Psychology of Popular Media Culture Are You “Fan” Enough? The Role of Identity in Media Fandoms Samantha L. Groene and Vanessa E. Hettinger Online First Publication, April 20, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000080
CITATION Groene, S. L., & Hettinger, V. E. (2015, April 20). Are You “Fan” Enough? The Role of Identity in Media Fandoms. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000080
Psychology of Popular Media Culture 2015, Vol. 4, No. 2, 000
© 2015 American Psychological Association 2160-4134/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000080
Are You “Fan” Enough? The Role of Identity in Media Fandoms Samantha L. Groene and Vanessa E. Hettinger
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University of South Florida The purpose of the present study was to examine media fandom participation from a social identity perspective. Prior to the main study, a new measure of media fan identification was created and internal reliability was established. For the present study, a total of 261 self-proclaimed Harry Potter or Twilight fans were assigned to receive affirming or threatening feedback about their fan identity, and then participated in a fandom-related task. Highly identified fans whose fan identities were affirmed showed greater engagement in the fan task compared with threatened and weakly identified participants. These findings indicate that media fandoms operate in a manner similar to other social groups, with members of average and above average levels of group identification demonstrating sensitivity to group categorization and the psychological benefits and costs of engaging with their chosen media fandom. Keywords: media fandom, social identity theory, social exclusion
In 2007, the TV show Veronica Mars was canceled following an uneven and largely unsuccessful third season, yet fans of the show fervently held on to the hope that the series would be continued in a new form, or brought to the big screen. Nearly 6 years later, this enthusiasm had not dwindled—when show creator Rob Thomas launched the “Veronica Mars Movie Project” on Kickstarter, fans of the series mobilized in record numbers, raising over US$1 million in just 4 hr, and ultimately raising a total of nearly US$6 million in 30 days (Thomas, 2013). The Veronica Mars Kickstarter broke several Kickstarter records: It was the all-time highest funded Kickstarter film project, and the Kickstarter project with the most backers to date (Thomas, 2013). The overwhelming success of this project demonstrates the intense loy-
alty and feelings of belongingness that some media franchises inspire, and is reminiscent of another vociferous fan base, the self-named “Browncoats,” whose love for the short-lived TV show Firefly inspired a grassroots campaign that made possible the creation of the movie Serenity in 2005. In both of these cases, fans’ energy was directed toward promoting the object of their fandom, and resulted in extraordinary achievements, but identification with a fandom can manifest itself in other, less productive, ways. For instance, sports fans’ diets fluctuate based on team wins, with fans consuming more calories and higher proportions of saturated fat following a team loss (Cornil & Chandon, 2013). Further, as the release of the final installment in the Harry Potter series approached, highly selfidentified and engaged Harry Potter fans were noted to exhibit DSM–IV (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) addictive symptoms such as depression, motivational disturbances, and withdrawal (Rudski, Segal, & Kallen, 2009). As media continues to evolve, media fandoms have become increasingly prevalent. With more and more people belonging to media fandoms, what once could have been described as mere leisure activity has become a new form of participatory culture. Still, most psychological scholars have neglected fan phenomena in their research. The goal of the present research is to examine the impli-
Samantha L. Groene and Vanessa E. Hettinger, Psychology Department, University of South Florida. Vanessa E. Hettinger is now at the Human Behavior, Justice, and Diversity Department, University of Wisconsin-Superior. Samantha L. Groene is currently unaffiliated. We thank Dr. Jennifer Bosson, Dr. Jamie Goldenberg, and research assistants Daniel Rynn, Andrew Krajewski, and Thomas Saltsman for their contributions to this project. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Samantha L. Groene, 648 Gillette Avenue, Temple Terrace, FL 33617. E-mail:
[email protected]. 1
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cations of associating oneself with a particular media fandom through the lens of social identity theory. Specifically in this study, we ask: What are the effects of having one’s media fan identity threatened or affirmed?
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Fandom: Past to Present A fan is similar to a consumer in that both fans and consumers place emphasis on a particular interest; however, fans differ from consumers in the extent to which they invest and actively engage in their particular interest, with fans being more intellectually, emotionally, behaviorally, and ideologically involved than ordinary consumers (Consalvo, 2003; Jenkins, 1992; Schimmel, Harrington, & Bielby, 2007). The first officially recognized media fandom was born almost a century ago, when fans of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories began writing letters to the magazine and to one another (Obst, Zinkiewicz, & Smith, 2002). Today, thousands of fandoms exist, and while different fandoms display different traits, nearly all center around a specific object, forming a community bound by fans’ mutual “love, devotion, and appreciation of the [object of the fandom]” (Bird, 2002). These fandoms thrive on fanbased discussion, as well as artistic creation (Jenkins, 1992), with the primary tie among fans being the sharing of fan activities with others that value the same interest (Bird, 2002). Since 1926, technological innovations and new media outlets have transformed not only the creation of new media fandoms but also how fandoms operate, by enabling new methods of communication among fans and allowing fandoms to expand their fan base. While early fandoms communicated through the sharing of physical text and art, and gathered at fan conventions and fan meetings, today, most fan interaction is Internet-based (Obst et al., 2002). Although the literature on media fandom is sparse in comparison with other fan-interest categories like sports fandom and celebrity worship, in recent years a number of scholars have focused their efforts on examining media fandoms, such as those fandoms that have evolved around TV series, films, works of literature, video games, and music (Consalvo, 2003; Hansen & Hansen, 1991; Maltby, Day, McCutcheon, Houran, & Ashe, 2006; Schimmel et al., 2007). Using sports fandom as a platform, some
