Commercialise my footy: how the AFL’s grip on the game shrinks the fans’ role
More and more, the culture of elite, professional footy is characterised by commercialisation and corporatisation.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
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Why sports fans need villains
Many decry 'superteams' like the NBA's Golden State Warriors as bad for the sport. But psychology research shows that they also make us more likely to watch – and bask in the joy of seeing them fail.
Explainer: what is fanfiction?
Fanfiction is nebulous, confusing and often mocked. It's also explosively popular. So what is it?
The glory or the ‘gravel’: what keeps fans flocking to the AFL?
Being a footy fan is not mainly about the glory of a premiership – it is much more about enjoying the gravel-shovelling entailed in each and every season your club goes without success.
The lure of Hamlet – why this is the test of a lifetime for Benedict Cumberbatch
What makes Hamlet the career defining role it is today?
Growth of conventions shows geeks have always wanted to meet up IRL
You might think gamers are a closed, antagonistic and predominantly male-centred group. Fortunately, the reverse is often true.
Meet the English professor who taught fanfic at an Ivy League university
Fifty Shades of Grey and fan fic like it has reached the Ivy League.
Slash fiction, cosplay and Sherlocked: a guide to fandom
The terms of fan culture may seem baffling but once you get the hang of them you'll see it's not all so newfangled.
Sexually transmitted fandom? Why women really follow AFL
Men might believe that women don't have what it takes to be serious sports fans but new research into female AFL fans proves them wrong. Some women are footy converts, some have it in the blood – and some were born to it.
One of the family: Leonard Nimoy’s impact on fandom
Star Trek fans were especially drawn to Leonard Nimoy's Mr. Spock – who showed many that it "was okay to be a nerd, that even in the future not everyone fit in, or needed to."
The ‘mommy porn’ myth: who are the Fifty Shades of Grey fans?
With the release of Fifty Shades of Grey in cinemas this week, serious questions have been raised about whether the film depicts abuse – including on The Conversation. Some feminist groups have staged…
All kneel at the temple of Apple’s latest technology
Just as with all the earlier versions of the iPhone, rumours abound about what Apple will announce this week in relation to iPhone 6 – new screens, different sizes, powerful chips, faster processing and…
Time to lift the shroud of secrecy surrounding football transfers
Transfer deadline day is over for another year. As always, it brought drama galore, with deals thrown together at the last minute, like the “shock” announcement three hours before the deadline that Danny…
Fanatical about football? Watch out, you could be an addict
Why are we so loyal to our national and club football teams? Whatever the results, we tend to support them week in week out, through thick and thin. They can cause us nothing but misery and heartache and…
More than a game: how attached are we to our teams?
At some point, you’ve no doubt heard someone say “football is my religion”. And if we follow French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s famous building blocks for religion, we will find that football is not far…
Top contributors
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Associate Professor in Media Studies and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Monash University
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Senior Lecturer in Sociology, James Cook University
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Lecturer in gender studies, University of Melbourne
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Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Murdoch University
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Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Federation University Australia
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Director of the International Gaming Research Unit and Professor of Behavioural Addiction, Nottingham Trent University
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Senior Lecturer in Sports Media, University of Brighton
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Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Deakin University
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PhD researcher in the fields of Popular Culture and Postcolonialism, University of Western Australia
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Associate Professor of Psychology, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
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Senior Lecturer in Twentieth-Century English Literature, Northumbria University, Newcastle
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Professor in English Studies, University of Stirling
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Research Fellow, University of the West of England
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Allardyce Nicoll Chair in Drama, University of Birmingham
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Professor of Marketing, California State University San Marcos
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