‘Please Do Not Destroy My Book’: Exploring the Intersection of Fantasy and Reality in Social Presence

This study highlights how social media facilitates engagement, relationships and co-creation among literary celebrities with different traits in digital spaces, leveraging social presence strategies to broaden reach, boost audience engagement and foster self-endorsement across various cultural contexts. Utilising the netnography method and theoretical frameworks such as para-social relationships and social presence, the analysis of Facebook posts and comments revealed that literary celebrities foster co-presence and emotional contagion with fans through selective reciprocity. Fans’ candid feedback enhances celebrities’ growth and strengthens mutual trust, care and bond, leading to trans-para-social relationships. Moreover, cultural differences in celebrities’ personality traits amplify the public disclosure and co-creation process. Community homophily also influences affective and cohesive collaboration. Both celebrity- and fan-initiated user-generated content as a co-creation empower audiences, promote ownership and shape creative identity. Fans primarily employ an affective strategy, with notable use of interactive and blended affective and cohesive approaches.