Participation from above and below: Brand community and the contestation of cultural participation

Abstract

This article draws on work in communication and marketing studies to develop a theory of cultural participation as fundamentally contested, between cultural producers who aim to steer and manage the activity of participants via the brand community ( participation from above) and participants who have the potential to resist and challenge the producers’ direction ( participation from below). It develops this theory empirically with reference to a cultural form in which audience participation plays a central part, professional wrestling. World Wrestling Entertainment aims to direct and contain participation within sanctioned parameters, both online and offline, while fans retain the capacity to develop and voice an effective critique of existing storylines through those same venues. By sampling and examining the key storylines building to World Wrestling Entertainment’s marquee event, Wrestlemania, from 2014 to 2016, I show how the logics of participation from above and below interact, and how, ultimately, the production and reproduction of brand community are fundamentally contested.