YES.
Scholars and academics are often fans.
"Popular culture studies is the academic discipline studying popular culture [a.k.a. pop culture] from a critical theory perspective. It is generally considered as a combination of communication studies and cultural studies. ... Conceptual barriers between so-called high and low culture have broken down, accompanying an explosion in scholarly interest in popular culture, which encompasses such diverse media as comic books, television, and the Internet."
-Wikipedia entry on Popular Culture Studies
