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Show 196 public engagement. Ashley Hinck (2012), for instance, has argued that fans can become political subjects that perform civic engagement. The Harry Potter Alliance, for example, has used the fandom of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series to create an organization that fights for equality, human rights, and literacy in political arenas. Concomitant with Dahlgren (2005), these subjects become citizens with social agency through participating in "a cultural practice that involves values, affinity, knowledge, identities, and civic practices" (p. 2.7). Rio Tinto and other corporate subjects use RSL fans to create civically engaged publics with social agency. This occurs in three ways. First, attending an RSL game is itself a performative act of corporate citizenship that sustains Rio Tinto's network of corporate community. To go to a game is to become a subject of Rio Tinto because that fan is given social agency within the Rio Tinto Stadium's network of fandom. Second, Rio Tinto taps into the rhetoric of fandom to stabilize its image as a responsible member of the Salt Lake City community. Rio Tinto employs its own form of social agency. As the Real Salt Lake website notes, Rio Tinto is at the helm of economic development, sustainable land practices, and community partnerships. It is a multiple corporate subject that has three local business components: Kennecott Utah Copper, Kennecott Land Company, and Kennecott Exploration. Together, this alliance is focused on community engagement. This became clear in an interview with the RTK, which said that Rio Tinto donates an annual amount of $103,000 to over 70 charities, including soccer clinics to local communities with low economic status. Rio Tinto even continued its community efforts last year, the same year that a landslide at the Bingham Canyon Mine severely compromised the company's annual profits. To Rio Tinto's Senior Advisor of |
