1st Edition

Fandom in Marginalized Communities Rethinking Media Effects and Fans

Edited By Leah Dajches, Jennifer Stevens Aubrey Copyright 2026
242 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

242 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

242 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

An innovative edited collection which examines fandom in marginalized communities from an empirically based, media psychology perspective. This book specifically focuses on fandom communities and cultures as spaces for marginalized individuals – LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and more – to gather, engage with one another, and create their own representation to disrupt dominant, societal discourse as presented... Read more

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors

Preface

Melissa Click

Introduction

Jennifer Stevens Aubrey and Leah Dajches

Section 1: Theoretical Advances in Fandom Media Effects 

Introduction

1.  Fan Identity and Narrative Engagement with Fictional Texts

Laramie Taylor

2. A Social Identity Approach to Popular Media Fandom: An Integrative Review 

Elizabeth L. Cohen and Timothy Bobbitt

3. Beyond the Fandom: Exploring Identity and Media Effects Among BIPOC Fans 

Meghan S. Sanders

4. The Stories We Love and the Stories We Live: A Narrative Identity Approach to studying Marginalized Adolescents in Fandoms 

Kausumi Saha and Jennifer Stevens Aubrey

Section 2: Individual Fandom Communities and Media Effects 

Introduction

Subsection A: Historically Marginalized Communities and Fandom

5. Unlocking Disney's Vault: Fanship, Nostalgia, and Parental Mediation

Timothy Luisi, Monique Luisi, and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz

6. Anti-Hero or Pro-Social Inspiration?: Taylor Swift, Fandom, and Pro-Social Behavioral Intentions

Gwendelyn Nisbett

7. The Power of Parasocial Relationships: Navigating the Intersection of Fandoms and Black Men’s Mental Health through HBO’s Insecure 

Tieranni Parquet and Julie Watson

Subsection B: Mainstream Fans and Fandom Effects

8. Beyond Dunder Mifflin: The Relationships between Fandom, Parasocial Relationships, and Depression in The Office Fans 

Tracy R. Worrell and Sawyer Tehan

9. “We’re Richmond till We Die”: Disrupting American Sport Exceptionalism through Fictional Sport Fandom

Jeffrey W. Kassing and Hazel M. Morales-Ramirez

10. Staying Sexy and not Getting Murdered: True Crime’s Influence on Perceptions of Crime and Policy Attitudes  

Sofia Rhea and Laramie Taylor

Section 3: Innovative Methodological Approaches to Fandom 

Introduction

11. Queering Mainstream Superheroes: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Shipping in Marvel Cinematic Universe Fanfiction

Hayley McCullough

12. Fanvids in Memoriam: A Conditional Process Model of Parasocial Grief, Retrospective Imaginative Involvement and Meaning-Making Coping in Response to  a Fictional Character’s Death 

Hailey Scherer and Elizabeth L. Cohen, and Yixi Zhou

13. Let’s Talk About Sex: Erotic Education through Explicit Fanfiction 

Emily E. D’Antonio, Hayley McCullough, and Jennifer Pollitt

14. Subverting Mainstream Media Messages through Queer Readings

Leah Dajches

Index

Biography

Leah Dajches is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at New Mexico State University, USA. Her research examines the effects of popular culture and media on the health and wellbeing of young people, fans, and marginalized communities and has been published in journals such as Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Children and Media, and Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, among others. Leah teaches courses such as media theory and effects, communication technologies, and persuasion theory and practice.

Jennifer Stevens Aubrey is Professor of Communication at the University of Arizona, USA. Her research examines adolescents and the media, and media effects and the individual, and has been published in journals such as Mass Communication and Society, Psychology of Popular Media, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, among others. She teaches courses on mass communication theory, children and the media, and media effects.