{"id":2124098,"date":"2025-10-30T04:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2124098"},"modified":"2025-10-30T04:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:30:13","slug":"celebrity-endorsements-can-drive-advocacy-by-fans-vcu-researcher-finds-vcu-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/celebrity-endorsements-can-drive-advocacy-by-fans-vcu-researcher-finds-vcu-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity endorsements can drive advocacy by fans, VCU researcher finds – VCU News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n By Madeline Reinsel
\n<\/p>\n

The South Korean boy band BTS boasts a fanbase of tens of millions of dedicated listeners, known for their devotion to the group and its social causes. New research<\/a> from Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Baobao Song<\/a>, Ph.D., finds that endorsements and advocacy campaigns from BTS and other celebrities could change fans\u2019 advocacy behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cA fan might think, \u2018I\u2019m involved in this because my celebrity is advocating for it. I want to see them succeed. I want the fandom to succeed,\u2019\u201d said Song, who studies corporate social responsibility as an assistant professor in VCU\u2019s Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture<\/a> in the College of Humanities and Sciences. \u201cSo that\u2019s why we singled out fandom as the subject for this study, because fans naturally are already attached to the celebrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song, who herself is a BTS superfan, wanted to find out if celebrity advocacy campaigns can actually cause fans to change their behavior. She focused on BTS because the band\u2019s large, international fanbase, referred to as the BTS ARMY, is known for being extremely engaged with the band and active online \u2014 in 2020, ARMY members matched BTS\u2019 $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter within 24 hours, unprompted by the band.<\/p>\n

The seven-member musical group also has a history of appealing to their fans in advocacy campaigns. In 2017, BTS worked with UNICEF to launch the \u201cLove Myself\u201d campaign, serving as global ambassadors to combat youth violence and promote self-esteem in young people. In 2021, the musical group addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the global organization\u2019s sustainable development goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s unique about BTS fans is that they are highly participative in their content creation,\u201d Song said. \u201cUsually, we see fandoms as content consumers, but BTS fans have a very high interest in producing their own content and connecting with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song wanted to assess how the band\u2019s ongoing partnership with the U.N. influences BTS fans\u2019 intentions to engage in sustainability volunteering and advocacy work. Song and the study\u2019s co-author, Minhee Choi, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, first interviewed BTS fans in both the U.S. and South Korea. Then, they recruited Gen Z and millennial adults from the U.S. who self-identified as BTS fans to participate in an online survey.<\/p>\n

The survey\u2019s questions centered on the respondents\u2019 general perceptions of celebrity, fandom interactions and fandom advocacy, as well as on their own identification as a member of the BTS ARMY and the BTS ARMY\u2019s participatory culture. The respondents were then presented with information about BTS\u2019 advocacy for the U.N.\u2019s sustainable development goals and asked about their own sustainability intentions.<\/p>\n

The 424 survey responses supported the idea that celebrity endorsements shape the behavioral intentions of their fans. That effect was driven by three factors: interdependence between fans and the celebrity, the fans\u2019 individual identification within the fandom, and the fandom\u2019s norms.<\/p>\n

And while not all celebrity fandoms are as large and influential as BTS\u2019, other celebrities can still use the power of their fandoms to push their own social goals. The findings could be especially important for organizations hoping to work with celebrities to advance their causes.<\/p>\n

However, Song said, brands and organizations should be aware that celebrities need to have a strong personal connection with their fans, like that of BTS and the BTS ARMY, for their advocacy to actually change behavior and intentions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you maximize the benefits of a celebrity partnership?\u201d Song said. \u201cYou may want to understand whether the fans and the celebrity have an interdependence that is strong enough to motivate their fans to follow the celebrity in actual behavior to support your cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song\u2019s research was funded by the Page Center at Pennsylvania State University\u2019s Bellisario College of Communications.<\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news.vcu.edu \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Madeline Reinsel The South Korean boy band BTS boasts a fanbase of tens of millions of dedicated listeners, known for their devotion to the group and its social causes. New research from Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Baobao Song, Ph.D., finds that endorsements and advocacy campaigns from BTS and other celebrities could change fans\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2124099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2124098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Celebrity-endorsements-can-drive-advocacy-by-fans-VCU-researcher-finds.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2124100,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124098\/revisions\/2124100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2124099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}