FANDOM AND THE FOURTH WAVE: YOUTH, DIGITAL FEMINISMS, AND MEDIA FANDOM ON TUMBLR Briony Hannell Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of East Anglia (UEA) School of Politics, Philosophy, and Language and Communication Studies September 2020 This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived therefrom must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. Abstract Recent scholarly accounts have noted the increasing slippage between feminism, digital cultures, and popular culture, yet few have located media fandom at this juncture. While critical and celebratory modes of popular culture consumption, production, and critique are central to both fourth wave feminisms and media fandom, both feminist and fan studies scholarship is yet to account for the ways in which media fandom and fourth wave feminisms are deeply connected in practice, as well as how fannish and feminist communities are converging within the digital landscape. Drawing upon feminist cultural studies and fan studies, this thesis offers an examination of the role of media fandom in the development of young people’s feminist identities. Analysing digital ethnographic data gathered over a two- year period through narrative survey, follow-up interviews, and participant observation, it explores the lived experiences of young people who are engaging with feminist discourses, practices, and positionalities in a routine, informal and everyday way through their ties to media fandom on Tumblr. In doing so, it foregrounds the close relationship between feminist cultural studies and fan studies methodologically, theoretically, and empirically, and locates media fandom as a site at which meanings of feminism are collectively produced, negotiated, and contested. This research subsequently reveals the intimate, complex, and at times contradictory, relationship between popular culture, media fandom, and feminist pedagogy, and locates fandom as an important and accessible space for bringing feminism to a wider, and increasingly younger, audience beyond the academy. Fandom and the Fourth Wave | 2 Access Condition and Agreement Each deposit in UEA Digital Repository is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the Data Collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or for educational purposes in electronic or print form. 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Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................ 2 List of Illustrations ....................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................... 8 Emergent Feminisms: From Post to Popular ...................................................... 12 Mapping Fourth Wave Feminisms ...................................................................... 16 Digital Cultures ............................................................................................... 17 Popular Culture ............................................................................................... 19 Tumblr, Media Fandom, and Social Justice ........................................................ 23 Chapter Overview .............................................................................................. 31 Chapter 2: Methodology ............................................................................ 34 Fan Studies and/as Feminist Methodology ......................................................... 35 Situating the Researcher: The Ethics of the Feminist Acafan .......................... 38 Research Method ............................................................................................... 43 Data Collection: Digital Ethnography .............................................................. 43 Data Analysis .................................................................................................. 59 Research Ethics ................................................................................................. 65 Expectation of Privacy .................................................................................... 66 Citing Fanworks .............................................................................................. 68 Pseudonyms and Anonymity .......................................................................... 69 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 3: Becoming a Feminist Fan ....................................................... 74 Transformation and Transference in Self-Narratives of Identity Development .... 77 Fandom and Feminist Becoming ........................................................................ 81 “It went from theoretical to applicable to the world.”: Fandom and Feminist Sense-Making ................................................................................................. 82 “Feminism is always in the front of my mind.”: Translating Feminism to Fandom ....................................................................................................................... 97 “I feel like I’m having feminist awakenings all the time.”: Fans’ Emergent Feminisms .................................................................................................... 104 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 113 Chapter 4: Belonging as a Feminist Fan ................................................ 115 “I feel like I’m amongst equals”: Imagined Community and Affective Belonging 117 “I love the way Tumblr makes me feel safe to be myself”: Spatial Belonging on Tumblr .............................................................................................................. 125 Fandom and the Fourth Wave | 3 “If we're all just replicating the racist and patriarchal focus on white men, then what even is the fucking point?”: Whiteness and Non-Belonging ...................... 141 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 154 Chapter 5: Fandom and/as Feminist Pedagogy .................................... 159 “Tumblr taught me so much about representation tho”: Media Literacy and Informal Learning within Feminist Fandom ....................................................... 162 “I reblog and repost ideas, trying to spread them as far as I can”: Fandom and Feminist Knowledge Sharing on Tumblr ........................................................... 173 “I try my goddamn best to always keep learning and growing”: Reflexive Listening and Un/learning in Feminist Fandom ................................................................ 189 Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 201 Chapter 6: Conclusion ............................................................................. 203 Reflections on Fandom and Feminism ............................................................. 203 Feminist Fandom: A Work in Progress ............................................................. 209 Complexities and Contradictions ...................................................................... 212 Notes ......................................................................................................... 217 Glossary ................................................................................................... 224 Bibliography ............................................................................................. 228 Appendix A: Consent Form..................................................................... 266 Appendix B: Survey Schedule of Questions ......................................... 268 Fandom and the Fourth Wave | 4 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Locating media fandom in the co-constitutive and multidirectional relationship between popular feminisms, digital cultures, and popular culture. ....... 27 Figure 2: Survey response rate during recruitment period. March 2018 to July 2018. .............................................................................................................................