Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The New Network: How Social Media is Changing—and Saving—Television
Ryan Cassella

Chapter 2: Spoiler Alert: Understanding Television Enjoyment in the Social Media Era
Benjamin Brojakowski

Chapter 3: Rhetorical Strengths & Limitations of Interactivity for Activism in the Stewart and Colbert Universe
Christopher A. Medjesky
Chapter 4: Fandom Communication in a Mediated Age: The Use of Twitter and Blogs for Dissent Practices Among National Basketball Association (NBA) Fans
Corey Jay Liberman, Michael Plugh and Brian Geltzeiler
Chapter 5: What Types of #SportsFans use Social Media? The Role of Team Identity Formation and Spectatorship Motivation on Self-Disclosure during a Live Sport Broadcast
Shaughan A. Keaton, Nicholas M. Watanabe & Brody J. Ruihley

Chapter 6: The Online Community: Fan response of Community’s Unlikely Fifth Season
Matthew Collins and Danielle M. Stern
Chapter 7: Game(s) of Fandom: The Hyperlink Labyrinths that Paratextualize Game of Thrones Fandom
Garret Castleberry
Chapter 8: Be Original: Examining Fan Comments on A&E’s Duck Dynasty Facebook Page After the Robertson Suspension
Michel M. Haigh
Chapter 9: “The Parents Have the Dream, but the Kids are in the Nightmare”: Digital Interactivity, Toddlers & Tiaras Viewers, and Social Networking Sites
Leandra H. Hernandez
Chapter 10: Zombie Fans, Second Screen, and Television Audiences: Redefining Parasociality as Technoprosociality in AMC’s #TalkingDead
Sabrina Pasztor and Jenny Ungbha Korn
Chapter 11: Memes, Tweets, and Props: How Fans Cope When Shows Go Off the Air
Alane Presswood and Steve Granelli
Chapter 12: So Are the Days of Our Tweets: An Examination of Twitter Use By American Daytime Serials and Their Fans
Marsha Ducey
Chapter 13: Army Wives Connect: Lifetime Viewers’ Everyday Lives and Fandom Converge in Online Communities
Darcey Morris
Chapter 14: “Butter,” Facebook, and Paula Deen: Examining Fans Use of Social Media in Crisis
Michel M. Haigh & Shelley Wigley
Chapter 15: Fans Can Be Journalists Too: A Look at Fan Interaction with HBO’s The Newsroom
Julia E. Largent & Jason Roy Burnett
Chapter 16: It's Bigger on the Inside: Fandom, Social Media, and Doctor Who
Krystal Fogle
Chapter 17: Television-inspired Cosplay and Social Media
Laura Kane and William E. Loges
Chapter 18: Who Killed @TheLauraPalmer? Twitter as a Performance Space for Twin Peaks Fan Fiction
Kathryn L. Lookadoo and Ted M. Dickinson
Chapter 19: Fifty Years of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”: How the Ever-Changing Media Sustained and Shaped One of the Oldest Fan Communities
Cynthia W. Walker
Chapter 20: Managing Multiscreen

Daniel Faltesek

About the Author

Alison F. Slade is adjunct at Faulkner State Community College.

Dedria Givens-Carroll is associate professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Amber J. Narro is associate professor of communication at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Reviews

Comprising essays written by faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars, this collection reflects the current trend in fan studies to use fan practices to examine everyday life in a mediated age (as distinguished from using them to examine different fan communities). It is debatable whether the term 'fan culture' holds any meaning at this stage of academic examination. As the practices that made the subculture distinct have been absorbed into the mainstream or died off, 'fan' is becoming a generic term: a viewer who does anything more than view is a fan. Whereas most of the contributors frame their analyses within traditional fan communities formed through shared affinity for a specific television text, the focus of the book as a whole is on the interaction of social media and the medium of television—that is, how social media are used by fans to view and create content and by producers to market their content and monetize viewer engagement. Television programs and genres discussed include Game of Thrones, Dr. Who, Man from U.N.C.L.E., Duck Dynasty, Tiaras and Toddlers, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, soap operas, and sports. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above.
*CHOICE*

Today’s fans are actively engaging with television through social media. Drawing on the diverse expertise of a variety of researchers, Television, Social Media, and Fan Culture explores this engagement from multiple vantage points, and extends and develops new avenues in fan and media studies research. Sure to spark debate, this volume speaks to the importance of fan studies as a discipline and the crucial role that social media plays in this development.
*Paul Booth, DePaul University*

This engaging collection lies at the forefront of an emerging and essential cultural and technological dialogue. The trio of editors have assembled an impressive critical chorus, whose case studies chronicle and contextualize the complex triangulation of activity and interactivity between the evolving broadcast and cable programming environment, passionate fan communities, and the revolutionary ripples of an array of New Media platforms. The perspectives in the twenty essays are fresh and forward-looking and the views vast and varied. No network, link, site, genre, or fan base is overlooked. This impressive volume is trending, streaming, and tuned-in to the times. #Bigfan.
*George Plasketes, Auburn University*

Regardless of which fandom you belong to, you should read Television, Social Media, and Fan Culture. All fans of television or pop culture will revel in the intellectual fanaticism. Media and culture are inseparable, and the studies included in this edited collection acknowledge the pedagogy of popular cultural products and the new participatory fan culture.
*Elizabeth Barfoot Christian, Louisiana College, editor, Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture*