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Kritika Kultura

Author ORCID Identifier

0000-0001-7543-1321; 0000-0003-1230-3634

Abstract

The transformation of fandom in the age of digital media and hyperconnectivity calls for renewed scholarly attention. Earlier studies of participatory culture highlighted the role of the “prosumer,” who blurs the boundary between production and consumption. This special section shifts the focus to the concept of the “fansumer,” which captures a more specific mode of engagement in which emotionally invested fans mobilize coordinated consumption and activities to shape cultural visibility, influence market outcomes, and practice fandom activism. Fans also actively generate new cultural forms and position themselves as agents of communication, thereby amplifying the dynamism of the global popular culture scene. These practices are enabled by the condition of “Homo Connectus,” a persistently networked subject whose everyday communication, cognition, and cultural participation are deeply embedded within digital platforms and algorithmically structured environments. Within such ecosystems, fans operate both individually and collectively as interconnected nodes that circulate meanings, values, and cultural symbols. The global rise of Hallyu (Korean Wave) provides a particularly vivid illustration of this transformation, as K-fandom communities have redefined what it means to participate in fandom in the digital era. This special section of Kritika Kultura, “Homo Connectus and Fandom Activism: Fansumers as Cultural Transmitters,” brings together nine contributions that collectively demonstrate how fandom operates as a vital cultural force, capable of reshaping aesthetics, markets, politics, and social identities. Together, these contributions highlight how fandom is a site of both empowerment and contradiction, capable of generating hybrid cultures, feminist imaginations, and political solidarities, while also producing tensions such as market distortion and algorithmic co-optation.

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