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Fanship and fandom: Comparisons between sport fans and non-sport fans
Abstract
The present studies assess similarities and differences between sport fans and other types of fans in terms of identification with the fan interest (fanship), identification with other fans (fandom), entitativity, and collective happiness. In Study 1, a unidimensional 11-item scale to measure degree of identification with a fan interest was constructed. In Study 2, convergent and divergent validity for the measure was examined. In Study 3, criterion validity was examined. In Study 4, fanship positively correlated with entitativity, identification with other fans, and collective happiness. Sport fans were found to be similar to fans of other interests. Fans perceived themselves to be in a group even when they are not actively part of an organized group. Fanship and fandom were found to be positively correlated yet distinct constructs.
... For example, one might really enjoy watching a particular television show while having no interest whatsoever in the fan community and the memes and culture that surround it. 9 Reysen and Branscombe (2010) use the term fanship to refer to the degree of psychological connection one feels to an object of interest (e.g., "I love anime") and the term fandom to refer to a psychological connection with a fan group (e.g., "I love the anime community"). While fanship reflects a personal identity that can be used to distinguish one person from another (e.g., "I am a bigger anime fan than you"), fandom is a social identity that embeds oneself within a fan group, distinct from other fan groups. ...
... At first glance, it's easy to think that the distinction between fanship and fandom is trite and meaningless. After all, studies show that fanship and fandom are fairly highly correlated, meaning that people who score high in one tend to also score high in the other Reysen & Branscombe, 2010). Even so, the same studies also suggest that, while highly correlated, fanship and fandom are conceptually distinct. ...
In the present chapter, we delve into the implications of a social identity approach for studying fans. Next, we make an important theoretical distinction by splitting the concept of fan identity into two parts, fanship, and fandom. Lastly, we illustrate the importance of thinking about fanship and fandom as separate facets of fan identity by showing how they differently predict important beliefs and behaviors for the furries in our studies.
... Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979;Turner and Oakes, 1986) provides another lens to understand fan loyalty, suggesting that individuals derive a portion of their self-concept from their membership in social groups. Sports fans, for example, often see their fandom as an aspect of their identity, using it to differentiate themselves from others (Osborne and Coombs, 2013;Reysen and Branscombe, 2010). When sports fans feel a strong sense of connection and identification with a team, they exhibit loyalty and participate in supportive behaviors. ...
This paper investigates the potential of blockchain-based fan tokens, a class of crypto asset that grants holders access to voting on club decisions and other perks, as a mechanism for stimulating democratized decision-making and fan engagement in the sports and esports sectors. By utilizing an extensive dataset of 3576 fan token polls, we reveal that fan tokens engage an average of 4003 participants per poll, representing around 50% of token holders, underscoring their relative effectiveness in boosting fan engagement. The analyses identify significant determinants of fan token poll participation, including levels of voter (dis-)agreement, poll type, sports sectors, demographics, and club-level factors. This study provides valuable stakeholder insights into the current state of adoption and voting trends for fan token polls. It also suggests strategies for increasing fan engagement, thereby optimizing the utility of fan tokens in sports. Moreover, we highlight the broader applicability of fan token principles to any community, brand, or organization focused on customer engagement, suggesting a wider potential for this digital innovation.
... Internal collective identity refers to members' sense of belonging to the group [31], and previous studies have associated fandom with group identification [33]. Fandom can be defined as an individual's psychological attachment to other fans who also share the same fan interest [34]. Fans create, join and maintain various online fan groups, exchange videos, pictures and other resources, discuss topics related to idols and share their feelings for idols and feelings in paraintimate relationships. ...
The development of the Internet and digital media has given birth to new forms of idol worship, with more interactive and authentic interactions between idols and fans. This paper analyses the generation mechanism of the para-intimate relationship and summarises three aspects: construction, control and identification. Audiences complete the construction of the impression, are defined as “fans” in the emotional regime and form relationships by constructing different roles. The two-way control between fans and idols is seen in the maintenance of para-intimate relationships in the horizontal time dimension; furthermore, individual and collective identifications promote the strengthening of the relationship in the vertical depth. These discussions introduce theories about intimate relationships into fandom studies, develop research on the latest fan-idol relationships and provide insights into the psychology and media use of contemporary youth.
... As we discussed in Chapter 6, we regularly make a distinction between fanship (the degree of one's psychological connection with a fan object) and fandom (psychological connection with other fans as a group) in our research (Reysen & Branscombe, 2010). This distinction is especially important when it comes to predicting fan well-being (Edwards et al., 2019;Reysen et al., 2021). ...
We begin this chapter with a short introduction to well-being and how to measure it. Next, we compare furries to other groups on measures of well-being. Finally, we discuss the prevalence of mental illness in furries and how it stacks up against other fandoms before briefly considering some of the variables that help us predict which furries tend to score highest on measures of well-being.
This article compares representations of soccer fanship in two Argentine films. It makes the claim that the representation of football fanship can be read as desire or jouissance depending on their historical and political context of production. Following Slavoj Žižek’s concept of ideological fantasy, the article claims that these two films stage the relationship between the symbolic and imaginary registers as they operate to construct the reality that masks the real of the fans’ desire in their given historical and political contexts.