scholars like Reysen and Branscombe (2010) have attempted to bridge the subfields of fan research by comparing sports fans with fans of other fan-interest categories (e.g., media), exploring possible components of media fandom, such as identity, belongingness, and psychological sense of community (PSOC). The results of these efforts indicate that, in general, media fans are similar to sports fans (for instance, in terms of high identification with the fan interest and with fellow fans); however, whereas sports fans score higher on social identification measures (i.e., group identification and collective happiness measures), media fans score higher on personal identification measures (Jones & Lawrence, 2000; Reysen & Branscombe, 2010). Therefore, although it is tempting to make generalizations across fan interest categories, previous research suggests that although fans of different interest categories may share common values and exhibit some similar behaviors, they may also differ in significant ways. Examining research that has been conducted specifically within the media fan domain reveals insights into the level of engagement and investment of media fans. Obst et al. (2002) surveyed attendees of the World Science Fiction Convention and found that science fiction fans scored high (above the scale mean) on measures of identification and belongingness, with fans reporting high identification with their science fiction fandom and high PSOC with other science fiction fans. This is consistent with research by Reysen and Branscombe (2010), who found that identifying with a media fandom is positively correlated with entitativity, indicating that media fans view their fandoms as distinct entities, distinguishing between ingroups and outgroups. Thus, just as sports fans identify not only as fans of a general sport, but more specifically with a specific sports team, perceiving fans of other sports teams as rivals (Voci, 2006), media fans identify not just on a general level with the concept of media fandom, but more specifically with a given work, categorizing fans of other works as outgroup members. Further, media fans have demonstrated that being a fan goes far beyond passive consumption, with media fans actively scrutinizing media intertextually, creating new meaning through sophisticated interpretations of the original work (Consalvo, 2003; Jenkins,
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MEDIA FANDOM AND IDENTITY
1992). In addition, identifying with particular media fandoms, like different musical artists or genres, correlates with “markers of social attitudes and personality characteristics” (Hansen & Hansen, 1991). Participation in a fandom is also often correlated with the adoption of certain fan-appropriate appearances and behaviors, with fans altering aspects of their self-expression, including, but not limited to, choices of clothing, hairstyles, and accessories, in an attempt to construct a social identity representative of their subscription to a particular media fandom (Fiske, 1992; Lopes, 2006). However, although these studies on media fandom offer insights into the phenomenon of how media fandom is incorporated into one’s identity, none of the aforementioned media fan studies used experimental designs, somewhat limiting the inferences that can be drawn from their results. Social Identity Theory Implications Social identity is the portion of an individual’s self-concept that is derived from his or her membership in social groups (Tajfel, 1978). As noted, some evidence suggests that media fandoms constitute aspects of one’s social identity, with media fans (like other social groups) perceiving their fandoms as distinct entities, forming ingroups while simultaneously distinguishing themselves from outgroups (Reysen & Branscombe, 2010; Voci, 2006). Further, this group categorization may lead to psychological consequences similar to those of other social groups, with members reaping the benefits of inclusion or suffering the penalties of exclusion. The desire to be accepted by others is one of the most basic human needs (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), and while social inclusion can have positive implications (e.g., increased self-esteem), social exclusion often results in “numbness”— with excluded individuals suffering from lethargy and passivity (Twenge, Catanese, & Baumeister, 2003). According to the social exclusion literature, social acceptance (or affirmation of one’s belongingness to a group) often results in positive rewards, whereas social rejection (or a threat to one’s identification with a group) often has negative implications, including: decreased performance on intellectual tasks, decreased selfregulation, and negative emotions (DeWall &
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Bushman, 2011). For example, Twenge et al. (2003) found that participants who underwent a social exclusion manipulation exerted significantly less effort on a subsequent writing task (measured in terms of word count) in comparison with participants who received inclusion feedback. Further, past research has indicated that highly identified fans place greater emphasis on incorporating their fandom into their selfconcept (Madrigal, 1995; Wann, Royalty, & Roberts, 2000), and that these individuals are, therefore, more sensitive to stimuli with the potential of affirming or threatening that aspect of their identity (Branscombe & Wann, 1992). Traditionally, groups that have been explored through the lens of social identity theory characteristically involve frequent face-to-face contact (Tajfel & Turner, 1982), but this is not a common or necessary characteristic of media fandoms (Bird, 2002; Obst et al., 2002). Although media fandoms often lack face-to-face contact, especially with today’s role of the Internet in facilitating these group memberships, we propose that certain basic principles of social identity theory should still apply. Sandvoss (2005) and Reysen and Branscombe (2010) asserted that fans perceive themselves as members of a group, even when (as in most cases) they are not part of an organized group—rather, fans are part of an “imagined” (Wertsch, 2002, p. 64) or “virtual” community (Bird, 2002), a group of individuals who do not have physical interaction with one another, yet who presuppose the existence of a community of individuals who share common beliefs, values, and purpose (Kashima, Klein, & Clark, 2007). Furthermore, Obst et al. (2002) found that despite the fact that science fiction fandom “operates on an international basis with fewer geographic connections than other relational communities” (p. 97), these fans perceived a strong sense of community with one another. In addition, Gabriel and Young (2011) demonstrated that Harry Potter and Twilight fans meet belongingness needs through assimilation with their respective fandoms, with fans forming a collective fan identity and benefiting psychologically in terms of positive mood and life satisfaction from this social surrogate. This research suggests that perhaps social identity theory should be expanded to incorporate “imagined” groups like media fandoms, if media fans are indeed satisfying many of the
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same identity and belonging needs as other social groups through participation in their respective media fandoms (Tajfel & Turner, 1982). Based on this logic, in the current study we employ a context-specific fan-identity threat manipulation. Doing so allows us to examine whether highly identified fans react to threats to their group status in a manner consistent with the social identity literature, that is, by withdrawing effort and showing poor cognitive performance on a subsequent task. We acknowledge that there is an alternative prediction that could be made, based on Optimal Distinctiveness Theory (ODT), in particular, that when an individual’s status within the ingroup is threatened, the individual would respond by engaging in increased ingroup-consistent self-presentation, indicating a desire to reaffirm his/her group status (Leonardelli, Pickett, & Brewer, 2010; Pickett, Bonner, & Coleman, 2002; Pickett, Silver, & Brewer, 2002). However, we argue that there are multiple features1 that distinguish media fandoms from the groups typically contemplated by ODT research, a topic we return to in the Discussion. The Present Study Although the previous media fan literature has theoretically linked participation in a fandom with important aspects of personal and social identity conceptualization, these works have been limited either by their qualitative nature or correlational designs. The present study attempts to more clearly establish the relationship between membership in a media fandom and social identity by manipulating fans’ sense of inclusion in, or exclusion from, their fandom through positive or negative feedback about their performance on a test specific to their chosen fan domain. This manipulation should serve as a means of social inclusion/ exclusion, with positive feedback affirming participants’ inclusion in their fandom and negative feedback threatening their inclusion in the fandom. Although the false feedback used in this study is not a direct inclusion/exclusion mandate from other fans, based on previous research indicating that media fandoms function largely as imagined communities, we theorized that this indirect feedback would operate in a manner similar to a direct inclusion/exclusion from other fans. To accomplish this, we selected
