Communities of Judgment and Fan Citizenship: Challenging Univocality, Cynicism, and Isolation Among Viewers of "The West Wing"

Abstract

Television viewers of NBC's The West Wing respond to the series in a multitude of situated ways that underscore the nature of contemporary U.S. politics and the need for continued study of the relationship between media forms and their consumers. Ethnographically informed analysis of the rhetorical features of responses by the program's producers, print journalists who write about the series, and online fans indicates viewers are anxious about the relationships among quality television, political realism, entertainment, and political participation, but find different ways to address these anxieties in their public discourse. The visual economy of representations in the program and producers' univocal ancillary promotional materials encourage identification of the series as a quality television program that attracts affluent and educated viewers. Journalists and critics formulate responses that indicate an underlying idealism about the aesthetics of television and its relationship to politics, though they are often voiced in a register of cynicism. Online fans in internet newsgroups write of the series both as an object of fandom and as a resource for understanding contemporary politics in their daily lives, often intermingling the two. Their roles as fans and as citizens are frequently blended through their implementation of practical knowledge and judgment as opposed to strictly logical frameworks. All of these groups constitute communities of judgment in which the focus on a central object for evaluation and assessment allows for a greater tolerance of dissent. This tends to stave off the social fragmentation and isolation some contemporary social critics have lamented. Because journalists and online fans identify with the series as fans and as citizens simultaneously, they more readily blur the boundaries between fiction and fact and entertainment and politics. This tends to encourage recognition of novel connections and discourage disengagement with other citizens and fans who have fundamental disagreements.