Affective Labor Literature Review

Literature Review

Since this work aims to take on a new approach to fandom studies, namely putting male idols under the framework of affective labor and focusing on the emerging relationships between fans and idols, several theories need to be addressed in this section.

First we need to consider not only what affective labor is and how it can be applied in this case study but also look at other parts of the Japanese entertainment industry where affective labor is visible. Hardly any attention has been paid to this connection and therefore affective labor is rarely explicitly mentioned but the thought of affective labor being a key element to Japanese entertainment industry should become clear throughout this chapter. A second important point

Affective labor is becoming more and more important in many economies and a lot of workers - whether consciously or unconsciously - engage in it. But how exactly is affective labor defined. Affective labor is often also called emotional labor or immaterial labor. Hochschild described the labor of flight attendants and bill collectors in an attempt to give an ample description of what emotional labor is and how it works. According to her

"the term emotional labor ...mean[s] the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display; emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value. I use the synonymous terms emotion work or emotion management to refer to these same acts done in a private context where they have use value. " (Hochschild 2003, p.7)

Lazzarato talks about "immaterial labor, which is defined as the labor that produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity" (Lazzarato 1996, p.p.132). Hardt defines affective labor as work that "produces...social networks, forms of community, biopower" (Hardt 1999,

"Jobs of this type have three characteristics in common. First, they require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public. Second, they require the worker to produce an emotional state in another person - gratitude or fear, for example. Third, they allow the employer, through training and supervision, to exercise a degree of control over the emotional activities of employees." (Hochschild 2003,