Whether it’s political fanboys who geek out over polling data or teenage girls photoshopping flower crowns onto Ed Miliband’s head, digital excitement is the new electioneering frontier.

The Hugo Awards, the influential prize for science fiction and fantasy writing, have been hijacked by a group resistant to the way the shortlists are becoming more progressive and diverse.

The online mockery of fans of Zayn Malik, who left One Direction the same day Jeremy Clarkson was fired, would never be levelled at grown-up sports or Top Gear fans.

The online book world is about gathering around a book, or a love of books generally. If publishers want to capitalise on this, they would do well to promote authors who are fans themselves.

Fan fiction gives women and other marginalised groups the chance to subvert the mainstream perspective, to fracture a story and recast it in their own way. It’s not for the benefit of middle-aged men with a vast audience and little understanding of the form.

Should adults be reading books supposedly aimed at children and teenagers? According to the literary establishment in 2014, this is a question fraught with difficulty. But is it really as hard as all that?

In advance of Peter Capaldi’s debut as the Twelfth Doctor, the cast have been on a world tour, doing their duty to its global fandom. By exporting this British cultural institution, what are we saying about ourselves?

Introducing her new column on fan culture for the NS, Elizabeth Minkel explains why 2014 feels like a turning point in the appreciation of how people who love something interact.