Fears of COVID‐19, alongside existing anti‐Asian sentiment, resulted in 11,467 documented hate incidents against Asians/Asian Americans in the United States between March 2020 and March 2022, per the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center. In response, #StopAsianHate and #StopAAPIHate were used on Twitter to increase public awareness. Considering anti‐Asian racism transcends geographic boundaries, we interrogate: how does engagement with these hashtags reflect the transculturality of responses to anti‐Asian racism in a digital environment? We analyzed 920,271 tweets between March 19, 2020, and May 31, 2022, containing either hashtag, defining a “spike” in engagement as any day with >5,000 tweets, and found that of 25 spikes, 11 immediately followed the 2021 Atlanta‐area shootings—however, another 12 spikes were related to South Korean megagroup BTS. We further compare the results of two topic modeling methods, LDA and NMF, to examine how the use of and engagement with these hashtags shift over time primarily due to BTS fans (“ARMY”). This work joins emerging scholarship on race, fandom, and activism through cultural production in order to advance our collective understanding of modern digital activism and racial politics. Overall, we interrogate fandom's contributions to combating anti‐Asian sentiment, build on existing literature exploring the potential for fandoms to advocate for social justice, and argue that the transculturality of BTS, ARMY, and their affective ties represent an opportunity for accessible global discourse about anti‐Asian racism.
Merging insights from the intergroup relations literature and terror management theory, the authors conducted an experiment in which they assessed the impact of death-related thoughts on a series of ingroup measures. Participants in the mortality-salience condition displayed stronger ingroup identification, perceived greater ingroup entitativity, and scored higher on ingroup bias measures. Also, perceived ingroup entitativity as well as ingroup identification mediated the effect of the mortality salience manipulation on ingroup bias. The findings are discussed in relation to theories of intergroup relations and terror management theory. A new perspective on the function of group belonging also is presented.
Social identity theory as developed by Tajfel and Turner argues that there are two distinct aspects of the self-concept: personal identity and social identity (in American terminology, collective identity). Although many self-esteem measures are available in the literature, they allfocus on individuals'evaluation of their personal identity, whether in private or interpersonal domains. No scale currently exists that assesses the positivity of one's social, or collective, identity. A scale was constructed to assess individual differences in collective, rather than personal, self-esteem, with four subscales (Membership esteem, Public collective self-esteem, Private collective self-esteem, and Importance to Identity). Evidence for reliability and validity of the scale was provided by three studies, suggesting that the scale can be a useful research tool. Implications for research and social identity theory are discussed.
Two studies examined the allegiance bias - the rendering of biased predictions by individuals who are psychologically invested in a desired outcome. In Study 1, fans of either Notre Dame or University of Miami college football read information about an upcoming game between the two teams and then explained a hypothetical victory either by Notre Dame or Miami. Although explaining a hypothetical victory biased the judgments of controls (i.e., fans of neither team) in the direction of the team explained, the judgments of Notre Dame and Miami fans favored their team in every explanation condition. In addition, fans exhibited biased recall for facts favoring their own teams and this biased recall predicted fans' judgments regarding the upcoming game. Study 2 attempted to specify a debiasing technique that might attenuate the allegiance bias. Indiana University basketball fans described what they thought might happen in an upcoming game between Indiana and the University of Michigan while anticipating having a discussion about the game (i.e., predecisional accountability) with either an Indiana fan, a Michigan fan, or a fan of unknown allegiance. As predicted, anticipating a discussion with a fan of unknown allegiance engendered game predictions that were the least biased in favor of an Indiana victory. Implications for social explanation and prediction research are discussed.
This book is a social psychological inquiry into identity in modern society. Starts from the social psychological premise that identity results from interaction in the social world. Reviews and integrates the most influential strands of contemporary social psychology research on identity. Brings together North American and European perspectives on social psychology. Incorporates insights from philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, cultural studies, anthropology and sociology. Places social identity research in a variety of real-life social contexts.
Intragroup interactions between high and low status members on Internet message boards were examined. Messages from low status members to high status members and vice versa were rated for degree of conformity, ingratiation, agreeing, requesting, and instructing. Text was also analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program. Low status member messages were rated as more conforming, ingratiating, and agreeing than high status member messages. Low status members also used more first person singular voice, affective words, and exclamation marks. High status member messages were rated as more instructive than low status member messages. High status member messages contained more complex words, second person references, and welcoming language than did low status member messages. Language use in online contexts clearly differs depending on group member status.
Within the realm of sport management, team identification has been examined as single dimensional construct (Wann & Branscombe, 1993). However, research in social psychology has examined group identity as a multi-dimensional concept. To accurately measure and to more fully understand the implications of team identification, the construct should be studied as a multi-dimensional construct. This study is a first attempt to examine team identity as a multi-dimensional construct. The TEAM*ID scale was developed based on the literature review of Ashmore, Deaux, and McLaughlin-Volpe (2004), who proposed nine constructs of group identity: 1) Self categorization, 2) Public evaluation, 3) Private evaluation, 4) Importance, 5) Attachment – Interconnection of self with group, 6) Attachment – Sense of interdependence, 7) Social embeddedness, 8) Behavioral involvement, and 9) Content and meaning.
The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure team identity as a multi-dimensional construct. Data were collected from the fan base of a large SE college football team (N=311); confirmatory factor analysis was performed on a split sample (Sample 1=155, Sample 2=156) to examine the nine constructs of group identity. Six factors (Public evaluation, Private evaluation, Interconnection of self, Sense of interdependence, Behavioral involvement, and Awareness and knowledge) emerged from the analysis and showed a good fit of the model. A review of the scale by a panel of experts provided initial evidence of content validity; Comparing the TEAM*ID scale with a portion of the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992) and a revised version of the Psychological Commitment to Team (Mahony, Madrigal, & Howard, 2000) scale provided initial evidence of nomological validity. Several factors in the model did not, however, demonstrate discriminant validity. The two attachment factors lacked discrimination, suggesting the need for further development. There were also a lack of discrimination between private evaluation, behavioral involvement and the factor awareness and knowledge of the content and meaning. The concerns with discriminant validity may be sample related, however, future refinement of the model is desirable.