Fans have a long history of using their passion for football to fight for change. Whether they help bring down their manager, march on the directors’ entrance at their stadium or push back against plans to commercialize their sport, fans are a force for good. But how do they do it? This issue is full of cutting-edge research that takes fans seriously as political agents and draws on a range of theories of citizenship and democracy to explain what happens when they link their civic engagement with fandom.
As the stories in this special section show, fan activism enables young people to enter and engage with political life through multiple configurations of their media experiences and their sense of community. Fan activist groups like IC and the HPA rely on their members’ powerful investments in a shared media experience to inspire them to act as citizens.
When they do, they often do so in ways that challenge assumptions about how young people participate in civic life. For example, the story of Dave demonstrates how IC recruits by tapping into his sense of identity as a fan while restraining his urge to become more overtly politically active.
The research by our partners at the Center for Media Engagement also reveals how newsrooms can promote positive attitudes toward protesters and their causes. When reporting on a person who is part of a protest, it is important to humanize them by providing a deeper picture of their personality and interests through details such as their hobbies and family. We found that telling a protest story in a way that humanized the teenager who sparked the protest led Democrats and those with Democrat-leaning views to perceive it as more credible. By contrast, stories that dehumanized the teenager had a negative effect on credibility perceptions for Republicans and those with Republican-leaning views.