Communication Commons^™

Still Flying: The Communicative Constitution Of Browncoat Fandom As Culture, Jonathon Nicholas Lundy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In contemporary western culture, fandom is common. Many academics and members of the general public alike conceive of fandom as outside the norms of spectatorship; to be a spectator is to enjoy an interest individually and passively. However, others contend that fandom is a more significant cultural achievement.

This study qualitatively investigated how Browncoats, or fans of the cancelled television series Firefly , communicatively construct their fandom culture. Methods included participant observation, semi-structured interviews, data analysis through Grounded Theory, and a comparative thematic analysis of the original Firefly source texts and Browncoat cultural data in order to discover meaningful themes …