Lazarus Rises: Storying the Self in the Migrant Fandom of David Bowie

Authors

Keywords:

David Bowie, popular music, stardom and celebrity, music fandom, media cultures, audience and reception studies

Abstract

In this article we focus upon the ways that “migrants” in Melbourne have used David Bowie to story and make sense of their arrival to Australia, often as refugees or as people looking for a better life. In relation to identity and belonging, some recent work on music fandom (Groene and Hettinger 2015; Lowe 2003), has imposed a meta-frame on the empirical method, substituting voices for a top-down analysis and interpretation. Our approach is to instead draw both upon auto-ethnography and to allow our fellow fans to “story” their own responses, in an attempt to get beneath the modes of feeling that music fandom ignites – situated within the narratives that people construct as they talk these stories. We argue that Bowie’s alternative and outsider status resonates keenly with people who find themselves “strangers” in a new land. Keywords: David Bowie, popular music, stardom and celebrity, music fandom, media cultures, audience and reception studies

Author Biography

Toija Cinque, Deakin University

Toija Cinque is a senior lecturer in Screen and Design and Course Director, Bachelor of Communication (Digital Media), at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Cinque’s main research interest lies in exploring the intersections between social media, digital media, legacy media and communications with other studies in history, statistics, music fandom, stardom and celebrity, audience and reception studies, communications policy, media law and economics. Her works include Changing Media Landscapes: Visual Networking (2015), the co-written Communication, Digital Media and Everyday Life, 2nd edition (2015), and; Enchanting David Bowie: Space/Time/Body/Memory (2015), Toija Cinque, Christopher Moore and Sean Redmond (eds) Bloomsbury, New York. Cinque edits 'New Scholar: International Journal of the Humanities, Creative Arts and Social Sciences'.

References

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Discography

David Bowie –

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. RCA, UK.

Diamond Dogs. RCA, UK.

Videography

The Man Who Fell to Earth. 1976. Dir. Nicolas Roeg. British Lion Films.

Interviews

Fan Reference Focus Group. 2016. Conducted by Toija Cinque and Sean Redmond. Deakin City Centre, Victoria, Australia, 4 February.

Downloads

Published

08-11-2016

Issue

Section

Articles – Special Issue