14

Transnational Cultural Fandom

Hye-Kyung Lee

Introduction
In recent years, the socio-cultural, technological and geographical contexts where cultural
fandom operates have changed noticeably. The advancement of consumerism has resulted
in the abundance and diversification of popular culture and more generous social attitudes
towards affective consumption of it. Meanwhile, the penetration of online communications
and digital technologies in our everyday life of cultural consumption has made the
conventional distinction between fans and ordinary consumers difficult to sustain: cultural
texts and relevant knowledge that might have been an esoteric terrain of fandom in the past
are now easily accessible and digital technologies greatly assist consumers’ engagement
in productive activities around cultural products they admire (Busse and Gray 2011;
Jenkins 2006). We are also witnessing an expansion and deepening of the interface between
cultural fandom and cultural industries’ marketing schemes that see consumer participation
and creativity as a new source for profit-making (Banks and Deuze 2009; van Dijck 2009;
Ritzer and Jurgensen 2010; Zwick, Bonsu and Darmody 2008). Yet, the interface entails tension
generated by the dissimilar logics of fandom and the industries’ commercial business, for
instance the tension around copyrights (Lee 2011; Schwabach 2011; Tushnet 2007). Another
visible trend is the ‘transnationalization’ of cultural fandom, denoting the tendency that
previously local fandom has gone global and many places in the world have witnessed fan
communities actively forming around popular cultural products from overseas. All these
changes are interwoven, making contemporary fandom of popular culture an ambiguous
and contentious phenomenon. Here, fan activities are no longer confined to a shadow
cultural economy (Fiske 1992). Fans become powerful players in global cultural distribution
(Green and Jenkins 2011; Lee 2011) and even an object of nation states’ cultural policy
(Huang 2011; Iwabuchi 2002, 2010).
In this chapter, I intend to explore ‘transnational cultural fandom’ and discuss its location
within the intricate landscape of cultural globalization, global cultural industries and nation
branding projects. The concept of ‘transnational’ concerns the mobility of cultural and
media text across national, geographical, cultural and linguistic borders and encourages us
to look into the actual process of the movement and fan communities’ roles in it. Compared
with the notion of ‘global’, ‘transnational’ is less encompassing or generalizing, signifying
the complexity of cultural globalization, where culture and media are trafficked in plural
directions by multiple agencies, including not only commercial and governmental actors
but also cultural consumers who are virtually connected. Transnational cultural fandom
is distinguished from the global popularity of US popular culture because the fandom is
a product (and a leverage) of not only dominant flow but also ‘contraflow’ consisting of
non-US and non-English language culture and media (Thussu 2007). As fans’ appreciation
T H E A S H G AT E R E S E A R C H C O M PA N I O N T O FA N C U LT U R E S

of cultural and media products from abroad cannot be neatly separable from their broader
perception of the products’ country of origin, such fandom may be associated with fans’
discovery and recognition of cultural appeal of the producing countries (for example, ‘Japan
Mania’ and ‘Korean Wave’ in Taiwan) and may become a key concern of the countries’
nation branding projects (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008; Huang 2011; S. Jung 2011; Sung 2010).
This is the case especially with Japan and South Korea (hereafter Korea), who are emerging
as new centres of global cultural economy (Iwabuchi 2002, 2010; Sung 2010). In the next
section, I will briefly review the existing discussion of fan studies and will point out the
lack of attention to the transnational aspect of contemporary cultural and media fandom.
This will be followed by an account of contexts, practices and cultures of manga (Japanese
comics), anime (Japanese animation) and K-pop (Korean pop culture) fandom far beyond
the producing countries. Some parts of the case studies are drawn from my previous work
based on interviews with manga and anime fans and analyses of related texts on fan fora
and fan groups’ websites (Lee 2009, 2010, 2011). In the final section, I will attempt further
conceptualization and theorization of transnational cultural fandom in relation to cultural
globalization, cultural industries’ global business and nation branding.

Cultural Fandom
Fan research has provided fascinating accounts of cultural consumers who deeply admire
and feel attached to particular cultural and media texts to the level where their affection
for the text plays a determinant role in shaping their identities and ways of life (see also
Chapter 6 in this volume). In spite of varying emphases, we can point out three recurring
themes in the existing studies on fan cultures: distinction, productive consumption
and dialectic relation between fans and cultural industries. Firstly, fans are regarded as
distinct from non-fans and ordinary consumers in terms of the degree of their emotional
and psychological involvement with popular cultural texts or icons and their investment
of time and resources in them. Against the backdrop of negative projections of fans in
the mainstream media, the starting point for fan studies was to readdress the prejudiced
distinction of fans as frenzied, irrational and susceptible to manipulation by cultural
industries (Jensen 1992). Several studies have found that fans are capable of enjoying textual
and intertextual play with cultural products and this process – which has emancipatory
and empowering elements – involves the generation of subversive and alternative meanings
(Baym 2000; Jenkins 1992a; Kozinets 2001). Although there are individualized fan activities,
fans are seen as members of a fandom or fan community that provides socio-cultural
settings for their interaction with cultural text as well as other fans (Busse and Gray 2011).
The second important theme is ‘production’ as aptly demonstrated by Henry Jenkins’s
statement that fans are ‘consumers who also produce, readers who also write, spectators
who also participate’ (Jenkins 1992b: 208). Fans are productive in the semantic, artistic,
social and structural senses: they create meanings, tangible artworks, communities and
structures for (alternative or sub)cultural production (Fiske 1992). The fan community is
understood as a field of cultural production where its members develop their own logic,
norms, conventions and systems for recognition and reward. Fan production’s affinity with
professional cultural production informs our understanding of fandom as a shadow cultural
economy (Fiske 1992). The third recurring theme is fans’ dialectic relationship with cultural
industries (Hills 2002; Kozinets 2001). Cultural fandom is a product of consumerism and
ontologically depends on cultural text supplied by the industries. Fans are the most loyal
and vocal segment of the audience. When it comes to niche products they may be the only

