Twitter and the comic book fan community: Building identities and relationships in 140 characters
type: CreativeWork
description: The following study examined identity construction and community formation within the comic book fan community on the social media website, Twitter It had three objectives It investigated how comic book fans constructed their respective identities on Twitter, explored how fans came to identify with the comic book community and why it formed, and aimed to discover how the community was maintained and expanded The study applied an ethnographic method that relied on the analysis of dialogue Ten comic book fans (five males, five females) that frequently used Twitter to communicate with other fans were video interviewed It was found that comic book fans constructed their identities using their Twitter biography and profile picture and they all believed they were communicating their true and genuine selves The biography, profile picture, and tweets reinforced the rhetoric of what it meant to be a comic book fan It was this visual and written rhetoric that enabled comic book fans to identify with one another and bring the community into being Without this rhetoric, there is no community The community maintained itself through the continued reinforcement of this rhetoric It expanded itself by bringing comic book fans from different backgrounds, locations, and nationalities together online around a shared interest The study also found that the relationships formed within the community could develop into real friendships, the same caliber of friendship that individuals would normally have with those they knew and met in real life.
abstract: The following study examined identity construction and community formation within the comic book fan community on the social media website, Twitter It had three objectives It investigated how comic book fans constructed their respective identities on Twitter, explored how fans came to identify with the comic book community and why it formed, and aimed to discover how the community was maintained and expanded The study applied an ethnographic method that relied on the analysis of dialogue Ten comic book fans (five males, five females) that frequently used Twitter to communicate with other fans were video interviewed It was found that comic book fans constructed their identities using their Twitter biography and profile picture and they all believed they were communicating their true and genuine selves The biography, profile picture, and tweets reinforced the rhetoric of what it meant to be a comic book fan It was this visual and written rhetoric that enabled comic book fans to identify with one another and bring the community into being Without this rhetoric, there is no community The community maintained itself through the continued reinforcement of this rhetoric It expanded itself by bringing comic book fans from different backgrounds, locations, and nationalities together online around a shared interest The study also found that the relationships formed within the community could develop into real friendships, the same caliber of friendship that individuals would normally have with those they knew and met in real life.
author: Hong, Laura
keywords: Modern literature, Communication, Web Studies, Language, literature and linguistics, Communication and the arts, Comic books, Community formation, Fandom, Identity construction, Subcultures, Twitter
license: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
date published: 2015-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:36:00Z
provider: University of the Pacific
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of the Pacific