SOC365: Driessen, Simone (2022). Campaign Problems: How Fans React to Taylor Swift’s Controversial: Popular Culture, SUSS, Singapore

• Do you think celebrities such as Taylor Swift should be celebrity politicians?
• To what extent can they influence political outcomes?
• Consider different political systems. Can their political message/s and status sustain in these systems? Have there been instances where celebrities tried to influence political outcomes in Singapore or the Southeast Asian region? Have they been successful? How have they negotiated the systems?
• How have their fans reacted to their political awakening or activism?

In this assignment, you will have to conduct fieldwork in the form of qualitative
research in order to answer the above question.

You may conduct research that include but are not limited to the following:

• Participant observation of a popular culture phenomenon or event
• Interviews with experts such as film scholars, or practitioners of popular culture, such as filmmakers, musicians, novelists and footballers.
• Focus group discussions (FGDs) with fans or practitioners of popular culture

If you are conducting interviews and/or focus group discussions, you should:

• Conduct 3 to 5 individual interviews, or 2 groups of 2 or 3 participants per FGD.
• The minimum number of individual interviews to be conducted is 3, and that of FGD groups is 2.
• Aim for rich interview data to provide insights that will address the ECA question.
• Record any fieldwork impressions and analyse the findings as soon as possible after each interview.

If you are carrying out participant observation, you should:

• Contextualise your observation within a specific setting, be it geographical or temporal for a more focused analysis
• Record any fieldwork impressions and analyse the findings as soon as possible after each interview.