UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Participation From Above and Below: The Contours and Contradictions of Audience Participation, From Video Games to Social Media Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6t57r0cm Author Yeritsian, Gary Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Participation From Above and Below: The Contours and Contradictions of Audience Participation, From Video Games to Social Media A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Gary Yeritsian 2019 © Copyright by Gary Yeritsian 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Participation From Above and Below: The Contours and Contradictions of Audience Participation, From Video Games to Social Media by Gary Yeritsian Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor Stefan Bargheer, Co-Chair Professor Douglas M. Kellner, Co-Chair This dissertation comprises three case studies of audience participation in media, addressing in turn Web 2.0, fan culture, and video games. The overarching theoretical framework highlights the dynamics between participation ‘from above’ and ‘from below,’ emphasizing the fact that participation is managed, controlled, and commodified on the one hand, and holds the potential for autonomy, creativity, and resistance on the other. This framework represents a synthesis of existing approaches to the study of audiences, bridging accounts of ‘participatory culture’ and ‘audience autonomy’ with those emphasizing the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ and the ‘social factory.’ The first constituent chapter is a study of the ideology and practice of Web 2.0 platforms, centering on a thematic analysis of managerial literature that finds such platforms to be extensions of what Boltanski and Chiapello term the ‘new,’ ‘participatory’ spirit of capitalism. The second chapter explores the contestation that arises within brand communities between managers and consumers; more specifically, it takes up the case of professional wrestling fan culture, developing a historical ii analysis of how company efforts to arouse and contain fan participation within sanctioned parameters clash with fan efforts to organize via online and offline communities to alter the direction of wrestling storylines. The final chapter draws upon contemporaneous newspaper articles and interviews with gamers to understand the earliest American home video games as a historical milestone in the emergence of participatory media consumption. The conclusion considers each case study in light of the framework of participation from above and below, ultimately connecting this discussion to the problem of structure and agency in social theory. iii The dissertation of Gary Yeritsian is approved. Gabriel Rossman Aaron L. Panofsky Douglas M. Kellner, Committee Co-Chair Stefan Bargheer, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2019 iv CONTENTS Tables……………………………………………………………………………………………...vi Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………...vii Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………….viii Introduction: Three Studies of Audience Participation ……………………………………………..1 References………………………………………………………………………………...17 Chapter One: Web 2.0 and the New Spirit of Capitalism………………………………………….19 Notes……………………………………………………………………………………...42 References………………………………………………………………………………...43 Chapter Two: Wrestling Fandom and the Contestation of Cultural Participation………………….47 References………………………………………………………………………………...70 Chapter Three: Home Video Games and the Emergence of Prosumption………………………...74 References……………………………………………………………………………….100 Conclusion: Beyond Voluntarism and Structuralism……………………………………………..103 References……………………………………………………………………………….112 v TABLES Table 1. Key frames and associated ‘levels’ of sociality……………………………………………30 Table 2. Key examples of participation from above and below, online and offline………………..54 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank my committee members for years of support and guidance. Thank you to Stefan for backing an unconventional project, to Aaron for urging me to expand my methodological toolkit, to Doug for agreeing to supervise an extradepartmental dissertation, and to Gabriel for earlier serving as chair in an important transitional period. Thank you to the staff of the Sociology department, most notably Irina and Simbi, and to the many friends I have made through this time, especially Rahim. I owe a debt of gratitude to the UCLA Department of Sociology, Graduate Division, the Dorothy L. Meier Dissertation Fellowship, and most notably the Mangasar M. Mangasarian Scholarship, for generously funding the project. Chapter One, ‘Web 2.0 and the New Spirit of Capitalism,’ has been published as: Yeritsian G (2018) ‘Capitalism 2.0’: Web 2.0 Manifestoes and the New Spirit of Capitalism. Critical Sociology, 44(4–5): 703-717. