Makes perfect sense to me -- I figured it must be something like that. Thanks for clarifying!
One other observation -- I've noticed that discussions in LJ Doctor Who fandom often reference parallel conversations on Outpost Gallifrey (http://www.gallifreyone.com/), the main Doctor Who fansite. I get the sense that OG is often viewed as more broadly representative of the fannish gestalt than LJ. This, to me, contrasts with the other LJ fandoms that I'm most familiar with, where discussions are relatively more insular and LJ fandom is taken as either representative of fannish opinion and sentiment as a whole, or at least adequate & sufficient in and of itself. Though this maybe less true with larger fandoms that were well established before the fannish migration to LJ? All of the fandoms I follow tend to be more recent (e.g., Supernatural, [the new] Battlestar Galactica).
At any rate, I mention this in case you're ever interested in looking at the rhetoric of race & racism beyond LJ. That's probably well beyond the scope of your project, and may not be particularly germane here -- the LJ discussions about Martha & Doctor Who didn't much reference anything similar on Outpost Gallifrey, as far as I could see. And I don't read the forums on OG myself, so I can't even say whether representations of race have been the subject of much discussion over there.
I just mention it as a possible vantage point into inquiries re: the specificity of fannish discourse on LJ -- i.e., is the rhetoric of race across LJ fandoms similar or different than what you'd see in other fannish spaces? Or even, similar or different than what you'd see in other kinds of online discussions? Questions which, I'm guessing, are way beyond the scope of your project -- but which your work would surely help to frame for further discussion.
(I also mention the OG because, in the context of recent discussions on fandebate, it brings up interesting questions about the relative porousness of LJ fan cultures....)
no subject
One other observation -- I've noticed that discussions in LJ Doctor Who fandom often reference parallel conversations on Outpost Gallifrey (http://www.gallifreyone.com/), the main Doctor Who fansite. I get the sense that OG is often viewed as more broadly representative of the fannish gestalt than LJ. This, to me, contrasts with the other LJ fandoms that I'm most familiar with, where discussions are relatively more insular and LJ fandom is taken as either representative of fannish opinion and sentiment as a whole, or at least adequate & sufficient in and of itself. Though this maybe less true with larger fandoms that were well established before the fannish migration to LJ? All of the fandoms I follow tend to be more recent (e.g., Supernatural, [the new] Battlestar Galactica).
At any rate, I mention this in case you're ever interested in looking at the rhetoric of race & racism beyond LJ. That's probably well beyond the scope of your project, and may not be particularly germane here -- the LJ discussions about Martha & Doctor Who didn't much reference anything similar on Outpost Gallifrey, as far as I could see. And I don't read the forums on OG myself, so I can't even say whether representations of race have been the subject of much discussion over there.
I just mention it as a possible vantage point into inquiries re: the specificity of fannish discourse on LJ -- i.e., is the rhetoric of race across LJ fandoms similar or different than what you'd see in other fannish spaces? Or even, similar or different than what you'd see in other kinds of online discussions? Questions which, I'm guessing, are way beyond the scope of your project -- but which your work would surely help to frame for further discussion.
(I also mention the OG because, in the context of recent discussions on