196
 T R A N S N AT I O N A L C U LT U R A L FA N D O M

audience. However, fans challenge the industries via their alternative interpretation of the
primary text and celebration of non-commercial and collective culture, which contrasts with
the commercial logic behind the production and distribution of the cultural text in question.
Meanwhile, the rapidly changing media landscape means that our existing ideas of fans,
fan communities and fan industry relationships are challenged: how can we distinguish
fans from ordinary consumers who are engaged in productive activities and exhibiting
fan-like behaviour and how can we set a boundary of fandom when there is an increasing
interface with the industries’ market strategies involving dedicated consumers? (Busse and
Gray 2011).
It should be noted that the existing literature in fan research is centred on experiences
of Western, especially English-speaking, countries such as the USA and the UK. Many
writings tend to view fandom as a ‘local’ phenomenon where some of us consume cultural
text produced in our society and in our language (which would be English) in extensive
and participatory manners (cf. Bennett and Peterson 2004 on translocal and virtual
scenes). Cultural fandom being local implies a close distance – geographically, socially or
linguistically – between fans and cultural industries. Such proximity may facilitate fans’
contextualized reading of cultural text and therefore may function as a basis of their critical
reflection. Meanwhile, non-Western fans and fandom around cultural text originating from
non-Western societies still seem a new terrain for fan research (Busse and Gray 2011: 430;
Harrington and Bielby 2007). Overseas fandom of Japanese or Korean popular culture has
thus far been explored from the perspective of media and cultural studies as well as Asian
studies (see, for example, Chua and Iwabuchi 2008; Hu 2006; Iwabuchi 2002; Napier 2007;
Tsai 2007). Like other contemporary transnational cultural fandoms, this fandom is facilitated
greatly by media convergence and participatory consumption. Digital technologies and
online communications ease fans’ access not only to cultural texts but also to up-to-date
information on those texts, and help them to take part in communities where various fan
activities online and offline are conducted and shared (see also Chapters 8 and 17 in this
volume). The fandom may be nurtured by top-down distribution of Japanese or Korean
popular culture by local importers such as TV stations and publishing houses, however its
main feed is a wide range of contents unofficially disseminated via online communications
among fans across borders. The available account of this fandom is concerned mainly with
its contexts and fans’ reception of their chosen cultural products and icons. Meanwhile,
there is a shortage of investigation into cultures and practices of such transnational fandom
and their implications for cultural industries’ global distribution business.

Transnational Cultural Fandom: Practice and Culture

Cultural and media fandom existing across national borders is not new. As shown by the
worldwide stardom enjoyed by popular US film actors and pop singers over decades, mass
culture originated from the USA has enjoyed global markets and global fan bases. This
phenomenon has been understood and critiqued as the most indicative feature of cultural
globalization that is propelled by powerful cultural and media corporations rooted in the
USA. Globalized access to and consumption of US film, TV and pop music is attributable
not merely to market factors (the economy of scale of their domestic market, advanced
global distribution networks and high-budget marketing) but also to political, economic
and cultural factors (the country’s political and economic power and the cultural hegemony
of the English language). Meanwhile non-US and non-English language cultural products,
which do not have the above advantages, are subjected heavily to the cultural and linguistic

197
T H E A S H G AT E R E S E A R C H C O M PA N I O N T O FA N C U LT U R E S

embeddedness of cultural consumption (Collins 1994; Iwabuchi 2002). Perhaps, telenovela

(Latin American soap opera), anime (Japanese animation) and manga (Japanese comics)
have been notable exceptions to the US-dominated cultural globalization (Iwabuchi 2002;
Leonard 2005; Lopez-Pumarejo 2007; Napier 2007). More recently, Korean TV drama and pop
music – which are enjoying huge fandom in Asian countries and are entering more remote
markets – have joined the group (H.-J. Cho 2005; Y. Cho 2011; Huang 2011; S. Jung 2011).
Despite their growing popularity abroad, however, the consumption of Japanese and
Korean popular cultural products is not as globalized as are their US counterparts. Thus
their overseas fandom is better conceptualized as transnational. Although the fandom
signifies a decentring and recentring of cultural globalization, cultural industries in these
countries lack seamless global distribution networks and find substantial entrance barriers
in overseas markets. In this context, the fandom can be regarded as a product (and a further
trigger) of overseas fan communities’ voluntary and purposeful cultural and linguistic
mediation – including translation, cultural footnoting, editing, distribution and marketing –
of popular cultural products from these countries. Such transnational cultural fandom has
dramatically expanded during recent years, meaning that nowadays a tremendous volume
of popular cultural texts from Japan and Korea is mediated and widely circulated online
via fan networks. The fandom no longer appears a shadow cultural economy: in terms of
volume, reach and speed, it outweighs the global distribution business of the industries
(Lee 2011). Fans’ intertextual reception of different forms of Japanese or Korean popular
culture hints at their positive appropriation of, and attraction to the country of origin and its
culture in a broad sense, signalling the fandom’s potential use for the countries’ purposive
nation branding strategies.

