"Addicted to Passion". Performance spettatoriali nei pubblici connessi italiani

"Addicted to passion" - . Performances of fan audiencehood in italian networked publics In the last decade the Internet has evolved from a text-based to a multimedia environment; in the same time the Web reached a critical mass. Such changes are affecting the way young people consume media products, construct their biographies and participate in peer cultures. In particular, fans use social media to find specialized information and to participate in building "audience communities of practice", recently evolving from site-based communities to a "networked collectivism". The author proposes to conceptualize fan cultures as starring systems: networks of multimedia and multisited "performances of audiencehood" that change the distinction between writers and viewers. In the starring system fans compete and collaborate in order to gain visibility and acquire social and cultural capital. In this paper the author describes a research on Italian television fandom through the case study on "Italian Subs Addicted", a community of fansubbing. Considering the fandom as a starring system we may observe emerging an ironic and competent networked collectivism. Fans perform themselves as a generational audiencehood of "addicted" people that, growing up watching tv serials, acquired not only "dependence" to media but also "passion" and subcultural capital for competent analysis and creative productions.

Agnese Vellar, "Addicted to Passion". Performance spettatoriali nei pubblici connessi italiani in "SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE " 40/2009, pp 167-180, DOI: 10.3280/SC2009-040013