Cover not available
Part of
Social Media and Society: Integrating the digital with the social in digital discourse
Edited by Majid KhosraviNik
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 100] 2023
► pp. 187–208

A journal of impossible things

Tweeted discourses of gendered digital fandom on the thirteenth doctor and #NotMyDoctor hashtag

| Kennesaw State University

In 2017, the cult programme Doctor Who announced its Thirteenth Doctor – classically trained Jodie Whittaker. This new regeneration (i.e., recasting) of an iconic, and consummately upper crust, British character follows twelve white male Doctors into the bigger-on-the-inside blue police box to traverse space and time saving the Whoniverse. Fans have always viewed new Doctors with scepticism, but this new female Doctor seemed impossible for fans. Was this impossibility a rupture with Whovian lore or a reflection of heteropatriarchal social norms? This chapter takes a feminist media and fan studies perspective and employs social media critical discourse analysis to examine the #NotMyDoctor hashtag that trended on Twitter following the announcement. It finds three themes: trolling the haters, the anti-PC police, and a Whovian cult of true womanhood.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The Whoniverse
  • Digital fandom, cult TV & gender
  • The case: on Twitter
  • Trolling the broflakes
  • Social justice warriors, Feminazis & the (Anti)-PC police
  • A penis-operated TARDIS
  • Discussion & conclusion
  • Epilogue
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.100.10pru
References
Banet-Weiser, S.
2018 Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. Durham: Duke University Press. [URL]
Banks, James
2010 “Regulating Hate Speech Online.” International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 24 (3): 233–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
BBC America
n.d. “‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Copper’ Shatter Ratings Records for BBC America.” BBC America. Accessed 9 March 2021. [URL]
BBC News
2018 “Doctor Who: Biggest First Episode for New Doctor,” 16 October 2018, sec. Entertainment & Arts. [URL]
BBC
n.d. “BBC Worldwide Delivers over £200m to BBC for a Third Year Running.” n.d. Accessed 9 March 2021. [URL]
Berridge, Susan, and Laura Portwood-Stacer
2015 “Introduction: Feminism, Hashtags and Violence Against Women and Girls.” Feminist Media Studies. 15 (2): 341–341. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blodgett, Bridget M.
2020 “Media in the Post #GamerGate Era: Coverage of Reactionary Fan Anger and the Terrorism of the Privileged.” Television & New Media 21 (2): 184–200. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blodgett, Bridget, and Anastasia Salter
2018 “Ghostbusters Is For Boys: Understanding Geek Masculinity’s Role in the Alt-Right.” Communication, Culture and Critique 11 (1): 133–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowles Eagle, Ryan
2015 “Loitering, Lingering, Hashtagging: Women Reclaiming Public Space Via #BoardtheBus, #StopStreetHarassment, and the #EverydaySexism Project.” Feminist Media Studies 15 (2): 350–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brock, A.
2016 “Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis.” New Media & Society, 1–19.Google Scholar
Brock, André
2018 “Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis.” New Media & Society 20 (3): 1012–1030. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byerly, Carolyn M.
2020 “Incels Online Reframing Sexual Violence.” The Communication Review 23 (4): 290–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byerly, Carolyn M., and Karen Ross
2006 Women and Media: A Critical Introduction. Blackwell Pub. [URL]. DOI logo
Caron, Nathalie
2013 “Why Steven Moffat Thought Casting a Woman for Doctor Who ‘Didn’t Feel Right.’” SYFY WIRE. 5 August 2013. [URL]
Chaney, J.