Manga and Anime Fandom Overseas

Fandom of manga and anime beyond Japan has existed for a few decades. Napier (2007)
explains US anime fandom, which was rapidly expanding in the 1990s, in terms of the
deep historical roots of Western art and popular culture’s fascination and imagination of
Japan since the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, Patten’s (2004) account of manga and anime
fandom in the USA illustrates how it started as a tiny branch of science fiction fandom in
the late 1970s and evolved to a fandom of regional and national scale over time. Manga and
anime have been more familiar forms of entertainment in some European countries such
as France and Italy, where they were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s and have since
then found mainstream outlets. In both the USA and Europe, manga and anime fandom
has grown remarkably during the 2000s and has been closely connected with fans’ positive
reception of other forms of Japanese popular culture, such as video games and light novels
(novels accompanying characters drawn in manga or anime style), and furthermore the
country’s language and way of life. At the heart of the fandom, there exist those individuals
and groups who assist manga and anime’s transcultural and translinguistic movement by
providing fan translation and fan subtitling. These activities have been enormously eased by
fans’ effortless deployment of digital technologies and online communications. Nowadays,
fan translators (‘scanlators’) digitally scan original manga, translate Japanese to another
language, clean the drawing, erase the original Japanese text, insert the translation, quality-
check and publish a translated version of manga on the Internet to share it with other fans
(for more details see Lee 2009). Similarly, anime fansubbers digitally copy the original anime,
translate from Japanese to another language, make subtitles and release the subtitled anime
on the Internet (for more details see Lee 2010, 2011). Initially, scanlation and fansubbing’s
main language was English and the centre of these practices was the USA. During recent

198
 T R A N S N AT I O N A L C U LT U R A L FA N D O M

years, however, these border-crossing activities have become international projects,

involving English-speaking fans from Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. At the
same time, there has been a rapid surge of scanlation and fansubbing in other languages.
According to popular listing sites dedicated to manga and anime, such as Baka-Updates,
there are approximately 700 scanlation groups and between 740 and 2,000 fansubbing
groups. Considering that the lists are composed of mainly English speaking groups, one can
assume their number would sharply increase when adding other language groups.
The practice and culture of manga scanlation and anime fansubbing can be explained
with fan studies’ existing analytical tools. Those who are involved in these activities are
passionate and extensive readers, watchers, collectors and reviewers of manga and anime:
many of them are familiar with Japan’s ‘otaku’ (geek) culture and happily define themselves
as otakus. They are skilled producers of fan translation and subtitles. Their activities provide
the broader manga and anime fandom with source materials (translated text), without which
other fan activities and the accumulation of fan knowledge would be reduced to a great
degree. These fan translators are supplemented by individuals and groups who circulate,
archive, comment on and list scanlated manga and fansubbed anime. Scanlation and fansub
viewers also are a main constituent of the scene. Scanlation and anime fansubbing, as fields of
cultural production, have developed a distinct culture, that is, a non-profit making principle,
collective and community spirit, emotional support for the industry, the convention of
‘stop the project when licensed’ in the local market and the socially constructed view of
copyrights primarily as rights for attribution. Groups sometimes compete and collaborate
for better products, reputation, popularity and speed. It is noted that one-click access to
fan-translated manga and anime and related knowledge online has made the traditional
distinction between fans and non-fans obsolete. The viewer can instantly consume various
manga and anime text, fan-generated news, take part in fan fora and can even set up a fan
translation group when like-minded people who have relevant skills have been identified
and recruited. As some anime fansubbers comment, such a situation may lead to a dilution of
the fandom’s identity and culture (Lee 2010). Meanwhile, the organization and management
of fan translation groups appears to be an alternative to the professional production of
translated manga and anime: virtual and global networks as production units are sustained
by fans’ voluntary donation of time and skills and coordination via online communications.
The field of fan production and distribution shows extreme productivity: endless manga
and anime titles of diverse genres – both old and new, niche and mainstream – are fan
translated and freely available for fans, dwarfing the industries’ overseas distribution.

