Affective Turn

Definition

The affective turn refers to a shift in focus within the social sciences and humanities towards the study of emotions, feelings, and bodily experiences as central components of human behavior and social interactions. This perspective emphasizes how affect influences identity formation, community building, and cultural practices, especially in contexts like fandom where emotional engagement with media plays a crucial role.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. The affective turn has led to a greater understanding of how emotions shape audience engagement and attachment to media, particularly in fandom contexts.
2. This shift emphasizes the significance of fan practices as emotional expressions, highlighting how fans use media to navigate their own identities and relationships.
3. Research in fandom studies often explores how fans create communities based on shared emotional experiences and how these communities can provide support and validation.
4. Affective engagement can also result in activism, as fans mobilize around emotional connections to their favored media properties, often driving social change.
5. The affective turn challenges traditional notions of rationality in media consumption, suggesting that emotional responses can significantly inform preferences and behaviors.

Review Questions

• How does the affective turn influence our understanding of fan behavior and community dynamics?
  • The affective turn highlights the importance of emotions in shaping fan behavior and community dynamics. It posits that fans engage with media not just intellectually but also emotionally, leading to strong connections with characters, narratives, and fellow fans. These emotional investments foster a sense of belonging and identity within fan communities, creating shared experiences that are often celebrated through collective practices such as conventions, fan fiction, or social media discussions.
• Discuss the implications of the affective turn for traditional narratives about audience consumption of media.
  • The affective turn disrupts traditional narratives that view audiences as passive consumers of media by underscoring the active role emotions play in consumption. It suggests that audiences are not merely interpreting content but are emotionally responding to it in ways that shape their preferences and behaviors. This shift prompts researchers to investigate how emotional attachments can lead to deep-seated loyalty towards particular shows or characters, which can influence broader cultural trends.
• Evaluate how the concept of the affective turn has transformed scholarly approaches to fandom studies and its impact on contemporary media landscapes.
  • The concept of the affective turn has significantly transformed scholarly approaches to fandom studies by emphasizing the centrality of emotions in fan interactions with media. This approach has broadened the understanding of fandom as not just a collection of activities but as emotionally charged experiences that contribute to identity formation and community building. In contemporary media landscapes, this focus on affect has led to the emergence of fan-led initiatives that advocate for representation and inclusivity, illustrating how emotional engagement can catalyze social movements and influence media production.

Related terms

Emotional Labor: The process of managing feelings and expressions to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job, often seen in service industries where employees must maintain a certain emotional state.

Cultural Studies:

An interdisciplinary field that examines cultural phenomena in their social and political contexts, including how culture shapes and is shaped by power dynamics and identities.

Affect Theory: A theoretical framework that studies the non-conscious emotional responses to stimuli, emphasizing how these responses influence thought processes and behavior.