Prosumer activism: The case of Britney Spears’ Brazilian fandom

Abstract

The key argument of this article is that fan communities create, in their own way, a kind of prosumer media activism. Through a netnographic approach, I analyze aspects of fan labor and value creation, self-organization and entrepreneurship, agency and exploitation in an online discussion forum about the American singer Britney Spears in Brazil. Based on this case study on social networking, I develop the argument that it is possible to see digital fandom as a stage for a commodified cyberactivism, in which some social actors in the role of prosumers, on the one hand, exercise their freedom and find, more than gratification, ways to project themselves individually in society. But, on the other hand, they are subject to exploitative relationships, such as unpaid work, to promote the personality whose concrete relationship with their lives often does not go beyond media practices.

The communication pattern in prosumption practices through free e-books at membacacepat.com

“…Therefore, it implies the emergence of free labour that enables the distribution of e-books. Specifically, In the prosumer concept, it is assumed that there are collectively moving individuals who collaborate in unpaid labour (Daros, 2022). According to Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010), however, prosumers enjoy what they do, and their actions cannot be viewed as simple capitalist manipulation.…”

Gendered fandom in transcultural context- female-dominated paratexts and compromised fan culture

“…Fiske, 1992; Jenson, 1992; Bury, 2005; Glasspool, 2012) while recent years have witnessed an increase in fan studies beyond the Western arena. Scholars such as Rahma Sugihartati (2020), Zhen Chen (2021) and Otávio Daros (2022) have explored the fan activities in Indonesia, China and Brazil to demonstrate the importance of non-Western fandom as one of the key debates in consumer culture. Thus, it is academically necessary to place this research within the existing non-Western production and further uncover the transculturalisation and diversity of fandom in an authoritative ecosystem.…”