K-pop Fandom Beyond Korea

An examination of overseas fandom of contemporary popular culture originating in

Korea (the so-called ‘Korean Wave’ phenomenon) gives further insights into the nature of
transnational cultural fandom. The core content of the Korean Wave is TV drama, film and
pop music (the term ‘K-pop’ is often used to encompass all these areas). Initially the wave
was a regional phenomenon centred on Southeast Asian and East Asian countries but it has
been growing in other areas such as North and Latin America and Europe (E.-Y. Jung 2009).
Compared with the transnational fandom of Japanese popular culture that gradually built
up overseas markets and fan bases over a few decades, the Korean Wave has been happening
in a more rapid, intense and epidemic way in a short period. It started in the later 1990s in
Vietnam and China and gained momentum when Winter Sonata, a Korean TV drama series,
received unexpectedly passionate responses in Japan in 2003 and 2004. Since then K-pop
has become a major trend in pan-Asian pop culture (Y. Cho 2011). Like the transnational

199
T H E A S H G AT E R E S E A R C H C O M PA N I O N T O FA N C U LT U R E S

fandom of Japanese popular culture, K-pop fandom is highly inter-media, cutting across
film, TV drama, TV comedy show, pop music, online games, animation and characters. The
fans’ desire is not limited to a particular medium or genre but often seems overarching
across different aspects of Korean popular culture, or ‘anything Korean’ (Huang 2011;
E.-Y. Jung 2009; S. Jung 2011). Consuming media texts is linked to other fan activities, for
example joining fan meetings, following K-pop idols, participating in fan fora, circulating
posts and videos, writing and reading fan fiction, cover dancing and even visiting Korea
to meet idols and to see shooting locations of their favourite drama series (Chua and
Iwabuchi 2008; S. Jung 2011).
Despite the increased academic attention in the Korean Wave as a cultural and social
phenomenon, there is a lack of interest in its transnational fandom aspects. In this context,
S. Jung (2011) provides an interesting case study of the Indonesian fandom of K-pop by
showing how K-pop crosses national, cultural and linguistic borders via fan-driven
circulation of new media, especially social media. That is, K-pop fans enjoy real-time
and immediate access to relevant news and content online, via K-pop websites, K-drama
fansubbing sites and distribution sites, Facebook pages and Twitter messages. Fans’ own
mediation and circulation of K-pop content contrasts with the lack of authorized K-pop
products in their local markets. There exist numerous fan groups devoted to translation and
subtitling of Korean TV drama and film into other languages, particularly English, French,
Italian, Malay, Arabic, Polish and Spanish. FansubWiki lists a total of 324 drama fansubbing
groups who are specialized primarily in fansubbing East Asian TV drama and many of
them appear to be committed to Korean drama.1 As of the first quarter of 2012 a total of 29
ongoing Korean drama series were being fansubbed in real time by four English language
groups and 15 other language groups.2 The membership and operations of these groups
are international. Groups consist of a number of members who take specific roles – such as
translators, timers and editors – and are virtually coordinated by administrators. Their size
varies but English-language groups tend to be large. For example, two of the most active
groups consist of approximately 200 and 300 members. The huge size is useful in terms of
speeding up the translation and subtitling process, by allowing numerous fans to carry out
a bite-size translation simultaneously. Although the groups work on some old series, their
primary concern is seamless delivery of ongoing drama series to overseas fans almost in real
time. Most groups have their own communications channels, such as a website, but there
also exist fansubbing distribution sites that provide links to videos. For instance, mysoju.com,
one of the biggest distribution sites, provides a list of 470 Korean TV drama series subtitled
in English in addition to many other East Asian TV drama series (accessed: 29 June 2012).3
Transnational fandom of K-pop and Korean drama fansubbing in particular is characterized
by voluntarism, non-commercialism and collective culture. While desiring to know about
and support Korean cultural industries and their overseas business, the fandom is relying
heavily on free borrowing and sharing of the industries’ commodities, revealing potential
discord between the logics of the fields of commercial and fan production.

1 http://fansub.d-addicts.com/Category:Fansub_Groups [accessed: 29 June 2012].

2 http://fansub.d-addicts.com/Kdrama_Fansub_Map [accessed: 29 June 2012].
3 This website (mysoju.com) ceased to exist in early September 2012 for unknown reasons. A new
website (mysoju.tv) was recently launched by dramastyle.com but its provision of fansubbed
drama is restricted as its service is limited to the USA.

200
 T R A N S N AT I O N A L C U LT U R A L FA N D O M

Transnational Cultural Fandom within Bigger Contexts

Transnational Fandom Complicating Cultural Globalization

The above case studies demonstrate that transnational cultural fandom is emerging as a
powerful force of cultural globalization and is making the globalization process further
complicated. So far cultural globalization has often been viewed from the perspective of the
global reach of cultural and media contents – image, news, knowledge and entertainment –
originated in the West, especially the USA, and their impact on local communities (Herman
and McChesney 2000; Thompson 2000). Local strategies of negotiation, resistance,
localization and hybridization are an important part of the discussion; however the
globalization of culture and media is projected by and large as a top-down, industry-driven
process. Meanwhile, transnational cultural fandom, where fans work as both gate-opener
and gate-keeper via choosing, mediating, circulating and promoting cultural texts beyond
its country of origin, serve as a bottom-up initiative of cultural globalization. Probably the
very existence of such fandom indicates the not-yet-global characteristic of global cultural
dissemination via commercial means. Transcultural fandom of non-US and non-English
language cultural products can foster ‘contraflows’ that both challenge and complement
one-directional and US-dominated global traffic of popular culture (Thussu 2007). Fans’
own circulation of, for instance, Japanese and Korean popular cultural products constitutes
a bottom-up contraflow in itself. Furthermore, it may stimulate a contraflow consisting of
authorized products by nurturing overseas markets, helping the two countries to rise as
influential players in the global cultural economy. A well-known drama fansubbing listing
site shows a mapping of fansubbed TV drama, which is mostly Japanese and Korean.4
However, concluding that fan translation and mediation serve only as a contraflow would
be misleading. Recent news reports from China demonstrate that fansubbing is the most
popular and dominant method for Chinese people to access US TV and film contents in
addition to those from Japan and Korea (Yao 2009). Certainly, fansubbing is a new way for
US audiovisual content to penetrate the areas where their legal distribution is restricted
for political and economic reasons and where fans’ demand exceeds authorized products
on offer (Barra 2009 for Italian fansubbing of US TV shows). Facing US cultural industries’
tight control of copyrights, however, fansubbing and sharing of US audiovisual contents
is mostly carried out underground and therefore its mapping is difficult. Nevertheless, we
can draw the conclusion that transnational cultural fandom complicates and intensifies
cultural globalization, by assisting both dominant flows and contraflows and by strikingly
increasing the volume of content and speed of its circulation.