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0896920517691109. Chapter Two, Wrestling Fandom and the Contestation of Cultural Participation, has been published as: Yeritsian G (2018) Participation From Above and Below: Brand Community and the Contestation of Cultural Participation. Journal of Consumer Culture. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1469540518787576. vii VITA Academic Appointments Assistant Professor of Sociology (2019-2022), University of Minnesota-Duluth. Education C. Phil. (2014) Sociology, UCLA. M.A. (2012) Sociology, UCLA. B.A. (2009) History, University of Southern California. Peer Reviewed Journal Publications Gary Yeritsian (2018) Participation From Above and Below: Brand Community and the Contestation of Cultural Participation. Journal of Consumer Culture. DOI: 10.1177/1469540518787576. Gary Yeritsian (2018) Freedom Above Things: Nietzsche and the Artistic Critique of Capitalism. Critical Sociology. DOI: 10.1177/0896920517750743. Gary Yeritsian (2017) ‘Capitalism 2.0’: Web 2.0 Manifestoes and the New Spirit of Capitalism. Critical Sociology Vol 44(4-5) 703–717. DOI: 10.1177/0896920517691109. Research Grants and Awards UCLA Dorothy L. Meier Dissertation Fellowship (2018-9) UCLA Mangasar M. Mangasarian Scholarship (2018-9, 2015-16, 2012-13) UCLA Sociology Departmental Fellowship (2017-18), Summer Research Award (2014) viii UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship (2013, 2011) UCLA Graduate Research Mentorship (2011-2) Invited Conference Participation and Talks Team Member, The Architecture of Digitally Mediated Sociality (2019) Project Design Session. School of Advanced Studies, University of Tyumen, Russia. Participation From Above and Below: Audience Participation and the New Spirit of Capitalism (2018) Ahmedabad University Research Seminar Series. Ahmedabad, India. Conference Presentations Home Video Games and the Historical Rise of ‘Prosumption’ (2019) Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting. Oakland, CA. Participation From Above and From Below: Brand Community and the Contestation of Cultural Participation (2018) American Sociological Association Annual Meeting. Philadelphia, PA. Nietzsche and the Artistic Critique of Capitalism (2017) Nietzsche & Critical Social Theory. San Diego State University. ‘Capitalism 2.0’: Web 2.0 Manifestoes and the New Spirit of Capitalism (2016) American Sociological Association Annual Meeting. Seattle, WA. Social Media and the Diffusion of ‘Participatory’ Capitalism Through Space and Time (2014) Alter- geographies: UCLA Comparative Literature Annual Graduate Conference. Social Media and the Spirit of Post-68, ‘Participatory’ Capitalism (2013) University of Miami Department of Modern Languages and Literatures Annual Graduate Conference. ix INTRODUCTION THREE STUDIES OF AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION This dissertation probes the sociological dynamics of the emergence of audience participation in recent media through the lens of an original theoretical framework highlighting the relationship between participation ‘from above’ and ‘from below.’ The core of the dissertation comprises three case studies, of Web 2.0, fan culture, and video games respectively. In this introduction, I provide broad theoretical background to the underlying questions animating these studies. I first present an account of Henry Jenkins’ work, most notably his concept of ‘participatory culture.’ I then place this into dialogue with Jose Van Dijck’s political economy critique, emphasizing the commodification of cultural participation. This political economic dimension is deepened in the autonomist Marxist conception of the ‘social factory’ and Boltanski and Chiapello’s ‘participatory spirit of capitalism,’ both situating participation in broad social processes of value extraction. I propose that participation needs to be understood – through a combination of these perspectives – in terms of both its democratic, bottom-up potentialities and its managerial, exploitative ones. I move on to introduce 1 the case studies, which serve as a means of developing this theoretical account through concrete empirical investigation. Jenkins and Participatory Culture In recent decades, scholars of media and communication have pointed to increasing opportunities for audience and user participation in contemporary media forms. The most prominent figure arguing for this position has been Henry Jenkins, known for his work on ‘participatory culture.’ His first major foray into this area, Textual Poachers (1992), examined how television fans actively manipulated and constructed meanings in their engagement with mass media