Communication in online fan communities: The Ethics of Intimate Strangers

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dc.contributor.author James, Christine
dc.date.accessioned 2022-08-15T20:54:09Z
dc.date.available 2022-08-15T20:54:09Z
dc.date.issued 2011
dc.identifier.citation James, Christine (2011). Communication in online fan communities: The Ethics of Intimate Strangers. Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 2(2), 279–289. https://doi.org/10.1386/ejpc.2.2.279_1 en_US
dc.identifier.other 10.1386/ejpc.2.2.279_1
dc.identifier.uri https://hdl.handle.net/10428/5753
dc.description James, Christine (2011). Communication in online fan communities: The Ethics of Intimate Strangers. Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication, 2(2), 279–289. 1 electronic record (PDF). en_US
dc.description.abstract Dan O’Brien gives an excellent analysis of testimonial knowledge transmission in his article ‘Communication Between Friends’ (2009) noting that the reliability of the speaker is a concern in both externalist and internalist theories of knowledge. O’Brien focuses on the belief states of Hearers (H) in cases where the reliability of the Speaker (S) is known via ‘intimate trust’, a special case pertaining to friendships with a track record of reliable or unreliable reports. This article considers the notion of ‘intimate trust’, specifically in the context of online fan communities, in which the amount of time as a member of an online fan community and the extent of one’s posting history often results in something like ‘intimate trust’ between fans who are, for all other purposes, strangers. In the last two years, Twitter has provided a number of celebrities with a place to update fans and ‘tweet’ back and forth an innumerable number of times in any given day. This accentuates the intimacy to such a level that it becomes a ‘caricature of intimacy’ – the minute-to-minute updates accentuate the illusion that the fan ‘knows’ the celebrity, but the distance and mediation are still carefully maintained. This is an issue with both ethical and epistemological implications for fan-fan and fan-celebrity relationships online, considering ethics of care and ethics of justice, whether fans ‘owe’ celebrities a certain amount of distance and respect, and whether stars owe the fan something in return, either in the sense of reciprocal Kantian duties or Aristotelian moderation. en_US
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf en_US
dc.language.iso en_US en_US
dc.publisher Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries ua-8-12-1_er003;001
dc.rights © 2010 Intellect Ltd Article. en_US
dc.subject Aristotle en_US
dc.subject intimacy en_US
dc.subject reliabilism en_US
dc.subject erotomania en_US
dc.subject social networking en_US
dc.title Communication in online fan communities: The Ethics of Intimate Strangers en_US
dc.type Text en_US


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