Transnational Fandom Out of Shadow Cultural Economy

Existing fan research points out cultural fandom’s textual and interpretative interventions
in cultural industries’ creative strategies while understanding fandom as a symbolic cultural
economy, thus its impact on the industries’ business being rather limited. However, the
contemporary trend of convergence culture and participatory consumption – along with the
industries’ marketing strategies aimed at engaging participatory consumers – is challenging
such a perception of fandom-industry relations. For both those who celebrate the trend
(for example, Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004) and those who critique it (for example, van
Dijck 2009; Zwick, Bonsu and Darmody 2008), it is obvious that consumers today – especially

4 http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/subtitles.php [accessed: 29 June 2012].

201
T H E A S H G AT E R E S E A R C H C O M PA N I O N T O FA N C U LT U R E S

devoted and participatory fans – cannot be clearly separated from the process of planning,
making and marketing cultural goods and services. We can view transnational cultural
fandom from this perspective: fans undertake cultural intermediation and distribution –
which used to be carried out by professional cultural intermediaries – free of charge (Banks
and Deuze 2009; Barra 2009; Baym and Burnett 2009). Their work may function as free
market research, marketing and advertising. At the same time, however, it also generates
unprecedented tension in fan-industry relations as the fandom considerably pushes the
boundary of copyright ownership held by producers of the original text and licences by
overseas publishers and distributors. Despite fandom’s ‘stop the project when licensed’
convention, a wide range of licensed items (for example, popular manga currently being
serialized in Japanese manga magazines and Korean drama series that are already available
on licensed streaming websites) as well as non-licensed ones are ceaselessly fan translated
and distributed, forming dominant streams of a global flow of Japanese and Korean popular
culture. In terms of fans’ mediation capacity (for example, the number of fan translators
and fan editors, the number of available languages and so on), the efficiency of their virtual
communications and coordination (at almost zero cost and project operation unbound by
local time), fan translators and fansubbers can easily surpass their professional counterparts
(Baym and Burnett 2009; Lee 2011). Equipped with ever-expanding mediation capacity
and collective culture, transnational fandom may sit uncomfortably with the industries’
commercial and profit-centred logics of global distribution business.
Witnessing fan translation, subtitling and distribution surging as a dominant mode
of the transnational movement of cultural content and realizing the potential profitability
of online and mobile distribution of the content, cultural industries in Japan and Korea
began to frame these fan activities as piracy that reduces the overseas market demand for
authorized products (Lee 2010). Although their main targets are distribution websites rather
than fan translation groups, the message is clear: fans should stop free borrowing of manga,
anime and drama content and should access them via authorized channels. The industries
have also started to imitate transnational cultural fandom’s practices, for instance real-time
translation, the involvement of voluntary translators, online and mobile distribution, the
provision of free content (with advertisements) and the provision of virtual space for fan
discussion. At the moment, it is hard to see how the transnational cultural fandom affects
the relevant industries and how the industries’ anti-piracy campaign influences fans. This
is because both the fandom and the industries are evolving rapidly, supplementing and
competing with each other in terms of content delivery to overseas markets. In addition, the
social, linguistic and geographical distance between them appears to make their relationship
still rather indirect and exploratory.

Transnational Fandom as an Object of Nation Branding Projects

Transnational fandom of manga, anime and K-pop is tied to individual fans’ and fan
communities’ positive recognition of the country of origin and its culture in general. One
explanation for this might be that the distance between fans and the producing countries
leaves the former desiring to ‘discover’, ‘find’ and ‘explore’ the latter in order to make
better and fuller sense of their chosen cultural text. Another explanation would be the
great degree of inter-media cross over characteristic of Japanese and Korean popular
culture. Using popular narratives, characters and stars across different media is a well-
known strategy of the Japanese cultural industries, and it has been actively adopted by
Koreans too, aptly demonstrated by the rising trend of renting talents between the Korean
TV and pop music industries. This effectively assists overseas fans of one medium to be