two contemporary but distinct fandoms: Harry Potter and Twilight. These two fandoms were selected for a number of reasons: (a) As demonstrated by previous research, both are immersive fandoms with the potential to inspire collective identification (Gabriel & Young, 2011); (b) At the time of data collection, they were both quite popular and current, which facilitated participant recruitment; (c) They share a number of similarities, as genre novels developed into movies, featuring teenage characters; and (d) Despite the above similarities, there is little overlap (and arguably a bit of rivalry) between the members of these two fandoms, providing an ideal test for our false-feedback paradigm. After receiving the false feedback, participants completed a creative essay task in response to a domain-related prompt, and we analyzed exertion of effort (measured in terms of word count) and essay performance (measured in terms of level of detail and quality)2. In addition, we created a new measure to assess participants’ strength of identification with their media fan interest and with other fans of the same interest, as well as their level of active engagement in fan-related activities. Whereas other researchers have measured these concepts separately (Reysen & Branscombe, 2010), or relied on lengthy scales that were not specific to media fans (Gantz, Wang, Paul, & Potter, 2006; Obst et al., 2002; Reysen & Branscombe, 2010), we wished to create a relatively short measure specific to media fans that spanned each of these facets of fan identification. We labeled this hybrid measure “Fanhood,” and explored how this variable influenced the relationship between feedback and effort/performance. The purpose of the present study was to answer two main questions: (a) What are the effects of having one’s media fan identity 1 Media fandoms do not have structural requirements, they typically consist of “imagined” or “perceived” communities, and they are not associated with societal status markers. 2 The primary reason for selecting essay word count, level of detail, and essay quality as our three measures of effort/performance exerted on the essay task was based on prior work, in which these variables have been used either as standards of the amount of exerted effort on writing tasks or as qualitative indicators of essay merit (Baron & Bluck, 2009; Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, and Moscovitch, 2002; Twenge et al., 2003).
MEDIA FANDOM AND IDENTITY
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threatened or affirmed? (b) Does one’s level of fan identification influence these effects? Specifically, we predicted that— H1: Consistent with the effects of inclusion/exclusion from other social groups defined by social identity theory, participants who received affirming feedback about their performance on a fan-based test should exert more effort and perform better on a subsequent domain-related essay task than participants who received threatening feedback. H2: Based on prior research demonstrating that greater emphasis on one’s social memberships is related to increased sensitivity to affirming/threatening stimuli, the relationship of feedback to effort/performance should be moderated by participants’ degree of fan identification. An additional question, for which we had no specific predictions, but which our chosen method allowed us to at least partially examine, was whether the predicted effects described above would vary by fandom (i.e., Harry Potter vs. Twilight). Method Design The present study was a four-cell (2 ! 2) quasi-experimental design. Participants were recruited from two distinct fandoms (i.e., Harry Potter and Twilight) and randomly assigned to receive either affirming or threatening feedback about their score on the Fandom Test. Further, strength of fan identification (i.e., Fanhood) was assessed as a continuous moderator. Participants A total of 261 students (63 male) at the University of South Florida were recruited for the laboratory portion of this study. All participants were prescreened prior to the study and recruited only if they self-identified as exclusively a Harry Potter fan or a Twilight fan. Our final sample consisted of 249 participants after exclusions3, with Harry Potter fans comprising 58% of the sample. The median age was 20 years old, and participants self-identified as
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White (47%), Hispanic (21%), African American (18%), Asian (8%), and Other (6%). Materials Creation of the Fanhood Measure. To assess participants’ strength of identification with their fandom, a new measure was created. Items for the Fanhood Measure were generated by the authors as well as adapted from existing fan identification measures (Obst et al., 2002; Reysen & Branscombe, 2010; Rudski et al., 2009). Items were initially chosen on the basis that they were face valid for measuring facets of fan-related activity (mental, emotional, and behavioral) associated with media fan identification. The measure was designed to be specifically sensitive to fans of media interests, and to take into account a fan’s personal identification with the fan interest, social identification with other fans of the same interest, and level of engagement in fan-related activities. The original 52 item candidates for the Fanhood Measure were first presented to a sample of 47 participants recruited from online fan Web sites (including www.potterforums.com, www .twilightlexicon.com, www.fireflyfans.net, and www.trekunited.com). Participants were not compensated, but rather completed the questionnaire voluntarily, due to their intrinsic interest in the topic. The majority of participants were female (13 male), with a median age of 22 years, and the sample was predominately White (74%), with other participants reporting ethnicities of Hispanic/Latino (9%), Asian/Pacific Islander (9%), Black/African American/Caribbean (4%), and Arab/Middle Eastern (2%) (one participant did not report ethnicity). Further, participants reported belonging to a variety of media fandoms, including Firefly, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, and Pokémon, among others. In this administration, participants were asked to rate each item according to how central they felt the statement was to “what it means to be a fan” on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 7 (extremely important). Example statements included “thinking about your fan interest often” and “spending a lot of 3 Participants were excluded on the basis of high suspicion levels reported during the debriefing (n " 7) or a Media Lab software glitch that prevented participants from completing the study (n " 5).
