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Last week’s content introduced us to the concepts of “hashtag publics” and “cancel culture”, both of which will be expanded upon in this week’s material addressing the role of corporate communication and the formation and power of participatory culture. Public relations plays a role in constituting (both proactively and reactively) fandoms.
Public relations has been defined as an organizational “management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends” (Broom & Sha, 2013, p. 5). This is a broad definition that emphasizes the role of communication as relationship-building, suturing audience-publics and organizations together because of shared interests.
First, let’s identify some key concepts for this week:
(1) hashtag publics; (2) counter publics; (3) fanagement and fantagonism
“In a world of increasing and cacophonous complexity, hashtags are singular moments that coalesce into something new: threads of meaning that work to weave new abstractions into the world” (Rambukkana, 2015, p. 32).
Counterpublics …
Once upon a time (before digital and social media in particular), public relations operated via a largely broadcast model of communications. One model for reaching out to audiences was known as the situational theory of publics; this proposes that there are four distinct types of publics that can be identified for any organization or issue based on their levels of awareness, ability to increase participation, and their level of involvement. Based on these variables, individuals can be considered latent, aware, or active publics. Before we even get to these people and their varying degrees of involvement, we have those publics who are not impacted by an issue or organization are labeled as “nonpublics”. Then, “latent” publics are frequently considered to be those who may be affected by an issue or organization but are either unaware that it impacts them or have constraints that fully prevent their involvement with the issue or organization. Next, we climb the hierarchy of engagement and encounter “aware” publics know about an issue or organization and its impact on themselves, but generally have obstacles that prevent greater involvement. “Active” publics, on the other hand, not only know about the issue or organization and its effects on themselves, but they also actively work to remove obstacles that get them involved with that issue or organization. All of this assumes, however, that individuals require communication campaigns and messages from organizations to learn about issues (see Waters, 2016, p. 184). This is radically altered in a networked, social environment where people can both get and produce their own information, “doing their own research” so to speak, by watching YouTube videos, reading and engaging with comments and discussion boards on platforms like Reddit, sharing their opinions via Instagram reels, Snapchat stories, TikTok, etc. In this world, publics are not so neatly organized nor so easily affectively contained. Thus, we can update this model by including “the charged public” where people connect with each other via charged actions that are mobilized through social efforts outside official organizational communication efforts and managing. Charged publics, just like active publics, “are very likely to seek out and process information about organizations and issues that are important to them. But, the charged public goes beyond seeking out and processing information. They act, and they reach out to other charged individuals to create a group that must be acknowledged and legitimized by the organizations or issues on which the charged public is centered. Charged publics use their connections to mobilize themselves, whether the end behavior is a supportive rally, a protest, or simply to further engage with organizations and issues to learn new information, plan new events, or pursue greater involvement than the organization or issue organizers anticipated” (Waters, 2016, p. 185). Charged publics act of their own volition; they are activist publics, not just active publics, often acting counter to the original media producers’ vision.
Fanagement refers to industry-led moves “responding to, and anticipating, fan criticisms, as well as catering for specific fractions of fandom who might otherwise be at odds with the unfolding brand” (Hills, 2012, 410). It implies the management of the fan-based public in order to constrain and control resistance. Fan-resistance is the basis of anti-fandom[1] and public relations is the means by which fans can be prevented from becoming anti-fans and anti-fans can be brought back into the fold, so to speak. Essentially, through P.R., media industries attempt to manage conflict between fans and producers, tempering or directing fantagonism (or antagonistic forces within fandom) that emerges in situations where fan expectations of producer/creative behaviour or action are not met (see Johnson, 2007).
Please note – fanagement is not only necessary when fantagonism emerges, but rather is arguably a necessary byproduct of participatory culture in general in which the “death of the author” is assumed. Participatory audiences and publics re-write the texts of popular culture, circulating and re-contextualizing their meanings and producing their social significance. Inherently, then, there will be battles over the locus of control when it comes to media products. Just as no text is popular without being taken up by audiences, there will always be the search for the “right” type of audience response (and there will always be an unavoidable tension in an interactive digital environment where audiences are also produsers). Media industries need the sort of fannish affect that drives audience members to engage with texts and paratexts but simultaneously producers are wary of too much affect because it is unpredictable and not quantifiable; it might negatively affect the bottom line. Media industries have industrial concerns, which may not be paramount for fans…
References
Broom, G. M., & Sha, B. L. (2013). Cutlip & Center’s effective public relations (11th ed.). Pearson.
Hills, M. (2012). Torchwood’s trans-transmedia: Media tie-ins and brand ‘fanagement’. Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies 9(2): 409–428.
Johnson, D. (2007). ‘Fan-tagonism: Factions, Institutions and Constitutive Hegemonies of Fandom’. In Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington, 285-300. New York: New York University Press.
Rambukkana, N. (2015)
Waters, R. D. (2016). Facilitating the “charged public” through social media. A conversation with Disney Cruise Line’s Castaway Club members. In Amber
L. Hutchins and Natalie T. J. Tindall (Eds.), Public Relations and Participatory Culture Fandom, Social
Media and Community Engagement (pp. 181‐192). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Remember "fan-tagonism" from that earlier discussion? ↵