The identity of fandoms in digital spaces: the case of ARMY on X

Abstract

For Jenkins (2006), convergence culture is characterized by the integration between these producers and consumers of media content and the blurred line separating the roles of both. In the case of fandoms, or fan communities, Jenkins suggests that a collective intelligence emerges capable of reinterpreting the text, from which a sense of cultural identity arises. In the digital realm, these fandoms manifest and express this identity in differentiated ways, organized according to patterns determined by the structure and design of the social network in which they interact, due to the intrinsic motivations of belonging to fan communities and according to the guidelines of the artists or products. In this digital ethnographic research, the dynamics influencing the process of shaping the identity of ARMY, the fan community of the K-Pop group BTS, on the social network X, are identified and described. It was found that the formation of the Spanish-speaking ARMY identity on X is shaped through a criterion of inclusion and mechanisms of exclusion, differentiation and otherness, collective action and role formation, a particular use of language, self-representation forms, and the functioning of platform X. It is argued that the aforementioned elements are fundamental to enabling the emergence and continuity of an identity in the BTS fan community and that these patterns may be extrapolated to characterize fandoms and internet communities in general.