From Affect to Value: The Generative Trajectory of K-Pop Fan Practices and Democratic Meaning

Abstract

During the 2024–2025 impeachment protests in South Korea, practices associated with K-pop fandom entered the civic sphere, as concert light sticks, fan chants, and online mobilization were recontextualized as forms of democratic expression. This article examines how affective intensities cultivated within K-pop fandom are reorganized into collective action and democratic values. Drawing on Greimas’s (1987) generative trajectory of meaning, the study develops a four-level analytical framework—affect, passion, narrative, and value—to trace how affective experience becomes civic practice. The framework is applied to 2,218 narrative statements collected from 118 Korean K-pop fans through an open-ended survey. The analysis shows that fandom is grounded in sensory intensities generated by sound, light, rhythm, and collective immersion. These affects evolve into modalized passions such as responsibility and indignation, motivating practices including donations, boycotts, and participation in demonstrations, through which fans become collective civic actors. As these practices accumulate, they stabilize into ethical and political values, particularly solidarity and democratic responsibility. The study conceptualizes K-pop fandom as a semiotic economy in which affect, practice, and value circulate, demonstrating how fandom can function as an affective infrastructure for democratic meaning-making.