Study of Emotional Spatial Patterns in Doujin Communities

Abstract

As a new type of cultural community, the emotional space of doujin community has certain specificity. This study conducted a multi-year virtual ethnographic research on 10 different types of doujin communities, and assisted the interviews of eight shippers. In the emotional practice of shippers, two major patterns of emotional interaction are formed, namely, "Shipper & Ship" and "Shipper & Shipper". Under these two patterns, the occurrence of affect, the generation of emotional meaning, the maintenance of emotional interaction, and the fading or ending of emotions are different. The two patterns of emotional interaction are intertwined and work together in a doujin community, and are affected by the source, development status and heat of the ship, which provides shippers with an imaginative space outside of the constraints, and brings about the possibility of constructing a new type of intimate relationship.