Communication Style of Fans for Boy’s love Thai Television Series Actors.

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study 1) characteristics of the fans boy lover thai television series actors and 2) communication style of the fans boy lover Thai television series actors. It is qualitative research. The tool is an in-depth interview with semi-structured open-ended questions. The key informants, 28 person in Bangkok Metropolitan region, are fans of boy lover thai television series, 2gether The Series, Love Mechanics and Theory of Love. The researcher identified the first key informant, next step using word-of-mouth referrals to select the next key informant of other fans, the snowball technique. And non-participatory observations until data saturation. Presented by descriptive 28. 

The results of the research found that key informants, age between 13 and 35 year, 24 females and 4 LGBTQ. There are 2 characteristics of the fan club, Main fans, who participate in communication and role of the messenger and informing the movement of the group continuously, and general fans club, who love the work and like the actors, according to the press, may not interact deeply, tend to receive information from the main fans. Reasons for joining are; 1) need to support actors, 2) need to have a power to communicate to the actors and 3) need to promote marketing to the actors. There are 2 directions of fandom communication, linear communication; notification of schedule and group activities and circular communication, exchanging opinions about the actors, creating cooperation activities. There are 3 types of communication styles of boy’s love thai television series actor’s fans; 1) Intra Communication is the starting point for the individual to intra communicate, the content communicated includes the details of the series and actors. 2) Communication between fans and fans, communication content includes information on dates, times and locations of performers' reception, encouragement, and travel advice. Media used include online media such as Twitter, Instagram and Line. and 3) Communication between fans and actors, the content communicated included sending encouragement, wishing birthday wishes, congratulating graduation, organizing birthday activities, and making merit. Media used were online media, event media, and mass media.