The interweaving of network nationalism and transnational cultural consumption: the role conflict of K-pop fans

ABSTRACTAs the patriotism interweaves with emotional attachment produced by cross-cultural communications, K-pop fans influenced by network nationalism will fall into the predicament of role conflict and adopt multiple coping strategies, hence providing new ideas for revealing the results of overlapped fields of politics and entertainment. Analysis of fans’ behaviors in a series of nationalistic events establishes that these fans attempting to form an emotional community across the border are caught in a dilemma of identity choice with various role expectations. The consequences of the choice are related to some factors such as patriotic cognition, fans’ immersion, fans’ expectations, patriots’ expectations, and risk perception, leading to four attitude tendencies including spontaneous patriotism, compromise patriotism, gentle star-worship, and resistance star-worship. This study argues that precautions should be taken against the tendency that network nationalism transforms into narrow nationalism and that we need to understand the political potential of fandom as a cultural community.KEYWORDS: Network nationalismrole conflictK-pop fansemotional experiencetransnational cultural consumption AcknowledgementsThe author would like to extend her gratitude to the Editors and anonymous Reviewers for their enlightening comments and suggestions on this article. She also thanks Dr Yichi Zhang from Tsinghua University for fruitful discussion and help with paper writing.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsYuxin XiaYuxin Xia received her PhD degree from the College of Media and International Culture of Zhejiang University (China) in 2023. Her research interests include cross-cultural communication, media sociology and political communication.