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With the rise of the Internet, fans have engaged in a variety of online discussions related to their interests: newsgroups in the “alt.music” and “alt.fan” categories are full of groups devoted to specific music genres and individual stars. But what is of interest in this context is the transformation of those other, more-or-less organized, “official” fan clubs, where the tensions between fandom and organized consumption are most evident. In this regard, online fan clubs have taken on a new dynamic: marked by the appearance of a more direct form of dialogue between artist and fans and a more regular, even daily, ability to connect both artists with fans and fans with one another, fan clubs are now regarded as a new kind of “community” by some and a new source of revenue by others. This paper discusses how Internet fan clubs have become an important mediating factor in relationships between fans and artists, and between fans themselves.
Paul Théberge (Tue,) studied this question.