Watching Doctor Who: Fan Reception and Evaluation

by Paul Booth, Craig Owen Jones

Through a richly detailed account of fan cultures and media over the over fifty-year history of the show, Watching Doctor Who explores fandom's changing attitudes towards this much-loved TV series. Why do fans love an episode one year but deride it a decade later? How do fans' values of Doctor Who change over time? As a show that's featured as part of the shared landscape of home entertainment since the 1960s, Doctor Who helps us understand the changing
nature of notions of 'value' and 'quality' in popular television. Through a series of in-depth case studies of fan polls and debates, Paul Booth and Craig Owen Jones interrogate the way Doctor Who fans and audiences re-interpret the value of particular episodes, Doctors, companions, and eras of Who.



With a foreword by Paul Cornell.

214 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2020

About the author

Paul Booth (1981-) is a Professor of Media and Cinema Studies & Communication Technology in the College of Communication at DePaul University, in downtown Chicago. He received his Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009. He researches New Media, Technology, Popular Culture, and Cultural Studies. He teaches classes in media studies, television narrative, convergence and digital media, popular culture, social media, communication technology, and participatory cultures. He is the editor of Fan Phenomena: Doctor Who, and the author of Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games, Playing Fans: Negotiating Fandom and Media in the Digital Age, Time on TV: Temporal Displacement and Mashup Television and Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. He has also published in the books The Languages of Doctor Who, Remake Television, Transgression 2.0, American Remakes of British Television, and Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. He is currently enjoying a cup of coffee.