Blank Space: Taylor Swift and Contingent Identities

by Keith Nainby California State University, Stanislaus

Overview

Blank Space: Taylor Swift and Contingent Identities examines Taylor Swift’s art, her public image, and Swiftie fan communities. It features discussions of several Swift songs, with attention to the poetic effects created by their lyrics. The author argues that these songs offer a consistent focus, throughout Swift’s career to date, on personal identities that evolve through relationships with particular other people. He shows how in Swift’s songs, narrators reflect on how their identities change over time—even in some cases, over the course of the song. The book builds on this discussion of Swift’s art to consider the artist’s image, exploring how multiple forces interact to shape this image and give it meaning—forces including the artist’s management team as well as critics and fans. According to the author, the distinctive characteristics of Swft’s art and Swift’s public image help to create the unique Swiftie fan communities that have emerged and flourished. The book includes two different studies of Swifties’ communication practices, one centering online interactions and the second in-depth interviews with Swifties. It concludes with attention to the implications of Swift’s selection as Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781666942729
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	08/15/2024
Series:	For the Record: Lexington Studies in Rock and Popular Music
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264

About the Author

Keith Nainby is professor of communication studies at California State University, Stanislaus.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

Acknowledgments

Chapter One: Nice to Meet You. Where You Been?

Chapter Two: Chapter Two: “I Hope You Think of Me”: The Art of Taylor Swift

Chapter Three: “More than Music”: The Image “Taylor Swift.”

Chapter Four: “Go Ahead Wreck Me”: Contingent Identities in Swiftie Communities

Chapter Five: “I am More than This”: Conversations with Swifties

Chapter Six: “Raised Up and Down”

Bibliography

About the Author