1. Introduction
[1.1] On February 3, 2015, ABC Family (now Freeform) aired 4.05 "At First Clear Word," the second in a three-episode arc on its teen drama Switched at Birth (2011–17) addressing the issue of sexual assault on college campuses. The episode opens as Bay Kennish, one the series' two lead characters, wakes up in a dorm room, hungover and unsure of what happened the night before. The camera pans from the look of worry and confusion on her face, down to her clothes on the floor and then to the man lying next to her in bed: her ex-boyfriend, friend, and fan favorite Tank. Throughout the story arc, the show seeks not only to reflect common conversations surrounding sexual assault but also to encourage discussion about consent that goes beyond the simplistic good guy/bad guy rhetoric often seen in sexual assault plotlines across television programming. As Lizzy Weiss, the creator and showrunner of Switched at Birth, explained in interviews about the sexual assault story line, the writers set out to do a series of episodes that would "spark conversation" by keeping the plot details as "gray" as possible; they wanted to be sure not to dictate views to the audience but to allow them to wrestle with the ideological and moral implications themselves. As she told Flavorwire in an interview soon after the second episode in the arc aired: "Despite what most television says, it's not a black-and-white matter that has a clear-cut solution at the end of the hour. The Switched at Birth writers are aware of this, and aimed to start a conversation rather than crafting a definitive account." (http://flavorwire.com/504412/we-dont-have-all-the-answers-switched-at-birth-creator-lizzy-weiss-on-the-series-campus-rape-storyline)
[1.2] ABC Family and the show's producers sought to encourage discussion provoked by the episode through network-sponsored Twitter chats with the show's stars and writers, hashtags that appeared on-screen during the episode, Facebook posts, and a partnership with a national sexual assault support network. While television critics largely applauded the progressive perspective on campus sexual assault, with BuzzFeed arguing in its hallmark style that it "might be the bravest show on television" (https://www.buzzfeed.com/jacelacob/abc-family-switched-at-birth-campus-rape), the online reaction of fans was divided. While some did appreciate the writers' careful avoidance of "very special episode" tropes typical of sexual assault story lines, other fans blamed Bay for being an irresponsible tease and argued that the show's writers were being unfair to Tank. While Weiss claimed to want to leave the answers up to the viewers and to open up room for discussion, the story arc and its ensuing social media education campaign clearly fits within the growing campaign to popularize affirmative consent and "yes means yes" as the standard for determining sexual assault (note 1). However, the still-controversial nature of this standard meant that the episode sparked a more complicated conversation than the social media campaign was designed to handle or to which it could deftly respond. It seems that while the discussion of controversial topics, in this case about college policy, gender, and sexuality, is often heralded by critics, scholars, and fans alike, these topics can also lead to unintended fan backlash that undercuts a show's intended message. Indeed, attempts to persuade young audiences to adopt the "yes means yes" standard of consent with regard to this particular story line were somewhat blunted by the ensuing social media conversation, in which fans tended to dig in their heels along common ideological lines.
[1.3] Therefore, here I want to explore the tension between the potential for discussion opened by the provocative sexual assault story arc and the ways in which ABC Family's social media fan engagement was not equipped to responsibly foster such a discussion. Through this case study, I want to start to think through the ways in which fans engage in debates on social media about complicated, controversial, or contentious topics opened by increasingly sophisticated teen TV and, more broadly, television in general. Such tension exists across television programming and is by no means a new problem; the intended meaning of texts and audience interpretation have always bumped up against one another. This case study is useful, though, for the ways in which it makes visible the growing tension between television programming and social media engagement; while networks continue to develop complex and socially relevant narratives that work to incite conversation, they have largely failed to develop complex social media responses to address a wide range of fan reaction. While "the very special episode" has long been a staple of television programming, narrowcasting and niche programming allows for increasingly nuanced narratives that deal with complicated issues like sexuality, suicide, bullying, racism, misogyny, and sexual assault. While these narratives indeed represent opportunities for conversation and education, they also put a strain on television networks' ability to guide online conversations responsibly. While networks have never had control over the ways in which audiences make meaning from their programming (Hall 1980), the rise of social media engagement makes visible the varied responses audiences have in response to complex or contentious texts and brings fans' voices together in one forum. While audience backlash or hate may be the price of online engagement for networks, in the case of increasingly sophisticated storytelling aimed at younger audiences, such backlash has the potential to undercut certain intended messages within the network's online spaces. Thus, the educational potential of shows like Switched at Birth is thwarted by oppositional fan readings made increasingly visible by social media. As networks seek to attract savvy millennial fans with nuanced, socially progressive programming, network fan engagement should offer accompanying social media campaigns that responsibly guide fan conversation and, even more optimistically, push conversations in new directions. In this particular case study, while Switched at Birth's sexual assault arc opened avenues for discussion about not just individual consent, but also about the societal structures and context in which Bay and Tank were making decisions, ultimately the social media campaign failed to push the conversation beyond the typical arguments about individual choices and responsibility.
