Last week, I received confirmation that the Digital Anthropology group – DANG – panel was accepted for the American Anthropological Association 2013 Conference. As a reminder, I’ll be discussing the necessity of conflict in refining the values and goals of a fandom online. My paper (presentation) is titled “It boils down to respect”: Defining the values of a fandom through conflict online.

My abstract begins: “Increasingly, social media allows users to connect their online behaviors to physical practices in pursuit of collective goals. In these digital public spaces, communities of practice are able to bypass geographic and temporal boundaries. For U.S. Women National soccer team (USWNT) fans, Tumblr offers a digital realm in which multimodal communication unfolds – and quite often, conflict arises. Through online ethnography and discourse analysis, this study examines conflict as essential to refining USWNT fandom values; however, conflict also jeopardizes the participatory practices that define the fandom.”

The presentation is limited in time (15 min!!), which means a very focused and limited scope of discussion. I anticipate presenting a version of the discussion I have already prepared – focusing on the specific ways in which the fandom policies the “USWNT” tag and reinforces attribution or “sources.” These activities are borne out through messaging, anonymous posts, and text posts in the tag. These are really significant moments of productive conflict and help articulate group-defined “appropriate” behavior. Yet these conflicts also threaten archiving and sharing habits; spoiler alert: some fans refuse to continue to share, while others stop using tags which are used to refresh fan knowledge. Therefore, a delicate balance of conflict must be maintained, as too much discord threatens to dry one data stream through which fandom knowledge is developed.

I’ll share more of my preparations closer to November. Get in touch if you are heading to Chicago for AAA 2013, too –

Windy City, here we come!