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time talking about your fan interest with others.” Mean centrality ratings for each of the 52 items were computed, and items with means below the midpoint of the rating scale (indicating that our raters on average believed that the statement was not central to the concept of fandom) were eliminated.4 The revised Fanhood Measure, consisting of the 44 items retained from the first administration, was then reworded into first person perspective, with 30 of the items as general statements (e.g., “Being a fan defines me”), set on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and 14 of the items assessing frequency of engaging in specific fan behaviors (e.g., “Visit websites relating to your fan interest”), set on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). This measure was administered to a new sample of 55 participants, recruited in a similar manner as the above sample, but from different Web sites, to increase representativeness. The majority of participants in this sample were female (20 male), with a median age of 21 years. The sample was predominately White (84%), with other participants reporting ethnicities of Hispanic/Latino (5%), Asian/Pacific Islander (5%), and Other (4%) (one participant did not report ethnicity). Similar to our first administration of the measure, participants reported belonging to a variety of media fandoms, including The Hunger Games, Doctor Who, and Twilight, among others. The item-total correlations and alpha-if-itemdeleted statistics for all 44 items were analyzed, and the 20 items with the highest item-total correlations were selected to create a reasonably short, but maximally reliable measure of fan identification (# " .94). The final 20 items consisted of 15 general statements and 5 items assessing frequency of specific fan behaviors. To view the final Fanhood Measure, please refer to Appendix A. Test–retest reliability. To assess test–retest reliability of participants’ Fanhood scores, participants who took part in the main study were invited to subsequently take the Fanhood Measure again, 10 –14 days later. A total of 117 participants (21 male, Mdn age " 21 years) completed this second administration. The sample was predominately White (51%), with other participants reporting ethnicities of Hispanic/ Latino (20%), Black/African American/Carib-
bean (17%), Asian/Pacific Islander (7%), and Other (5%). Participants’ scores from this administration were strongly correlated with those from the prior in-lab session, showing adequate test–retest reliability (r " .66). Evaluating dimensional structure of the measure. A scale may be considered essentially unidimensional if it contains a clearly dominant first factor (Drasgow & Hulin, 1990; Lord, 1980), and several criteria have been proposed for evaluating whether or not this is the case. For instance, the first factor should account for at least 20% of the total variance to be considered stable (Reckase, 1979), and all items should load positively (with values of .30 or higher) on that factor. Other researchers have also considered the ratio of first and second eigenvalues (Morizot, Ainsworth, & Reise (2007) consider a ratio of 3 to 1 to be satisfactory for demonstrating dominance) and whether the remaining eigenvalues are similar in magnitude to the second. To determine whether we were justified in treating our Fanhood scale as a unidimensional variable in analyses, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis on our 20-item measure, using Maximum Likelihood (Costello & Osborne, 2005) as the extraction method. Because at this step we were only interested in determining the proper number of factors to extract, no rotation method was selected. Results suggested a highly dominant first factor, accounting for 48.79% of the variance. All items loaded strongly onto this first factor, with loadings ranging from .46 to .80. The ratio of eigenvalues between the first (9.76) and second (1.23) factor was nearly 8 to 1, and the remaining eigenvalues were similar in magnitude to the second (1.17, .91, .73, etc.). A visual inspection of the scree plot also suggested that a single factor solution was the most reasonable. Based on these results, we proceeded using a single composite value to represent participants’ scores on the Fanhood Measure. Fandom test. The Fandom Test served as the vehicle for our identity manipulation, with participants believing that the purpose of the Fandom Test was to determine participants’ 4 One item with a mean of 3.98 was retained, because it was sufficiently close to the midpoint to be nearly indistinguishable from the remaining items.
