ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to approach eudaimonic happiness studies to the consumption of fictional products in cinema and television. As currently established by fandom studies, media fans live a full consumption of their favorite audiovisual content. They are spectators who create a deep emotional and cognitive bond with the product, especially if we compare them to non-fan spectators. For this reason, it is particularly interesting to connect positive communication studies with active audiences or fan studies.
The chapter takes as starting point a previous work (Lozano Delmer, Sánchez-Martín, & Muñiz-Velázquez, 2016) that compared the eudaimonic motivations of Spanish fan audience with non-fans. For this purpose, the Eudaimonic Spectator Questionnaire was designed and validated. This questionnaire allowed us to observe two factors of eudaimonic motivations (the cultivation of cognitive-intellectual growth and social-emotional growth) among the Spanish spectators who considered themselves fans. This work intends to continue exploring these two factors of eudaimonia and to link them with several items related to the definition and identity of the fan himself, such as loving the product, collecting, experiencing, watching, and knowing the universe.
Therefore, the main objective of this chapter is to link the fan identity items (what it is to be a fan) with the cultivation of cognitive-intellectual growth and social-emotional growth. At the same time, a sociodemographic profile of the participants will be obtained.
