Platform Fans: Contradictory Practices of K-Pop Fandom and the Digital Public Sphere

abstract: This article investigates the notion of an idealized digital public sphere by illustrating the contradiction between the supportive and subversive mediated communication practices of international K-pop fans across social media platforms. Fans subvert historic mass media communication practices by using social media to make their voices heard. However, they simultaneously engage in platform-mediated communication practices that uphold the status quo, doing what production companies, popular opinion, and even other fans expect them to do. Despite new communication-mediating platforms allowing fans to self-govern, create fan economies, and influence their own public opinion, the platformization of K-pop fandom has not demonstrated an idealized digital public sphere. The platformization of the K-pop industry is integral to its viability and global success, and by understanding how K-pop fans communicate online and offline, scholars can learn more about other increasingly globalized, hybridized, and platformized organizing practices and the digital public sphere.