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MEDIA FANDOM AND IDENTITY
level of fan-based knowledge and “personality” in relation to other fans of the Harry Potter and Twilight fandoms. The Fandom Test consisted of 30 forced choice questions, 10 of which were specific to Harry Potter fan-based knowledge (e.g., “What type of wood is Harry Potter’s wand made from?”), 10 of which were specific to Twilight fan-based knowledge (e.g., “What two things did Bella Swan say blood smelled like?”), and 10 of which were opaquely worded personality items (e.g., “Are you fascinated by fire?”) adapted from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)-2 (MMPI-2; Butcher et al., 2001) presented as questions that assessed Harry Potter and Twilight fan “personality types.” The Fandom Test was designed so that the 20 knowledge questions ranged from moderately difficult to very difficult,5 making it unlikely for participants to be able to gauge their own performance. The addition of the personality items served a similar purpose (increasing the believability of the false feedback by preventing participants from knowing how they were performing) while also increasing the potential emotional impact of the feedback by enabling it to implicate aspects of fan identity beyond knowledge of specific trivia. This false feedback was delivered in the form of a simple graphic that included the participant’s percentile rank compared with other fans of both the Harry Potter and Twilight fandoms. The graphic depicted a continuum anchored with “Harry Potter fan” on one end and “Twilight fan” on the other end. Depending on condition, participants received feedback that they scored either like a Harry Potter fan (scored in the 77th percentile on the Harry Potter end of the continuum) or a Twilight fan (scored in the 77th percentile on the Twilight end of the continuum), and this feedback was either affirming or threatening depending on whether the feedback was consistent with the fandom with which the participant self-identified. For an example of the feedback that participants received, please refer to Appendix B. Essay task. All participants completed a domain-related creative essay task. The prompt for the essay task depended on the participant’s self-identified fandom, with self-identified Harry Potter fans receiving a Harry Potterrelated prompt and self-identified Twilight fans receiving a Twilight-related prompt. Both essay prompts instructed participants to imagine and
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write about a novel storyline from their respective fan series, and participants were given as much time as they liked to respond. These essays were later coded for word count,6 level of detail included in the essay, and essay quality. The subjective performance measures of detail and quality were assessed by two independent coders who were blind to feedback condition. These coders were given instructions and a rubric, modeled in part after the rubrics used by Baron and Bluck (2009); Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch (2002), and Twenge et al. (2003), for coding each essay along the subjective dimensions of the level of detail included, on a scale ranging from 0 (poor) to 3 (rich), and of the quality of the essay, on a scale ranging from 0 (low) to 3 (high). Interrater reliability was high (ICC " .80 for detail; ICC " .74 for quality) so we averaged the two coders’ ratings. Finally, we combined the ratings for detail and quality to create a composite essay performance measure (# " .95). Procedure Participants entered the lab individually and were randomly assigned to either the threat or affirm feedback condition. An experimenter told participants that the purpose of the study was to analyze individual differences in fandom personality types, specifically the differences between Harry Potter and Twilight fans. After signing the informed consent statement, participants were directed to complete the Fanhood Measure on the computer, thus providing a measure of how strongly they identified with their fandom prior to the manipulation. Following the administration of the Fanhood Measure, participants completed the computer5 Items for the Fandom Test were pilot tested by a separate sample of self-proclaimed Harry Potter fans (n " 15) and self-proclaimed Twilight fans (n " 10). Items of average and greater than average difficulty (50% or more of the sample answered the item incorrectly) were retained for the Fandom Test. 6 Preliminary analyses indicated that the measure of essay word count was positively skewed and kurtotic with a high standard deviation (Skewness " 2.48; Kurtosis " 7.81; M " 197.37; SD " 182.71). To normalize the distribution, the natural log of each participant’s word count was calculated, and this transformed variable was employed in the analyses (Skewness " $.16; Kurtosis " .98; M " 4.96; SD " .81). Means and standard deviations reported below are for nontransformed word count, to aid interpretability.
GROENE AND HETTINGER
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Word Count on Essay Task
8 5.4 5.3 5.2 5.1
Harry Potter
5
Twilight
4.9 4.8
4.7
Threat
Affirm Feedback Condition
Figure 1. Interaction of the effect of Feedback condition (coded as Affirm " 0, Threat " 1) by Fandom condition (coded as Harry Potter " 0, Twilight " 1) on word count for the essay task. Word count was log transformed for the purpose of these analyses; raw values for each condition are reported in the text.
ized Fandom Test. Upon completion of the Fandom Test, the computer provided participants with false feedback about their fan-based knowledge and “personality,” informing participants that they scored similar to either a Harry Potter fan or a Twilight fan. The computer then directed participants to record their feedback onto a form (provided earlier by the experimenter) and then to open the door and inform the experimenter that they had completed the test. Next, to heighten the public nature7 of the feedback, the experimenter entered the room and recorded the participant’s percentile ranking on a clipboard, before directing participants to proceed to the next portion of the study: the domain-related creative essay task. For the essay task, participants viewed their assigned prompt on the computer, and then were directed to type their essay in the text box below, taking as much time as they liked. After the essay task, participants completed a brief demographic questionnaire and were then thoroughly debriefed, during which time the experimenter first probed for suspicion and then revealed the true purpose of the study. Results To test our primary hypothesis, H1 (that participants who received affirming feedback from the Fandom Test would exert more effort and perform better on the domain-related essay task), we first submitted essay word count to a 2 (Fandom: Harry Potter vs. Twilight) ! 2 (Feedback: Affirming vs. Threatening) ANOVA.