[1.4] Specifically, I'm interested in the tension between education and discussion underlying both the television narrative and social media engagement. While Weiss understands Switched at Birth within a cultural forum framework (Newcomb and Hirsch 1983), in which the emphasis is on "the process rather than product, on discussion rather than indoctrination, on contradictions and confusion rather than coherence" (564), an educational aim also underlies the episode and the network's branding strategy. The network and producers want to encourage discussion, but also to deliver a certain message. Discussion is, of course, an important pedagogical tool. But, as anyone who has led a classroom discussion knows, student-led discussion has the potential to take the material in unintended directions. Shows like Switched at Birth are often applauded for avoiding preaching and finger-wagging, but an unintended consequence of nuance, as the social media response to this episode highlights, is even less control over any fundamental lesson. Switched at Birth, in this case, makes visible the tricky balancing act networks face in blending educational messaging, narrative complexity, and social media engagement. This story arc in particular represents a clear case in which the creator and network acknowledged the nuance of the show's storytelling and its educational impetus, but were not able to either handle or reflect the complexity of fan responses because of the limits of their social media engagement. To work through the various ways in which ABC Family and the Switched at Birth writers tried and sometimes failed strike a responsible balance between fan engagement and sexual assault education, I first briefly discuss intersections between the literature on fan talk and Newcomb and Hirsch's (1983) cultural forum model of television. Next, I work through the story arc itself, contextualizing it within the conventions of sexual assault in teen programming and "very special episodes." Finally, I use Louisa Ellen Stein's (2015) work on millennial fan practices to show how ABC Family's #SwitchedAfterChat exemplifies the ways in which social media fan engagement has yet to catch up to the rise of complex millennial television storytelling.
2. Fan talk and education: Twitter as a classroom and cultural forum
[2.1] Platforms like Twitter increasingly give viewers across the spectrum of fan engagement—from superfans to nonviewers—the ability to participate in ongoing conversations about television with varying levels of intensity. The constantly changing ecology of social media has allowed for what Matt Hills (2002) terms "just in time fandom," in which the practices of fandom have become "increasingly enmeshed with the rhythms and temporalities of broadcasting" (16). In other words, fans and casual viewers alike can discuss new episodes of television as they air, augmenting their viewing experience with running commentary and discussion. Twitter is still probably the most popular platform for such "just in time fandom" for both casual viewers and heavily engaged fans. While scholars like Wood and Baughman (2012) have looked at very active fan engagement through Twitter, specifically fans who create user accounts for fictional characters, others, like Highfield, Harrington, and Bruns (2012), describe the ways in which during major media events, Twitter is used as a back channel through which more "ordinary" audiences offer their own running commentary on a shared media text of the event as it unfolds. Some Twitter users read their feed as a paratext rather than participating, choosing to lurk, or silently follow the conversation as it unfolds without adding their own commentary. No matter the level of active engagement, networks see "just-in time fandom" practices like live tweeting as a way to incentivize live-viewing and bring back live audiences easily lost to time-shifting and increased online entertainment offerings.