n.d. “The 20 Best Long-Running TV Shows to Binge-Watch for 100 Hours or More.” Vulture. Accessed 9 March 2021. [URL]
Charles, Alec
2008 “War without End?: Utopia, the Family, and the Post-9/11 World in Russell T. Davies’s ‘Doctor Who.’” Science Fiction Studies 35 (3): 450–465.Google Scholar
Citron, Danielle Keats
2014 Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dixit, Priya
2012 “Relating to Difference: Aliens and Alienness in ‘Doctor Who’ and International Relations.” International Studies Perspectives 13 (3): 289–306. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman., and Wodak, Wodak
1997 “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Approach, 258–284. Vol. 2. London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Ghaffari, Soudeh
2020 “Discourses of Celebrities on Instagram: Digital Femininity, Self-Representation and Hate Speech.” Critical Discourse Studies. Online First, 161–178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ging, Debbie, and Eugenia Siapera
2018 “Special Issue on Online Misogyny (Introduction).” Feminist Media Studies 18 (4): 515–524. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guardian
2018 “Doctor Who Barbie: Time-Travelling Back to the Sexist 1970s.” The Guardian. 14 October 2018. [URL]
Guinness World Records
2013 “Doctor Who – Day of the Doctor Sets World Record for Biggest TV Drama Simulcast” 2013 Guinness World Records. 25 November 2013. [URL]
n.d. “Most Prolific Science-Fiction TV Series (by Episode) | Guinness World Records.” n.d. Accessed 9 March 2021. [URL]
Gupta, A.
2013 “Doctor Who and Race: Reflections on the Change of Britain’s Status in the I…: Georgia State University Library” 2013 [URL]
Haslop, Craig
2016 “Bringing Doctor Who Back for the Masses: Regenerating Cult, Commodifying Class.” Science Fiction Film and Television 9 (2): 209–227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heft, Annett, Eva Mayerhöffer, Susanne Reinhardt, and Curd Knüpfer
2020 “Beyond Breitbart: Comparing Right-Wing Digital News Infrastructures in Six Western Democracies.” Policy & Internet 12 (1): 20–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herring, Susan
2003 “Gender and Power in Online Communication.” The Handbook of Language and Gender, January, 202–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hesse, Monica
2021 “Perspective | Rush Limbaugh Had a Lot to Say about Feminism. Women Learned How to Not Care.” Washington Post 2021 [URL]
Highfield, Tim, Stephen Harrington, and Axel Bruns
2013 “Twitter as a Technology for Audiencing and Fandom.” Information, Communication & Society 16 (3): 315–339. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hills, Matt
2015 “The Expertise of Digital Fandom as a ‘Community of Practice’: Exploring the Narrative Universe of Doctor Who.” Convergence – The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 21 (3): 360–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hills, Matt, and Joanne Garde-Hansen
2017 “Fandom’s Paratextual Memory: Remembering, Reconstructing, and Repatriating ‘Lost’ Doctor Who.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 34 (2): 158–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
IMDB
2011 “ ‘Doctor Who’ The Doctor’s Wife (TV Episode 2011) – Matt Smith as The Doctor – IMDB.” n.d. Accessed 20 March 2021. [URL]
Jane, Emma A.
2017 Misogyny Online: A Short (and Brutish) History. Sage Swifts. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. [URL]. DOI logo
Jenkins, Henry
1992 Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. Studies in Culture and Communication. Routledge. [URL]
2006 “Convergence Culture.” NYU Press (blog) 2006 [URL]
Jenkins, H., M. Ito, and d. boyd
2015 “Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics | Wiley.” [URL] 2015 [URL]
Jowett, Lorna
2014 “The Girl Who Waited? Female Companions and Gender in Doctor Who.” Critical Studies in Television: Scholarly Studies in Small Screen Fictions 9 (1): 77–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keller, Jessalynn, Kaitlynn Mendes, and Jessica Ringrose
2018 “Speaking ‘Unspeakable Things’: Documenting Digital Feminist Responses to Rape Culture.” Journal of Gender Studies 27 (1): 22–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
KhosraviNik, Majid
2020 “Digital Meaning-Making across Content and Practice in Social Media Critical Discourse Studies.” Critical Discourse Studies, Online First: 119–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
KhosraviNik, Majid, and Eleonora Esposito
2018 “Online Hate, Digital Discourse and Critique: Exploring Digitally-Mediated Discursive Practices of Gender-Based Hostility.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics 14 (June): 45–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marwick, Alice E.
