Abstract

ALVAREZ GANDOLFI, Federico. Culturas fan y cultura masiva: Prácticas e identidades juveniles de otakus y gamers. Trama comun. [online]. 2015, vol.19, n.1, pp.45-65. ISSN 1668-5628.

This work aims to give an account of how fans of anime or Japanese animated series -self-described otakus- and fans of Japanese video games -self-described gamers- create their own and shared symbolic universe around common media products and sociocultural practices, having the opportunity to construct youth identities that are different from one another over it. The interest about the significations produced by these fans arises from the boom of Japanese mass culture in Argentina, demonstrated, for example, in the transmission of anime by Telefe and Canal 9 -national over-the-air television networks-, in cycles organized by the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires and in documentaries of Encuentro Channel -managed by the Argentinian Ministry of Education-, as well as in the institutional promotion of video games at Tecnopolis -national art, science and technology exhibition- the Buenos Aires International Book Fair and the Cultural Agenda of the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. Thus it is necessary to think about the uses and reappropriations of Japanese mass culture objects that young fans who live in the city of Buenos Aires make, from a socioanthropological and communicational perspective. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the different practices developed around the consumption of these products are framed within global flows that generate intercultural processes of identities construction, enrolled at the same time in intracultural power relations and alternative processes of cultural production.

Keywords : Fans; Mass culture; Youth identities; Otakus; Gamers.

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