[2.2] Producers and network executives increasingly encourage such practices, displaying official hashtags on screen, highlighting fan tweets during broadcasts, and building interactivity into the television text itself. As Cory Barker (2014) argues in his essay on casual forms of Pretty Little Liars (2010–17) fandom, the increasing merging of television viewing practices with social media engagement, or social TV, not only makes established fan communities more visible and easily able to share their own content, but also motivates more casual viewer participation as well. As social media and television increasingly converge, scholars like Matt Hills (2013) and Suzanne Scott (2008) have argued that categorizations of fandom, such as the semiotic, enunciative, and textual tripartite of fan productivity outlined by John Fiske (1992), need to be constantly reimagined; however, even as fan studies scholarship reimagines fan practices, visible creative textual productivity still often receives the greatest attention. Therefore, as social TV becomes the new norm, Barker argues, fan studies scholarship should also interrogate the "brief, conversational, and less politically engaged" (215) viewer practices that are increasingly becoming another part of regular television viewing. Indeed, drawing on Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington's (2007) call to understand fandom "as a part of the fabric of our everyday lives" (9), Stein (2015) argues that media companies no longer fear "the excesses of the unruly fan," but are now building television ecosystems that embrace "personal investment, performativity, emotion, and excess within the context of shared digital creativity" (15).
[2.3] In this case study, I'm interested in how social TV and these more casual forms of fandom extend the educational and cultural messaging from teen programming into online spaces through fan talk (Fiske 1992); specifically, how young fans interpret and discuss social issues through their engagement with television story lines and discussion of their favorite characters. Networks increasingly encourage conversation and engagement among fans of teen dramas—not only in an effort to attract and keep an audience but also in an effort to shift attitudes, educate, and raise awareness of often complicated and controversial issues. However, as Stuart Hall (1980) has taught us, audiences don't always adopt a media text's intended meaning; and further, they don't always adopt a network campaign's intended argument. As I dug into the Twitter and Facebook discussion surrounding ABC Family's Switched at Birth sexual assault story line, it became apparent that the producers, cast, and network social media accounts had limited control over the direction of the ensuing social media conversation. This, of course, isn't surprising. Audiences frequently express their frustration, disappointment, or anger at series' plot or character developments. This affective reaction has more troubling implications, though, when the discussion of characters and plot development pushes potentially harmful assumptions about, in this case, rape culture and victim blaming. In her seminal research on romance novels, Janice Radway (1984) argues that to fully understand a text within popular culture, researchers must shift their focus from the text in isolation to "the complex social event of reading," where audiences "actively attribute sense to lexical signs" in the context of their ordinary lives (8). Indeed, social media has become a key part of the television reading experience, and though "the personal and the political do not always go hand in hand" (Ang 1985, 136), social TV merits exploration in the ways in which the political is understood through personal connections to one's favorite TV characters.
[2.4] Indeed, as Newcomb and Hirsch (1983) argue, "the rhetoric of television drama is a rhetoric of discussion," and that rather than imparting a single message to the audience via a closed story line, "television does not present firm ideological conclusions," but rather "comments on ideological problems" (49). However, once fan conversation becomes itself a paratext to the television show, those debates have the potential to become a part of the message. Whereas networks could absolve themselves of responsibility for what went on in viewers' living rooms, I would argue that networks and television shows that wish to label their story lines as educational have a responsibility to reasonably guide divisive conversations within the context of official social media campaigns, especially with younger audiences. Discussion is an important aspect of education, but such discussion needs to be able to match the complexity of the text in order to push it in a productive direction.
[2.5] Additionally, in extending the cultural forum model of television to online spaces through social media engagement, ABC Family/Freeform and other networks like The CW, The Disney Channel, and, increasingly, streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu, face difficulties in balancing the tension between encouraging fan discussion and imparting important messages to their impressionable fans. Further, in the era of social TV, it is important to examine how fan discussion on social media becomes a paratext that has the potential to disrupt or complicate educational messaging, and in the case of sexual assault, to trigger or harm fans who see themselves in the story. Switched at Birth, being a text that frequently tackles difficult social and personal issues, and that is aggressively marketed via social media, is then a useful site in which to examine the tension between entertainment, discussion, and education. In the following section, I will articulate the ways in which Switched at Birth draws on the genre conventions of teen drama to educate its audience about, in this case study, sexual assault. Next, I will explore the ways in which ABC Family's social media campaign failed to adequately extend this conversation online, by using Stein's (2015) theorization of network branding and millennial fan practices.