202
 T R A N S N AT I O N A L C U LT U R A L FA N D O M

effortlessly exposed to other medium originating from the country and to develop interest
in the country’s culture in a broad sense, including language, food, fashion and way of life
(E.-Y. Jung 2009; Mōri 2008; Napier 2007). Transnational cultural fandom is hardly bounded
by national governments’ regulations on cultural content, import and export and copyrights.
Nevertheless, the last decade has seen fandom becoming an object of national cultural policy
concerned with nation branding (Huang 2011; Iwabuchi 2010; Lam 2007). Nation branding,
as a combination of cultural diplomacy and cultural industries policy, aims at strengthening
a nation state’s soft power (Nye 2004) via increasing its domestic cultural contents’ attraction
to others and their transnational flow. It has internal and domestic implications too, for
example from identity formation, social legitimation of popular culture to justification for
government support for cultural industries. Japan and Korea, as emerging centres of cultural
globalization, have shown conscious aspirations to utilize the overseas popularity of their
cultural contents to enhance the countries’ international reputation and competitiveness. In
spite of the difference in Japan and Korea’s traditional approach to cultural policy (market-
driven and state-driven respectively), they are similar in initiating nation branding projects,
mainly after overseas media reported the remarkable popularity of their popular culture
(‘Japan’s Gross National Cool’ as dubbed by US journalist Douglas McGray in 2002 and
the expression ‘Korean Wave’ was coined by the Chinese media around 2000). In a sense,
the nation branding projects were conceived as a cultural policy response to transnational
fandom of the countries’ popular culture.
In the past years, the Japanese government, the Japan Foundation and commercial
sectors collaborated in undertaking schemes to enhance the country’s brand (‘Cool Japan’)
overseas, for instance the International Manga Award (from 2007 onwards), Cultural
Ambassadors for Anime (from 2008 onwards) and the Japan Creative Center in Singapore
(Lam 2007; Tsutomu 2008). National-level policies have proliferated since 2011 when the
government adopted a proposal entitled Creating a New Japan by the Cool Japan Advisory
Council (METI 2011). These policies include the Cool Japan Daily web portal, various Cool-
Japan themed conferences, the Cool Japan Strategy Promotion Programme, Cool Japan
Overseas Expansion Projects (Singapore, China, India, USA, France, and so on) and the
ministries’ active participation in the annual Japan Expo Paris where anime and manga are
the biggest attractions.
In Korea, the Korean Wave has been a top agenda of cultural policy since the phenomenon
gained full momentum in 2004. The central government, the Korea Creative Content
Agency, the Korea Foundation, Korean embassies abroad and numerous local governments
have been proactively engaged in promoting the wave (Sung 2010). One recent example can
be found in the London-based Korean Cultural Centre’s K-pop contest and K-pop night
in 2011, which was held in collaboration with a K-pop fan community and brought in a large
number of fans from the UK and other European countries (Chung 2011). In 2012, the Centre
also organized a 12-week K-Pop Academy where 30 fans were selected and provided with
the opportunity to learn about Korean pop culture, entertainment industries, Korean history,
food and the Korean alphabet as well as meeting with Korean pop idols and diplomats (KCC
UK 2012). Such efforts are sometimes happily met by fan groups who define themselves
as disseminators of the Korean Wave. However, government-led, top-down initiatives
to expand transnational fandom are critiqued as ineffective and often counter-effective.
They are also seen as politically driven actions that address domestic rather than overseas
audiences (Tsutomu 2008): for example, Cool Japan strategies introduced in 2011 are intended
to assist the Japanese government’s effort to recover and revitalize Japanese society since
the earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear crisis (METI 2011). Another issue with nation
branding projects is that, as Iwabuchi (2010) comments, they reduce the cultural and social
significance of transnational cultural fandom by seeing overseas fans mainly as current and

203
T H E A S H G AT E R E S E A R C H C O M PA N I O N T O FA N C U LT U R E S

potential markets for cultural export and potential visitors to tourist destinations. As bearers
of Cool Japan brand or Korean Wave, the fans are encouraged to look at the stylish and fancy
sides of contemporary Japan or Korea while any further engagement with the complexities
in either society is discouraged.

Conclusion
So far, transnational and transcultural aspects of contemporary cultural fandom, especially
that around Japanese and Korean pop culture, have been discussed by media and cultural
studies and regional studies researchers whose primary concern is national and regional
identity and the audience’s interpretation of the popular cultural text. Bringing in a fan
studies perspective could lead to richer accounts of the phenomenon. The practices and
cultures of transnational fans of manga, anime and K-pop – their passion for and emotional
involvement with their chosen text, extensive investment of time and resources, forming
and partaking in communities, promoting collective culture and sharing, developing their
own rules and norms and constructing an alternative field for cultural production – are
explained with theoretical and conceptual tools provided by existing fan studies.
Meanwhile, a transnational perspective gives fan scholars a useful analytical framework,
with which they can make better make sense of the complexities of contemporary cultural
fandom within the globalized and converged media environment. Powered by digital
technologies and online networks, transnational fans actively take part in intermediating
and distributing popular cultural contents far beyond the country of origin. In doing so, they
extend, deepen and diversify the cultural globalization process from the bottom up. From
the industries’ point of view, transnational fans’ voluntary intermediary activities look like
double-edged swords: whilst functioning as the most effective and zero-cost marketing, they
also pose challenges by transforming the industries’ commodities into public goods and
creating some sort of markets for these goods. Perhaps a significant part of these markets
will never be converted into paying markets. The two case studies discussed in the chapter
demonstrate the extent to which the dialectics between the fandom and the industries are
being made further convoluted within the rapidly changing media environment. It appears
that transnational cultural fandom flourishes in the disjuncture of cultural globalization
(Appadurai 1990). Not to mention disjoints between different domains (or ‘-scapes’) of
globalization, we are witnessing disjuncture within the global ‘mediascape’ itself, for
instance gaps between territory-based cultural business and the transnationalized desire of
consumers, and the incongruence between the ownership of copyrights of media text and
that of electronic means to reproduce and disseminate the text. It is within these gaps and
differences that transnational cultural fandom finds its location. The nature of the fandom
becomes more complicated when policy makers try to square it with their nation branding
framework, by reducing it as a carrier of the prestige and cultural appeal of the nation
in question.
I would like to propose that a transnational perspective can benefit fan studies by inviting
macro and global perspectives. It reminds us that cultural and media fandom takes place not
only at the centres of global cultural economy but also at its peripheries. It also points out that
contemporary cultural fandom often is more than a local or domestic phenomenon: it may be
a site where local fans interact with overseas fans, navigate and appropriate popular cultural
and media text from overseas and facilitate its transnational dissemination. Transnational
fandom could be seen as a manifestation of cultural globalization which is characterized
by the co-existence of dominant and contraflows, the involvement of multiple agencies

