From Queer Reading to Queerbaiting : The battle over the polysemic text and the power of hermeneutics

Abstract: This thesis focuses on an example of fan activity where fans in internet communities are voicing their concern over a practice they have named queerbaiting. The term is used to describe the practice of enticing and luring an audience with the promise of queer content without any intention of acting on it. Fan communities’ increasing use of the internet has changed fans’ practices and has made it easier for fans to cooperate, communicate and debate, not only with each other, but also with the people in charge and creators of what the fan community focuses on. Through studying internet fan communities, this thesis, with the focus on TV shows, analyses what is meant with the term queerbaiting and how it works as an example of fan activism. Findings suggest that despite a heated debate over definition, the practice itself and whether it exists or not, there is a general idea of what queerbaiting means and the differences within the debate are mostly due to differences in hermeneutical strategies. Thus this thesis shows how uses of different hermeneutical strategies and discussions on power in fan communities affect each other and how social media’s fan participation has affected the way representation, interpretation and ownership are discussed.