There was a significant main effect of Fandom, F(1, 245) " 4.44, p " .04, and a marginal effect of Feedback, F(1, 245) " 2.99, p " .08, qualified by a significant interaction between the two, F(1, 245) " 4.83, p " .03. Decomposing the effect by Fandom revealed that our hypothesis was supported among self-identified Harry Potter fans (F(1, 245) " 9.14, p % .01, d " .46), such that affirmed Harry Potter fans wrote more words (M " 264.93, SD " 20.99) than threatened Harry Potter fans (M " 187.68, SD " 21.99). However, H1 was not supported among Twilight fans (F % 1), who did not differ in number of words written, regardless of whether they were affirmed (M " 163.45, SD " 24.47) or threatened (M " 151.81, SD " 24.70). See Figure 1. Next, we examined qualitative performance on the essay task, in the same manner as described above. Although neither main effect was significant for this dependent variable (both Fs % 1), we once again uncovered a significant interaction between Fandom and Feedback, F(1, 245) " 4.35, p " .04. As above, decomposing the analysis revealed that Feedback condition had a significant effect on essay performance, but only for Harry Potter fans (F(1, 245) " 4.29, p " .04, d " .31), who wrote higher quality and more detailed essays when 7 Having participants present their scores to the experimenter forced participants to either display their acceptance as a member of their chosen fandom or admit that they had scored like a member of an opposing fandom, thereby making the affirm/threat manipulation more salient.
MEDIA FANDOM AND IDENTITY
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Qualitative Performance on Essay Task
1.6 1.5 1.4
Harry Potter
1.3
Twilight
1.2
1.1
Threat
Affirm Feedback Condition
Figure 2. Interaction of the effect of Feedback condition (coded as Affirm " 0, Threat " 1) by Fandom condition (coded as Harry Potter " 0, Twilight " 1) on qualitative performance on the essay task, coded using a 0 to 3 scale, with higher scores indicating superior performance.
told that they had scored like Harry Potter fans on the Fandom Test (M " 1.47, SD " .08) than when told that they had scored like Twilight fans (M " 1.23, SD " .08). Contrary to H1, Twilight fans’ essay performance did not vary significantly as a function of Feedback, F(1, 245) " .95, p " .33. See Figure 2. Before proceeding to test our second hypothesis, we first followed up on the mixed results of H1, examining scores on the Fanhood Measure by Fandom. Interestingly, comparing the two fandoms revealed that Harry Potter fans scored significantly higher on the Fanhood Measure (M " 2.46, SD " .70) than Twilight fans (M " 2.23, SD " .58, p % .01, d " .36), which may have accounted for their greater sensitivity to the feedback observed above. To better address this question, when we proceeded to our moderation analyses, we also tested an alternative model that included Fandom. Results of those analyses are included below. To test our second hypothesis (H2: the relationship of feedback to effort and performance would be moderated by participants’ degree of fan identification), we used the multiple regression procedures outlined by Aiken and West (1991). First, we regressed essay word count onto Feedback condition (coded as Affirm " 0, Threat " 1), participants’ Fanhood Measure scores (mean centered), and their interaction term (Fanhood score ! Feedback condition). In addition to Feedback condition (p " .02), scores on the Fanhood Measure also significantly predicted number of words written (p % .01), such
that highly identified participants wrote more than weakly identified participants. Furthermore, in support of H2, there was a significant interaction between Feedback condition and Fanhood (p " .03; see Table 1). Simple slope analyses revealed that although the effect of the feedback manipulation was not significant for weakly identified fans (t " $.11, & " $.01, p " .91), it was significant for strongly identified fans (t " $3.30, & " $.29, p % .01). Figure 3 shows predicted word count values for participants scoring one standard deviation above and below the mean, as a function of Feedback condition. Moving to the alternate model, we found that when we added Fandom (and all attending interaction terms) into the analysis, the three-way interaction of Fandom condition, Feedback condition, and scores on the FanTable 1 Regressing Essay Word Count on Feedback Condition and Fanhood Scores Variable
B
SE
&
Feedback condition Fanhood scores Feedback ! Fanhood
$.24 .38 $.34
.10 .11 .15
$.15! .31!! $.19!
Note. N " 249. Regression analysis of essay word count (log transformed) onto Feedback condition (coded as Affirm " 0, Threat " 1), participants’ Fanhood Measure scores (mean centered), and their interaction term (Feedback condition ! Fanhood score). Asterisks denote significance: ! p % .05. !! p % .01.
GROENE AND HETTINGER
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Word Count on Essay Task
10 5.4 5.3 5.2 5.1 5 4.9 4.8 4.7
Affirm
Threat
Low
High Score on Fanhood Measure
Figure 3. Moderation of the effect of Feedback condition (coded as Affirm " 0, Threat " 1) on log-transformed essay word count by Fanhood score.
hood Measure (mean centered) was not only nonsignificant but also virtually nonexistent (t " .75, & " .01, p " .94). This suggests that it is perhaps not the fandom (Harry Potter vs. Twilight) itself, but the degree of identification it inspires, driving the differences between these fandoms that we observed in the previous analyses (H1). We return to this topic in the discussion. Similar regression analyses were conducted to analyze whether scores on the Fanhood Measure also moderated the effect of Feedback condition on the subjective essay performance ratings. Although (as with word count) scores on the Fanhood Measure positively predicted performance (t " 2.48, & " .22, p % .02), the interaction was not significant, indicating that scores on the Fanhood Measure did not moderate the relationship between Feedback and performance (t " $1.36, & " $.12, p " .18).8 Discussion The purpose of the present study was to investigate engagement with media fandoms from the perspective of social identity theory—more specifically, to examine the implications of having one’s fan identity affirmed or threatened. In the present study, we hypothesized that participants who received affirming feedback on a test of fandom knowledge and personality would exert more effort and perform better on a subsequent domain-related essay task than participants who received threatening feedback, and that participants’ effort/performance would be moderated by how strongly they identified with their fandom, as assessed by the Fanhood Measure.
