한국 여성 '스포츠 팬'에 관한 연구 : 해외 축구 디지털 팬덤을 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines the fandom practices of Korean female fans who follow overseas football leagues, focusing on how gender, nationalism, and racialized affects intersect and are negotiated within digital sports fandom spaces. Specifically, the study explores how Korean female fans construct their fan subjectivities, mobilize cultural repertoires, and engage in symbolic struggles over 'authentic fandom' within a field historically structured by male-dominated norms. The research is based on a digital ethnography of the social media platform X and Interviews with Korean female fans who regularly consume overseas football content.
The findings reveal that Korean female football fans have developed a distinctive fan culture by transplanting cultural repertoires from idol fandom into the domain of sports fandom. Practices such as fan-produced content creation, translation networks, and the production of unofficial merchandise not only expand female fans' visibility but also challenge the masculinized standards of expertise that have long defined sports fandom. While valuing professionalism and effort as core attributes of players, female fans reinterpret athletes' narratives through affective and relational frameworks, thereby producing alternative discourses of sports stardom.
At the same time, female fans' efforts to prove themselves as 'real fans' constitute a form of gendered symbolic struggle. As female fans intervene in areas traditionally monopolized by male fans—such as tactical analysis and statistical knowledge—through affective labor and information production, struggles emerge over how 'true fandom' should be defined. However, this challenge remains ambivalent, as female fans simultaneously contest and partially internalize dominant masculine criteria in order to secure legitimacy. Furthermore, while resisting external gendered evaluations, female fans engage in internal boundary-making by distinguishing between 'Sasaeng fans(Obsessive fans),' 'Ak-gae(solo stans),' and 'ordinary fans,' thereby reproducing new hierarchies within female fandom spaces. Such internal regulation functions both as a defensive strategy against external stigmatization and as a mechanism of self-surveillance rooted in the desire for moral recognition.
Female fans' practices of care and defense—such as collecting and responding to malicious comments, verifying and refuting rumors, and circulating positive narratives—are not merely expressions of emotional attachment but constitute political interventions in public discourse. These practices reappropriate gendered forms of care labor while transforming them into active modes of participation in struggles over representation and power. Simultaneously, female fans' affective practices are embedded in complex configurations of nationalism and racism. While critically distancing themselves from overt nationalism, fans often translate the success of Korean players into narratives of national pride. Likewise, although they articulate critiques of the whiteness and hierarchical structures of European football, they may also reproduce these structures through selective support and uneven solidarities. This ambivalence highlights how fan affects are shaped by entangled regimes of national belonging and racial hierarchy.
This study contributes to the literature on sports fandom, gender, and nationalism by conceptualizing sports fandom as a political field in which gendered power relations and affective struggles are continuously negotiated. By foregrounding Korean female fans' transnational fandom practices and examining the intersection of idol fandom and sports fandom, the study demonstrates how female fan cultural repertoires travel across domains and are recontextualized in global cultural industries. In doing so, it challenges linear assumptions that transnational sports consumption necessarily leads to post-national identities and instead reveals the contested and layered nature of fan subjectivity in a globalized sports culture.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• I 서론 1
• 1. 연구 목적과 배경 1
• 2. 선행연구 검토 7
• 1) 여성 팬덤에 관한 연구 8
• 2) 글로벌 스포츠 팬덤에 관한 연구 15
• 3) 여성 스포츠 팬덤에 관한 연구 22
• 3. 연구 방법 및 대상 30
• 1) 연구 방법 31
• 2) 연구 대상 40
• II. 이론적 논의 44
• 1. 글로벌 스포츠 팬덤과 민족주의 44
• 2. 글로벌 스포츠 팬덤과 젠더 52
• III 여성 해외 축구 팬덤의 형성과 실천: 아이돌 팬덤화의 양상 61
• 1. 한국 내 해외 축구 팬덤의 형성과 여성 팬의 유입 61
• 1) 디지털 환경 속 한국 내 해외 축구 팬덤의 형성 62
• 2) 한국 내 여성 팬들의 유입과 확장 66
• 2. 아이돌화된 시각 중심 소비와 디지털 창작 활동으로의 확장 72
• 1) 감상의 재구성과 의미화 과정 72
• 2) 디지털 팬 창작 활동과 2차 콘텐츠 유통 77
• 3. 서사적 감정 동일시와 주체적 팬 실천 87
• 1) 감정적 돌봄과 팬-선수 간 정서적 유대 88
• 2) 감정의 실천화: 직접적인 선수 지원 99
• 4. 소결: 스포츠 스타의 아이돌 팬덤화 현상 111
• IV 젠더의 정치학 속 여성 팬덤의 실천 115
• 1 주변화에서 주체화로: 여성 팬의 위치성과 욕망의 정당화 115
• 1) 남성 중심 팬덤의 여성 팬 배제와 대응 116
• 2) 스포츠 팬으로서 '욕망하는 팬덤'의 등장 126
• 2 여성 팬의 다양성과 새로운 규범의 형성 134
• 1) 여성 팬덤의 이상적 남성성 구성 134
• 2) 여성 팬 커뮤니티 내의 규범적 팬다움과 내부 검열 145
• 3 소결: 스포츠 팬덤 내 젠더 갈등과 여성 팬의 대응 151
• V 여성 팬덤과 민족·인종의 교차성 155
• 1 여성 팬덤의 감정 실천과 민족주의의 일상적 재현 155
• 1) 해외 리그 속 국가대표 정체성의 지속과 상징적 개인 156
• 2) 윤리적 요구의 교차 : '세계적 선수'와 '국가대표' 사이에서 164
• 3) 경쟁적 민족주의와 일본 선수의 타자화 174
• 2 인종화된 타자성과 문화적 위계 182
• 1) 유럽 축구의 백인 중심성과 '축구 선진국' 담론의 내면화 183
• 2) 차별적 질서 흔들기: 감정 실천과 저항의 장 192
• 3) 타인종에 대한 선택적 연대 199
• 3 소결: 여성 팬덤의 민족적·인종적 경계 넘기 실천 205
• Ⅵ 결론 208
• 참고문헌 213
• 부록 244
• Abstract 250