The Labor Transformation and Alienation Mechanism of Fan Culture in the Platform Society
Abstract
This study examines the alienation mechanism of fan cultural practices within the platform society, investigating how the technical architecture and commercial logic of new media platforms transform participatory culture, rooted in emotion and community, into digital labor. Besides, the study explores how this process affects fans' identity, reinforces group cohesion, and triggers social phenomena such as information cocoons and group polarization. Specifically, by reviewing existing literature, this paper analyzes, from the perspectives of the political economy of communication and mediatization theory, how platforms shift the environment of cultural participation towards one of data labor. It examines how algorithmic recommendation, quantitative indicators, and competitive rules constitute the technical mechanism of laborization. Furthermore, it discusses how fans, as active agents, reconstruct their identity and sense of community belonging by internalizing data logic, thereby becoming active labor subjects. The findings indicate that this interactive process fosters highly cohesive yet exclusionary digital communities, leading to collective consequences such as cognitive narrowing and social segmentation.
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