Consistent with the primary hypothesis (H1), results indicated that Harry Potter fans who received fandom-affirming feedback exerted significantly more effort and performed better on the essay task than Harry Potter fans who received threatening feedback. This finding is consistent with a social identity theory perspective on social categorization and intragroup relations and processes, specifically regarding the performance-enhancing benefits of ingroup inclusion (Tajfel & Turner, 1982). Further, this is congruous with the fandom literature, supporting past research that demonstrated that identification with a media fandom is positively correlated with a PSOC and entitativity (Obst et al., 2002; Reysen & Branscombe, 2010). We propose that Harry Potter fans who received affirming feedback had their ingroup status validated, and, reaping the benefits of feeling a sense of positive self-esteem derived from belongingness to their ingroup (Gabriel & Young, 2011; Tajfel & Turner, 1982), exerted significantly more effort and performed better on the essay task. However, we suggest that Harry Potter fans who received threatening feedback, and were thus “rejected” from their ingroup, no longer found participation in the domain-related task rewarding, and, therefore, exerted significantly less effort and exhibited lower performance—a finding consistent with the social exclusion literature which has found that exclusion from social groups results in dis8 In the alternate model which included Fandom, the three-way interaction was once again small and nonsignificant (t " $.415, & " $.05, p " .68).
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MEDIA FANDOM AND IDENTITY
11
engagement and lethargy (DeWall & Bushman, 2011; Twenge et al., 2003). Further, we found partial support for our second hypothesis (H2), that participants’ degree of identification with their media fan interest (as assessed by the Fanhood Measure) would moderate the relationship between feedback and effort/performance on the essay task. Results of the present study demonstrated that participants’ strength of fan identification was highly predictive of their effort on the essay task. Additionally, effects of the feedback manipulation were partly dependent on fans’ level of identification, such that for highly identified participants, having their fan identity affirmed led to greater effort than having their identity threatened (whereas weakly identified fans showed no such difference). Another way of thinking of this result is that receiving threatening feedback can temporarily overpower fans’ preexisting identification with their fandom, as even those fans who scored very highly on the Fanhood Measure wrote essays similar in length to weakly identified fans following the threat. This is consistent with research that has found that highly identified fans place greater emphasis on incorporating their fandom into their self-concept (Madrigal, 1995; Wann et al., 2000) and are, therefore, more sensitive to stimuli with the potential of affirming or threatening this aspect of their identity (Branscombe & Wann, 1992). The moderating influence of the Fanhood Measure was also analyzed for essay performance; however, although there was a positive relationship between strength of identification and performance, the interaction with feedback was not significant. This may have been due to a lack of power, as participants no doubt varied widely in prior writing ability, perhaps making detection of these subtler effects more difficult. Additionally, it is possible that the sort of domain-specific knowledge that leads to a more detailed and higher quality essay was more deeply engrained and therefore more easily accessible for the highly identified fans, regardless of effort expended, thus leaving the main effect of Fanhood intact while clouding potential interaction effects for this outcome variable.
key to understanding why the effect of our feedback manipulation was not replicated for Twilight fans. Why might this difference have arisen? On the surface Harry Potter and Twilight share many similarities, which was part of the reason that these fandoms were chosen. Both are relatively new media fandoms, both are based on a book series that transformed into a series of film adaptations, and both revolve around fantasy plotlines featuring young protagonists imbued with supernatural abilities. However, there is one key difference that could potentially explain the discrepancy between Harry Potter and Twilight fans observed in this study—namely, the timespan over which the content of each fandom was released. The first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, was published in 1998, and a new book was released approximately every other year, culminating in 2007 with the final book of the series. In contrast, the first book in the Twilight series was published in 2005, and the final book was released only 3 years later in 2008. In addition, the first film adaptation of the Harry Potter series was released in 2001, and production of these films continued for a period of 10 years, whereas the Twilight film adaptations spanned a period of just 4 years, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2012. Thus, Harry Potter spanned a 14-year period, from 1998 to 2011— occupying a timespan almost twice that of Twilight. The majority of Harry Potter fans in the present study were approximately 20 years old, which means that the first Harry Potter book was released when they were only around 7 years old. In other words, many Harry Potter fans in the present study have spent roughly two thirds of their lives “growing up” with Harry Potter, giving them the opportunity to incorporate this fandom into their conceptualization of the self. In short, Harry Potter, in contrast to Twilight, has evolved alongside a generation, enabling fans to form an attachment to the series and a sense of belongingness with mutual fans that the Twilight fandom would be less likely to provide.
Are You “Fan” Enough?
