The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom

This companion brings together an internationally and interdisciplinarily diverse group of emerging and established fan studies scholars to reflect on the state of the field and to chart new directions for research.

Engaging an impressive array of media texts and formats, and incorporating a variety of methodologies, this collection is designed to survey, complicate, and expand core concerns. This second edition includes 20 new chapters, 11 revised chapters, and 12 reprinted chapters organized into four main sections: Methods, Ethics and Theoretical Approaches; Fan Practices and Platforms; Identities; and Industry and Labor. Each section features a short introduction that discusses the section’s scope and contributions, highlights the importance of the section’s topic to fan studies, and offers suggestions for further reading.

This collection remains an essential volume for students and scholars interested in fandom and fan studies, popular culture, media studies, and film and television studies.

Melissa A. Click is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Gonzaga University, USA. Her work on fans, audiences, and popular culture has been published in Television & New Media, the International Journal of Communication Studies, Popular Communication, and Popular Music & Society. She is editor of Anti-Fandom: Dislike and Hate in the Digital Age (2019), and the co-editor of Bitten by Twilight (2010).

Suzanne Scott is Associate Professor in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is the author of Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry (2019), and the co-editor of Sartorial Fandom: Fashion, Beauty Culture, and Identity (2023).