204
 T R A N S N AT I O N A L C U LT U R A L FA N D O M

including the industries, governments and fans. It is also a product of the disjunctures caused
by tension and contradiction between different globalizing forces. Therefore, it can serve
as a useful analytical tool to connect fan studies to the discussion of cultural globalization
and the global cultural business. Here, fan scholars are encouraged to find new terrains of
research, such as the cross-cultural analysis of the fandom of globally and transnationally
popular texts and icons (they could even map a ‘global fan-scape’ of popular cultural and
media texts), the investigation of the transnationalized and transculturalized relationship
between fans and the industries, and the critical interrogation into the emerging dynamics
between cultural policy and fan culture. How fans’ critical and reflexive faculties are played
out and work as a challenge to global cultural business would be another interesting area to
look at. Fan scholars are also encouraged to be deliberate methodological challenges arising
when they try to access fan culture beyond their linguistic zone and look into online space
where transnational fandom is likely to be grounded.

References
Appadurai, A. 1990. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Public
Culture, 2(1), 1–24.
Banks, J. and Deuze, M. 2009. Co-creative labour. International Journal of Cultural Studies,
12(5), 419–31.
Barra, L. 2009. The mediation is the message: Italian regionalization of US TV series as co-
creational work. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12(5), 509–25.
Baym, N.K. 2000. Turn In Long On: Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community. London: Sage.
Baym, N.K. and Burnett, R. 2009. Amateur exports: International fan labor in Swedish
independent music. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12(5), 433–49.
Bennett, A. and Peterson. R. (eds) 2004. Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual. Nashville,
TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Busse, K. and Gray, J. 2011. Fan cultures and fan communities, in The Handbook of Media
Audiences, edited by V. Nightingale. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 425–43.
Cho, H.-J. 2005. Reading the ‘Korean wave’ as a sign of global shift. Korea Journal, 45(4),
Winter, 147–82.
Cho, Y. 2011. Desperately seeking East Asia amidst the popularity of South Korean pop
culture in Asia. Cultural Studies, 25(3), 383–404.
Chua, B.H. and Iwabuchi, K. (eds) 2008. East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave.
Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Chung, K.-H. 2012. K-pop in Europe: from fandom to mass culture. Joongang Daily [Online 6
July]. Available at: http://article.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.asp?total_id=5742496
&cloc=olink|article|default [accessed: 12 July 2012].
Collins, R. 1994. Trading in culture: The role of language. Canadian Journal of Communi-
cations, 19(3) [Online]. Available at: http://cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view
Article/825/731 [accessed: 21 June 2012].
Cool Japan Advisory Council. 2011. Creating a New Japan: Tying together ‘Culture and Industry’
and ‘Japan and the World’ [Online: Cool Japan Advisory Council]. Available at: http://
www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2011/pdf/0512_02b.pdf [accessed: 21 June 2012].
van Dijck, J. 2009. Users like you: theorizing agency in user-generated content. Media, Culture
& Society, 31(1), 41–58.
Fiske, J. 1992. The cultural economy of fandom, in The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and
Popular Media, edited by L.A. Lewis. London: Routledge, 30–49.

