Masterthesis on "AKB48" and "Japanese idology"

[thinkingoutloud89]

Hi folks,

I'm a 24 year old art/visual culture student from Germany, currently working on my master thesis. I chose AKB48 as the overall subject to my work, yet reading through the very few critical works I found to point out a a good question I want to work out.

I started this, because the whole fandom around the group grapped my attention and more importanly, how the whole group functions. One of the questions I thought I could explore would have been, if this concept could work out oversea or why it doesn't and what differs idols form western artists...yet what is an artist in japanese media culturw, with Namie, Ayu & Co. also beeing discribed as idols. However, this may falls to short...

that brings me to my question: Have you ever written something in same manner on the subject or encountered something like this. It would help me a lot if you could share it with me.

Moreover, if your are into the subject, do you have some tips for me to go on/actually start?

thank you for reading thus far!