<https://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/about/submissions>. Send any enquiries to fan at journal.media-culture.org.au.

Best,
Sam


Samantha Vilkins

Postdoctoral Research Associate | Digital Media Research Centre

ARC Laureate Project “Determining the Drivers and Dynamics of Partisanship and Polarisation in Online Public Debate<https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/projects/determining-the-drivers-and-dynamics-of-partisanship-and-polarisation-in-online-public-debate/>”

Queensland University of Technology, Building Z1-515, Kelvin Grove | Brisbane, Australia