How Social Media Precipitates a New Wave of Fan CultureA Look Into the Symbiotic Relationship Between Fans and Celebrities Through the Lens of Social Media Platforms

By: Dustin McManusJunior, UNC Chapel Hill

Introduction •Born in Charlotte, NC

•Worked for

Dustin McManusJunior, UNC Chapel Hill

Interests:

Entertainment Journalism

Fashion

Celebrity Culture and the Explosion of Entertainment-Based JournalismSociety’s burgeoning obsession with celebrity-focused media

Entertainment Media Outlets• Over the past decade, the media has shifted a

good deal of attention to covering celebrity culture due to popular audience demand through tabloids, gossip sites and television networks solely devoted to the topic.

Fan Culture• With evolving technologies, including social media

platforms, the every day individual shares a link with the celebrity allowing them to:▫ Promote and shape public opinion▫ Communicate amongst other fans▫ Market the celebrity’s product/career▫ Disseminate information, news & rumors

Social media applications & online communication “maysignal a power shift in the culture industry from

producersto consumers, or fans.” -Kelli S. Burns

Online Fan Sites & Chat Forums

•The premise of this study revolves around observing the activity of these sites and the effect this unique form of communication possesses.▫Two Important Factors:

1. Simplicity in creating and sharing news & info

2. Inherent ability to attract an audience“It is these two dimensions – a form of cultural production and a form of public engagement and exchange – that make social networks simultaneously a media and communication form.” - P. David Marshall

Celebrity Social Media Presence ObservedBritney Spears: “I’m Miss bad media karma, another day another drama.” - Piece of Me

Lady Gaga: “I’m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you until you love me.” - Paparazzi

Research FindingsWhat my observations of Britney Spears’ and Lady Gaga’s online social media presence unveiled about mass media technologies and communication.

New technologies are “used to generate new texts in new ways, and this in turn results in an expansion of fannish behavior.” -Karen Hellekson & Kristina Busse

Britney Spears & BreatheHeavy• Fans posting on her online fan site BreatheHeavy and its

chat forum, Exhale, were successful in aggregating news and rumors about Spears’ negotiations to join the reality singing show “The X-Factor” for its second season.

• Creating forums and tweeting about this news led to many mainstream news outlets, such as E! Online, picking up on the story and reporting on it further.

• Spears has yet to make any public statement regarding these negotiations, leaving the initial dissemination of news and any updates regarding her career move in the hands of individuals utilizing social media.

Lady Gaga & Gaga Daily• After an interview with Oprah Winfrey claiming she was

retiring from mainstream media interviews, Lady Gaga’s fan site Gaga Daily has been responsible for keeping the celebrity’s image and persona in the public eye.

• Fans of Gaga are posting on her site and tweeting information regarding the singer’s upcoming “Born This Way Ball” tour and rumors involving her upcoming album release.

• Lady Gaga herself has taken to her Twitter account to announce the official tour dates and the below promotional poster.

Conclusions• Fans are adopting social media platforms to serve as quasi-

public relations teams for these celebrities, marketing their various career moves and releasing this information to a broader audience.

• These social media platforms are active preserving a media presence for these two stars who have sworn off much of their own self-promotion, leaving it in the hands of fans.

• Reveals the clout social media possesses in acting as a considerable & rapid news source (breaking news of Spears’ involvement with “The X-Factor”) and as a promotional tool (Gaga’s tour updates).

• Social media allows for communication not just among like-minded fans, but between the fans and the celebrity themselves, creating a strong symbiotic relationship and sense of interconnectivity that both parties benefit from.

Growth of Social Media as a News Outlet

While the majority of adults still rely on traditional media outlets to receive their news, social media and online platforms are gaining in momentum. Check out this photo illustration of just how social media is usurping the ways we get news:

http://cdn2.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/social-media-news3.gif

The following list contains the top 10 Twitter trending topics in 2011. Both Lady Gaga and Britney Spears appear in the top 10 at numbers 3 and 8 respectively. Gaga was the #2 trending topic in music for the year, while Spears was #5.

Twitter StatisticsBritney Spears’ rapid ascent to 1 million followers in 2009.

Lady Gaga’s skyrocketing followers today.

• It took just 3 months for Spears to become one of the first people to reach 1 million followers in early 2009, becoming the most followed person on the site at that time.

• Gaga’s rapid growth in followers over a month this past year to solidify her ranking as the reigning person with the most followers on the site.

Four Websites and Videos Relevant to My Research

Four WebsitesBreatheHeavy Gaga Daily

• The official fan site for pop star Britney Spears that updates daily with content and news regarding Spears and possesses the chat forum Exhale for fans to communicate about Spears and with each other.

• http://www.breatheheavy.com/

• The official fan site for pop star Lady Gaga that functions similarly to Spears’ with news updates regarding Gaga and with chat forums for fans to discuss their favorite celebrity in.

• http://gagadaily.com/

Four Websites Cont: TwitterBritney Spears’ Twitter account

Lady Gaga’s twitter account• Britney Spears’ official Twitter account

was examined to see how the pop star interacted with fans, how news spread of her potential gig on “The X-Factor” and how fans created numerous trending topics about her, including trending her album title “Femme Fatale” as a worldwide trending topic for two weeks straight.

• https://twitter.com/#!/britneyspears

• Lady Gaga’s official Twitter account was analyzed to understand how she utilized it as a marketing tool to promote her upcoming world tour, the way she kept a presence in the media after swearing off interviews and how fans created numerous trending topics regarding Gaga’s upcoming birthday that trended worldwide.

• https://twitter.com/#!/ladygaga

Four Videos• Britney Spears Announces South American Femme Fatale

Tour▫ Spears tweeted this video out directly to her fans and followers

in 2011 to announce that she was bringing her Femme Fatale Tour to South America for the first time.

▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Bt6NwD4FY

• Lady Gaga’s – Google Chrome Commercial HD▫ Lady Gaga’s television spot for the launch of Google’s new

social media network, Google Chrome.▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVbXrubQpa0

Four Videos Cont.• Eminem – Stan (Long Version) ft. Dido

▫ Music video for Eminem’s song “Stan” which is about an obsessed fan who kills himself after Eminem fails to respond to his attempts to reach out to him. The song was released in 2002 before this current boom of social media, but the word “stan” which is an amalgamation of “stalker” and “fan” has been adopted by many hardcore fan bases for different celebrities, such as Britney Spears and Lady Gaga

▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMhN-hfMtY

• Social Media Revolution 3 (4:15 version via Erik Qualman)▫ Based on the best-selling book Socialnomics, this video details

and highlights shocking statistics regarding social media in today’s society.

▫ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0EnhXn5boM