The Imagined Internet Wrestling Community
The theory I am planning to use on my ethnographic research is that of the imagined community. The reason for this that for my ethnographic research I am studying the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC), which is a prime example of an imagined community. It is a community that mainly interacts through a media rather than in person. It is a community of the involved fan as opposed to the casual fan, where the community has shifted from magazines, tapes, and hotlines to online journals, streams, and podcasts.
The theory of imagined communities was brought about by Benedict Anderson. The theory states that a nation forms from a socially constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of the group. The theory has also been applied to media in the sense that they have created a nationalist following for other subjects.
The shortcomings of the theory are that it does not address the issues of exclusivity and pre-modern era nationalism. This shouldn’t be a problem as Professional Wrestling has occurred mostly in modern era and I plan to focus on mainly things that occurred during the 1970’s onward. I also plan to make bring up the differences between subsections of the IWC and why the exist and/or are so prominent, as there are quite a few subsections that clash constantly. However, beyond that, I see the argument turning into a no true Scotsman fallacy, so I do not believe there is much need to delve deeper into those points.
I feel comfortable that my topic fits well with the theory of the imagined community and will be able to show some flaws that could be improved upon. It also puts a spotlight on a community that is seen as a soft taboo by the mainstream.