205
T H E A S H G AT E R E S E A R C H C O M PA N I O N T O FA N C U LT U R E S

Green, J. and Jenkins, H. 2011. Spreadable media: How audience create value and meaning
in a networked economy, in The Handbook of Media Audiences, edited by V. Nightingale.
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 109–27.
Harrington, C.L. and Bielby, D.D. 2007. Global fandom/global fan studies, in Fandom: Identities
and Communities in a Mediated World, edited by J. Gray, C. Sandvoss and C.L. Harrington.
New York: New York University Press, 179–97.
Herman E. and McChesney R. 2000. The global media, in The Global Transformations Reader:
An Introduction to the Globalization Debate, edited by D. Held and A. McGrew. Cambridge:
Polity, 216–29.
Hills, M. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge.
Hu, K. 2006. The power of circulation: Digital technologies and the online Chinese fans of
Japanese TV drama. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 6(2), 171–86.
Huang, S. 2011. Nation-branding and transnational consumption: Japan-mania and the
Korean wave in Taiwan. Media, Culture & Society, 33(1), 3–18.
Iwabuchi, K. 2002. Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism.
London: Duke University Press.
Iwabuchi, K. 2010. Undoing inter-national fandom in the age of brand nationalism.
Mechademia, 5, 87–96.
Jenkins, H. 1992a. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge.
Jenkins, H. 1992b. ‘Strangers no more, we sing’: Filking and the social construction of science
fiction fan community, in The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by
L.A. Lewis. London: Routledge, 208–36.
Jenkins, H. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York
University Press.
Jensen, J. 1992. Fandom as pathology: The consequences of characterization, in The Adoring
Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by L.A. Lewis. London: Routledge, 9–29.
Jung, E.-Y. 2009. Traditional Korea: A critical assessment of the Korean wave in Asia and the
United States. Southeast Review of Asian Studies, 31, 69–80.
Jung, S. 2011. K-pop, Indonesian fandom, and social media. Transformative Works and Cultures,
8(1) [Online]. Available at: http://journal.transformativeworks.com/index.php/twc/article/
view/289/219 [accessed: 13 June 2012].
KCC UK. 2012. K-pop academy: Course outline [Online: Korean Cultural Centre UK]. Available
at: http://www.kccuk.org.uk/navigator.do?menuCode=200901120051&action=VIEW&se
q=39996&promImg&subImg [accessed: 29 June 2012].
Kozinets, R.V. 2001. Utopian enterprise: Articulating the meanings of Star Trek ’s culture of
consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 28(1), 67–88.
Lam, P.E. 2007. Japan’s quest for ‘soft power’: Attraction and limitation. East Asia, 24(4), 349–63.
Lee, H.-K. 2009. Between fan culture and copyright infringement: Manga scanlation. Media,
Culture & Society, 31(6): 1011–22.
Lee, H.-K. 2010. Cultural consumer and copyright: A case study of anime fansubbing.
Creative Industries Journal, 3(3), 237–52.
Lee, H.-K. 2011. Participatory media fandom: A case study of anime fansubbing. Media,
Culture & Society, 33(8), 1131–47.
Leonard, S. 2005. Progress against the law: Anime and fandom, with the key to the
globalization of culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 8(3), 281–305.
Lopez-Pumarejo, T. 2007. Telenovela and the Israeli television market. Television & New
Media, 8(3), 197–212.
McGray, D. 2002. Japan’s gross national cool. Foreign Policy, 130, 44–54.

206
 T R A N S N AT I O N A L C U LT U R A L FA N D O M

METI 2011. Creating a New Japan [online: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry]. Available
at: http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/mono_info_service/creative_industries/creative_
industries.html [accessed: 3 July 2012].
Mōri, Y. 2008. Winter Sonata and cultural practices of active fans in Japan: Considering middle-
aged women as cultural agents, in East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave,
edited by B.H. Chua and K. Iwabuchi. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 127–42.
Napier, S. 2007. From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the Mind of the
West. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Nye, J.S. 2004. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs.
Patten, F. 2004. Watching Anime and Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews. Berkeley,
CA: Stone Bridge Press.
Prahalad, C.K. and Ramaswamy, V. 2004. Co-creating unique value with customers. Strategy
& Leadership, 32(3), 4–9.
Ritzer, G. and Jurgensen, N. 2010. Production, consumption, presumption. Journal of
Consumer Culture, 10(1), 13–36.
Schwabach, A. 2011. Fan Fiction and Copyright: Outsider Works and Intellectual Property
Protection. Farnham: Ashgate.
Sung, S.-Y. 2010. Constructing a new image. Hallyu in Taiwan. European Journal of East Asian
Studies, 9(1), 25–45.
Thompson, J.B. 2000. The globalization of communication, in The Global Transformations
Reader: An Introduction to the Globalization Debate, edited by D. Held and A. McGrew,
Cambridge: Polity, 202–15.
Thussu, D.K. (ed.) 2007. Media on the Move: Global Flow and Contra-Flow. London: Routledge.
Tsai, E. 2007. Caught in the terrains: An inter-referential inquiry of trans-border stardom and
fandom. Inter-Asian Cultural Studies, 8(1), 135–54.
Tsutomu, S. 2008. Japan’s creative industries: Culture as source of soft power in the industrial
sector, in Soft Power Super Power: Culture and National Assets of Japan and the United States,
edited by W. Yasushi and D. McConnell. London: M.E. Shape, 128–53.
Tushnet, R. 2007. Copyright law, fan practices, and the rights of the author, in Fandom:
Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, edited by J. Gray, C. Sandvoss and
C.L. Harrington. New York: New York University Press, 60–71.
Yao, M. 2009. Fan subtitlers deliver online flicks super-fast to Chinese viewers. Shanghai Daily
[Online 10 December 2009]. Available at: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/feature/Fan-
subtitlers-deliver-online-flicks-superfast-to-Chinese-viewers/shdaily.shtml [accessed: 22
August 2013].
Zwick, D., Bonsu, S.K. and Darmody, A. 2008. Putting consumers to work. Journal of Consumer
Culture, 8(2), 163–96.

207