Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article traces tensions between participants and producers on the official Colbert Report discussion boards. Employing critical discourse analysis, it examines the flow of power between the program’s producers and fans as they struggle over how the parody’s meanings will be interpreted, and how fans’ digital labor and content will be used. I begin by recounting the conflicted history of the message boards, and then analyze a sample of discussion threads in order to illustrate the vibrant and boisterous community created there. Finally, I explore strategies of migration, refusal and offline communication used by participants to express agency and power in relation to the boards’ producers. Throughout, I argue that theoretical approaches to participatory culture must take into account the corporate drive to centralize, manage and profit from users’ communicative desires, as well as audiences’ corresponding efforts to resist such control.

Keywords

digital labor fandom online discussion boards parody participatory culture user-generated content

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Andrejevic

(2007) iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Baym

(2010) From Cronkite to Colbert: The Evolution of Broadcast News. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.

Baym

(2000) Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom and Online Community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Baym

(2006) Interpersonal life online. In: Livingstone

Lievrouw

(eds) The Handbook of New Media. London: Sage, 35–54.

Burgess

Green

(2009) YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. London: Polity Press.

Chmielewski

(2007) Building community, commerce for Viacom. Los Angele Times, 21 June. Available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/21/business/fi-flannigan21 (accessed 11 January 2011).

Colbert Nation (2012) Forum home. Available at: www.colbertnation.com (accessed 10 January 2011).

Comedy Central Insider (2008) Stephen Colbert named Webby Person of the Year (2008). Comedy Central Insider. Available at: http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/2008/05/06/ (accessed 10 January 2011).

Deery

(2003) TV.com: Participatory viewing on the web. Journal of Popular Culture 37(2): 161–176.

10.

Ferguson

(2007) Telephone interview. 5 March 2007.

11.

Gray

Jones

Thompson

(2009) The state of satire, the satire of state. In: Gray

Jones

Thompson

(eds) Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-network Era. New York: New York University Press, 3–36.

12.

Hariman

(2008) Political parody and public culture. Quarterly Journal of Speech 94(3): 247–272.

13.

Hutcheon

(2002) The Politics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge.

14.

Jenkins

(2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.

15.

McCourt

Burkart

(2007) Customer relation management: automating fandom. In: Gray

Sandvoss

Harrington

(eds) Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. New York: New York University Press, 261–270.

16.

Milner

(2009) Working for the text: fan labor and the New Organization. International Journal of Cultural Studies 12(5): 491–508.

17.

No Fact Zone (2007) Available at: http://www.nofactzone.net (accessed 4 June 2012).

18.

Rafaeli

(1988) Interactivity from new media to communication. In: Hawkins

Pingree

Wiemann

(eds) Advancing Communication Science. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 110–134.

19.

Rogue Nation (2008) Forum home. Available at: http://roguenation.forumlaunch.net/viewforum.php?f=3 (accessed 4 June 2012).

20.

Santo

(2009) Of niggas and citizens: the Boondocks fans and differentiated black American politics. In: Gray

Jones

Thompson

(eds) Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-network Era. New York: New York University Press, 252–274.

21.

Sklar

(2006) Stephen Colbert’s web dominance: how The Colbert Report is fast becoming the leader in web-TV integration. Huffington Post, 22 August. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eat-the-press/2006/08/22/ (accessed 10 January 2011).

22.

Smith

(2009) Telephone interview. 17 November 2009.

23.

Trombley

(2007) Visions and revisions: fanvids and fair use. Cardozo Arts & Entertainment 25: 647–685.

24.

Tushnet

(2008) User-generated discontent: transformation in practice. Columbia Journal of Law and the Art 31(4): 101–120.

25.

Waisanen

(2009) A citizen’s guides to democracy inaction: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s comical rhetorical criticism. Southern Communication Journal 74(2): 119–140.

26.

Wenger

(1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contestation in the Colbert Nation: Participants,producers and the struggle over digital dialogue

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References