Timeline

Everybody is a fan of something. Sports, movies, and other implements of pop culture have been capturing the hearts of fans for decades and changing how we interact with each other through the development of fan communities. Also known as “fandom”, fan communities offer a place for fans of popular culture to meet each other, discuss, and theorize. You may even be in a fan community and not know it; if you’re a member of a Facebook group or follower of a fanpage, you are participating in fandom culture.

With the shift into the digital age of interaction, so too has the scope of fandom shifted, providing a new platform through social media sites for fans to participate in fandom on. Star Wars has long been considered to have the worst community of fans, one particularly exclusionary online subgroup earning itself the nickname “the fandom menace”. Since Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm (the production company that produces Star Wars media) in 2012, Star Wars's most recent installment of films and television shows has endured unprecedented levels of backlash stemming from this subset of fans and has brought into question how the relationship between an entertainment producer and its fanbase can impact or even bring creative endeavors to a halt. The Star Wars fanbase is alive and well, existing on social media platforms including Instagram, Twitter/X, TikTok, and YouTube garnering new fans and revitalizing old ones.

Disney is a powerful, influential cultural producer that engages in cultural imperialism as a means to uphold social hegemony. Stemming from its time as a producer of propaganda to recruit members of American households to understand how their actions supported the Allied Forces during World War II, the company is known for its emotionally charged productions that have changed the way the world thinks about social structures like culture, feminism, and the nuclear family. This phenomena has made its way over to its Star Wars productions since its acquisition of Lucasfilm, but has since developed into a pattern – dubbed by some entertainment moguls an “explosion” – of sequels and “nostalgia bait” occurring directly after The Rise of Skywalker, indicating a shift in Disney’s and thus Hollywood’s focus from original stories to a reliance on emotional nostalgia for the sole purpose of positive fan reception. 

Disney’s exploitation of the emotional capital of its fanbase and why its strategic decisions matter in the outlook of entertainment production as an industry is affected by the role of institutionalism in its communication as an organization. Its organizational structure along with its history as a global entertainment producer demonstrate Disney’s cultural influence by being able to maintain and even alter current social hegemony through its films and television productions. Through analyzing how members of the Star Wars fan community on Twitter interact with and respond to Disney’s communication strategies amongst each other and with agents of Disney, I found that a majority of Star Wars fans following Lucasfilm’s acquisition by Disney in 2013 feel as though Disney’s lack of repercussions for discriminatory behavior upholding the existing oppressive social structure of misogyny.jects seen on the table in front of you were made out of hairy silicon skins. Lights were ultimately chosen to depict the absence of art from the world and the joy, emotion, and introspection it brings about.

Fall Quarter 2024 (COMM 196A Only)