Limitations and Future Directions
Interestingly, Harry Potter fans scored significantly higher than Twilight fans on the Fanhood Measure, a finding which we believe is
A main limitation of the present study is the restricted generalizability of the findings. The present study only recruited fans of Harry
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GROENE AND HETTINGER
Potter or Twilight, so generalizability to other media fandoms is limited. Furthermore, the sample for this study was a sample of convenience; however, our sample was largely representative of the Harry Potter and Twilight fan demographic (i.e., predominately a young adult, White, female target audience), making it appropriate for our current purposes. Directions for future research, therefore, must include exploring the questions presented by this study within the context of other (and ideally older) media fandoms. The goals of this research would be to determine: (a) If there are specific qualities that can be observed in a fandom that facilitate social identification and allow the sorts of effects observed among Harry Potter fans in this study to emerge, and (b) if these qualities are more or less universal, or if they tend to vary across generations. Additionally, the present study relied solely on the newly constructed Fanhood Measure as the means for assessing fans’ strength of identification with their chosen fandom. Although the items for the Fanhood Measure were selected with attention to both content and face validity, utilizing the input of self-identified fans, and although we were able to achieve high internal consistency among the items, as well as adequate test–retest reliability in participants’ scores, further exploration of other types of validity (for instance, concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity) in future research would enhance the potential contribution of this new measure. Finally, a lingering question raised by the current research is whether there might be circumstances under which the pattern observed here might be reversed. That is, one might easily imagine a scenario in which a socially valued identity is threatened, and participants react with greater (rather than reduced) effort to restore the threatened status. This alternate reaction would be consistent with the ODT research. According to ODT, social identities function to satisfy individuals’ need for inclusion within the ingroup (assimilation) and distinction from outgroups (differentiation; Pickett, Silver et al., 2002). Contrary to the findings of the present study, in the ODT literature, individuals who underwent a threat manipulation typically responded to threat with compensatory selfpresentation strategies (e.g., self-stereotyping)
in an attempt to reassert their position within the ingroup (Leonardelli et al., 2010; Pickett, Bonner et al., 2002; Pickett, Silver et al. 2002). The discrepancy between the results of the present study and those one might expect based on the ODT research can potentially be explained by the unique qualities of media fandoms in comparison with other types of groups. Unlike the groups upon which the theoretical framework for ODT research was built (Leonardelli et al., 2010, p. 65), there are typically no structural or enforced requirements/boundaries to constrain group size or membership of media fandoms. Rather, media fandoms are often “imagined” or “perceived” communities that do not necessarily involve frequent contact/ interaction, and they are also typically not associated with societal status markers or extrinsic rewards. Thus, fan identity is unlike some social identity categories in the sense that it is typically unmonitored and freely chosen by the identifier for the intrinsic rewards and benefits it offers, rather than being societally assigned, expected, and/or policed. Therefore, when fan identity is threatened, this experience may merely serve to reduce the rewarding aspects of identification, and (in the absence of any external pressure to maintain the identity) lead to distancing. However, it is possible that there are certain contexts (for instance, within a closely knit fan subcommunity) wherein one’s fan status is monitored, and wherein the social consequences of not maintaining that identity are more concrete, so that a threat to fan identity within that context could provoke striving to restore that status, similar to the reactions produced by the ODT threat manipulations. Exploring this possibility would be highly illuminating both for the fandom literature and the ODT and social identity literatures more broadly. Conclusion The findings of the present study demonstrate that some media fandoms, namely, those with which fans (on average) identify strongly, do operate in a manner consistent with certain basic principles of social identity theory. Results for our sample of Harry Potter fans indicate that when fans feel a sense of belongingness to their ingroup, they reap the benefits of inclusion, and
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MEDIA FANDOM AND IDENTITY
seek to engage more fully in fandom-related pursuits. Conversely, when fans are “excluded” from their ingroup, the benefits of membership in that fandom are undermined, and fans show signs of disengagement from fandom-related tasks. These effects of inclusion and exclusion are contingent, however, on fans’ own preexisting degree of identification with their media fandom. The findings of the present study are important because they shed light on the relationship between participation in a media fandom and implications for the self. Our findings are consistent with a view of participation in a media fandom as being incorporated into the self, and show how this identity is sensitive to rewarding and discouraging feedback, influencing motivation and behavior. The findings of our study suggest that media fandoms differ from other social groups in meaningful ways, but that they also adhere to some of the basic principles defined by social identity theory. With the increase in participatory culture, it is worthwhile to uncover the mechanisms that underlie participation in media fandoms, and to attempt to understand the role of identity in this particular type of social group. In recent years, media fandoms have demonstrated the substantial goals that can be realized with fan support. As seen with the Veronica Mars Kickstarter project and the Browncoats’ Serenity movement, devoted fans can accomplish remarkable feats in service of the object of their fandom. Fans can also be mobilized to tackle more outward-directed goals, as with the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), a fandominspired activist organization dedicated to bettering the world through service and charity (The Harry Potter Alliance, 2014). As the role of participatory culture in society and the strength of media fandoms continue to grow, it is important to explore the principles that drive media fan identification, and earnestly attempt an understanding of how this identity operates—like any other—to influence attitudes, motivation, and behavior. References Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
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Appendix A Fanhood Measure Participants received the version of these instructions that corresponded to their self-identified fandom affiliation. Fanhood is the identification of a person with a particular fan interest and/or with other fans of that same interest. For this questionnaire, we would like you to focus solely on the [Harry Potter/Twilight] series. For each of the items below, please rate your level of agreement with the sentiment expressed: 1 Strongly Disagree
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
2 Disagree
3 Neutral
4 Agree
5 Strongly Agree
I am connected to others with the same fan interest. I am emotionally connected to my fan interest. I spend a lot of time studying my fan interest. I feel a strong sense of ties with others of the same fan interest. I describe myself by mentioning my fan interest. I devote a lot of energy to my fan interest. Being a fan defines me. My fan interest plays a part of my everyday life. I am the go-to person for information on issues related to my fan interest. I am absorbed in my fan interest. I spend a lot of time talking about my fan interest with others. My fan interest is the most enjoyable form of entertainment. I want everyone to know that I am connected to my fan interest. People think of my fan interest when they think of me. I strongly identify with my fan interest.
How often do you do the following? 1 Never
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
2 Almost Never
3 Sometimes
4 Often
E-mail or online chat with others regarding your fan interest. Read fan interest related material (e.g., books, magazines, etc.). Think about your fan interest. Contact members of your fan interest. Visit websites related to your fan interest. (Appendices continue)
5 Very Often
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16 GROENE AND HETTINGER
Appendix B
Fandom Test Example Feedback
Received December 31, 2013 Revision received February 26, 2015 Accepted February 27, 2015 !