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Uncovering Online Commenting Culture pp 27–46Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

You Either Love It or You Hate It! The Emotional and Affective Factors of Commenting

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Abstract

Fan studies can reveal a lot about how our online-commenting behaviour is guided by emotion and affect. Drawing on certain fundamental and interconnected areas of fandom—creative production; belonging and identity; play and pleasure; and emotion and affect—this chapter will chart some of the influences that drive us to make comments, and the investment that even “lurkers”, or those simply reading the comments, make in virtual communities. Certain stimuli, such as a news story or a comment by another user, can create “affect contagion”, where events gain momentum and comments can multiply in number and affective engagement.

[F]andom is everywhere and all the time, a central part of the everyday lives of consumers operating within a networked society.

Jenkins (2007, p. 361)

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  1. Faculty of Arts, Business and Law, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia

    Renee Barnes

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Barnes, R. (2018). You Either Love It or You Hate It! The Emotional and Affective Factors of Commenting. In: Uncovering Online Commenting Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70235-3_2

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