Civic Engagement Intention and the Data-Driven Fan Community: Investigating the Motivation Behind Chinese Fans’ Online Data-Making Behavior From a Collective Action Perspective

Abstract

Enabled by social media, the data frenzy in the data-driven fandom culture in China has attracted widespread attention. Unlike most forms of data labor and fan activities, Chinese fans’ online data-making behavior ( zuoshuju ) appears tedious, time- and money-consuming, and overwhelmingly irrational. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the sociopsychological motivation of fans’ online data-making behavior from a collective action perspective. Based on survey data from 588 respondents with fandom experiences online in China, this study (1) distinguished two types of online data-making (operational and monetary); (2) suggested that celebrity worship and civic engagement intention were antecedents of online data-making; and (3) found that fan communities facilitated by social media bridged the effects of sociopsychological factors and data-making behavior. This research introduced the collective action perspective and constructed a quantitative path model to test the underlying mechanism and impetus of fans’ data-making practices in China, adding quantitative support to the knowledge of the hybrid pattern of collective actions embedded in the datafication world. It contributes to the understanding of Chinese youth culture and civic engagement through social media.