2013 “Gender, Sexuality and Social Media.” In Routledge Handbook of Social Media, edited by T. Senft and J. Hunsinger. New York: Routledge. [URL]
2019 “None of This Is New (Media): Feminisms in the Social Media Age.” In The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminism. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Massanari, Adrienne
2017 “#Gamergate and The Fappening: How Reddit’s Algorithm, Governance, and Culture Support Toxic Technocultures.” New Media & Society 19 (3): 329–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Massanari, Adrienne L.
2018 “Rethinking Research Ethics, Power, and the Risk of Visibility in the Era of the ‘Alt-Right’ Gaze.” Social Media + Society 4 (2): 2056305118768302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McAndrew, O.
2020 “Here’s Why The ‘Not My Doctor’ Campaign Has To End.” Small Screen (blog). 28 September 2020. [URL]
McNamee, G. L. n.d.
The Simpsons | Creators, Characters, Synopsis, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed March 9, 2021. [URL]
Meehan, E. R.
2006 “Gendering the Commodity Audience: Critical Media Research, Feminism, and Political Economy.” In Sex And Money: Feminism and Political Economy in the Media. Google Scholar
Newberry, C.
2021 “36 Twitter Statistics All Marketers Should Know in 2021.” Hootsuite. 3 February 2021. [URL]
Orthia, Lindy A., and Rachel Morgain
2016 “The Gendered Culture of Scientific Competence: A Study of Scientist Characters in Doctor Who 1963–2013.” Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 75 (3–4): 79–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pearson, R.
2010 “Fandom in the Digital Era: Georgia State University Library” 2010 [URL]. DOI logo
Penley, Constance
1994 “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture.” Visual Culture: Images & Interpretations January: 302–324.Google Scholar
Pinault, S.
2012 “Why Doctor Who Can Cross Time and Space But Can Never Be a Woman | WIRED” 2012 [URL]
Placido, Dani Di
2017 “BBC Responds Respectfully To Disgruntled ‘Doctor Who’ Fans.” Forbes 2017 [URL]
Plunkett, J.
2016 “We Nearly Appointed a Black Doctor, Says Doctor Who Showrunner.” The Guardian. 2 June 2016. [URL]
Poulsen, Søren Vigild, Gunhild Kvåle, and Theo van Leeuwen
2018 “Special Issue: Social Media as Semiotic Technology.” Social Semiotics 28 (5): 593–600. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Puschmann, Cornelius, Axel Bruns, Merja Mahrt, Katrin Weller, and Jean Burgess
2014 “Epilogue: Why Study Twitter?” In Twitter and Society [Digital Formations, Volume 89], edited by A. Bruns, M. Mahrt, K. Weller, J. Burgess, and C. Puschmann, 425–432. United States of America: Peter Lang Publishing. [URL]
Reisigl, Martin, and R. Wodak
2017 The Discourse-Historical Approach. Routledge Handbooks Online. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rentschler, Carrie
2014 “Rape Culture and the Feminist Politics of Social Media.” Girlhood Studies 7 (1). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 “#Safetytipsforladies: Feminist Twitter Takedowns of Victim Blaming.” Feminist Media Studies 15 (2): 353–356. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stannard, Katherine
1988 “Archetypal Images in Contemporary Television: The Mythology of Doctor Who.” The Humanistic Psychologist 16 (2): 361–367. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Twitter
. “Q4 and Fiscal Year 2020 Letter to Shareholders” 2021 [URL]
USA Today
n.d. “‘The Simpsons’ and Other Longest-Running Prime-Time Scripted Series.” n.d. Accessed 9 March 2021. [URL]
van Dijk, Teun A.
(Ed.) 1997 Discourse as Social Interaction. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Volume 2. SAGE Publications Inc.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo
2005 Introducing Social Semiotics: An Introductory Textbook. London: Routledge. [URL]
Welter, Barbara
1966 “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860.” American Quarterly 18 (2): 151–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhao, Sumin, and Michele Zappavigna
2018 “Beyond the Self: Intersubjectivity and the Social Semiotic Interpretation of the Selfie.” New Media & Society 20 (5): 1735–1754. DOI logoGoogle Scholar