Media Reflexivity and Taste: Chinese Slash Fans' Queering of European Football

This article explores Chinese female fans' appropriation of European football in their slash imagination. Through observations of online fan discussions and in‐depth interviews with 12 fans, I show that they use European football to articulate distinct fan identities and their particular positi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCommunication, culture & critique Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 166 - 183
Main Author Gong, Yuan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hoboken, USA Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.03.2017
Subjects
Judgment of Realism
Media Reflexivity
Mediated Sport
Queered Interpretation
Slash Football Fans
Taste
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Summary:This article explores Chinese female fans' appropriation of European football in their slash imagination. Through observations of online fan discussions and in‐depth interviews with 12 fans, I show that they use European football to articulate distinct fan identities and their particular positionalities. These fans contrast the realism of mediated sport with realism in other entertainment genres to distinguish themselves from other sport and slash fan practices. Furthermore, while these slash fans critique feminine gender norms in their claim to sexual agency, their taste for European football is racialized in problematic ways. The particular economic, social, and cultural subject positions of these fans act as structuring factors that influence their taste for slashing European football.
ISSN:1753-9129
1753-9137
DOI:10.1111/cccr.12140