3. Switched at Birth's sexual assault story line
[3.1] Switched at Birth premiered on ABC Family in the summer of 2011 and as of this writing is airing its fifth and final season on the since renamed Freeform network. The show follows two teenagers in Kansas City, Bay (Vanessa Marano) and Daphne (Katie Leclerc), as they deal with the fallout of discovering they were brought home by the wrong families from the hospital where they were born on the same day. Like other Freeform series, the show deals with a range of issues facing teenagers specifically, and broader issues like race, class, and sexuality. Bay's "adoptive" family, the Kennishes, resides in a wealthy, mostly white suburb, while Daphne's "adoptive" Latina single mother and grandmother are from a multicultural, working class neighborhood. Most notably, the show has been both praised and critiqued for its treatment of ability and ableism, as Daphne and a large portion of the secondary cast are deaf and many scenes are shot primarily in American Sign Language. Switched at Birth draws both on soap opera conventions and "quality television" conventions in ways that mark the series as both entertainingly dramatic and culturally and socially relevant. These strategies, similarly seen on shows like The Fosters (Freeform) and Degrassi (Netflix, in its most recent incarnation) allow networks to differentiate their programming from so-called mindless or harmful teen programming. Educational and socially relevant content has often been a branding strategy through which networks can distance themselves from the competition in terms of quality. For instance, the emergence in the 1970s of the ABC Afterschool Special series, one of the first examples of "edutainment" for teenagers, exemplified the ways in which networks sought to distance themselves from the what critics saw as the crass, shallow spectacle of mainstream television (Elman 2010, 261–62). However, contemporary prestige programming, even for teens, increasingly rejects black and white messages or didacticism in favor of raising questions and provoking discussion both within the text and online (Ross 2008, 75).
[3.2] As Weiss told the press, she and her writers were hoping to bring such nuance to the campus sexual assault story arc. While many television series, from family sitcoms to adult dramas, have tackled the issue of sexual assault, they often do so in special episodes, contained story lines, or in a single Law and Order–style "ripped from the headlines" episode. Rarely do series build a story about sexual assault into the "constellation of pre-existing characters and ongoing, intertwined narratives" that soap opera storytelling allows (Treichler 2007, 108). Further, Susan Berridge (2013) argues that while female-centered teen drama series are more likely to center on the victims' experiences, challenge representations, and encourage discussion about socially sensitive topics like sexual assault, often "sexual violence narratives across the teen genre contain rather than enlarge discussions about the relationship between gender, sexuality, and power" (482). The Switched at Birth writers acknowledge this trend and wanted to open discussion where they saw it often being shut down.
[3.3] This brings us to the story line at hand, which took place in the show's fourth season. The groundwork for the three-episode assault story arc was laid starting in season 3 with fallout continuing into the present fifth season. My analysis focuses on the three episodes from the fourth season immediately leading up to and following the assault, which aired from January 27, 2015, to February 10, 2015: 4.04 "We Were So Close that Nothing Used to Stand Between Us," 4.05 "At First Clear Word," and 4.06 "Black and Gray." By this point in the series, Daphne and Bay are college aged, although for complicated reasons (because in teen dramas, aren't they always?) Daphne is enrolled in the fictional University of Missouri–Kansas City while Bay has recently been released from house arrest and is enjoying her first days of freedom from her ankle bracelet. Bay has recently had a fight with her long-distance boyfriend, Emmet (Sean Berdy), and is attending a party at her friend's dorm to blow off steam. At the party, she runs into her friend and ex-boyfriend Tank (Max Adler). Episode 4.04 ends with Bay drinking alcoholic punch, or "jungle juice," with Tank at the dorm party, and episode 4.05 opens with Bay waking up naked in a dorm room and finding Tank asleep next to her (figure 1).
Figure 1. Screenshot from the opening scene of 4.05 "At First Clear Word," Switched at Birth (2015). [View larger image.]
[3.4] Leading up to this point, the show has already laid the groundwork for a more complicated portrayal of sexual assault than we generally see on TV. While many sexual assault story lines on television feature marginal perpetrators characterized as "bad" or "othered" from the "good" male members of the main cast (Berridge 2013, 483), the audience has gotten to know Tank for an entire season. He is not a suspicious stranger or a bad guy; he is Bay's very close friend, her brother's roommate and a character that members of the audience likely identify with. Indeed, Weiss told Cosmopolitan that the network was initially surprised that they wanted to use Tank for this arc, but as she explained, "We were very clear that we wanted to tell a story with a character that you knew and loved. People [had] a hard time even from the promo!" (http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/tv/q-and-a/a36073/switched-at-birth-campus-sexual-assault-lizzy-weiss-interview/). Further, the audience is never shown exactly what happened the night before, with Bay and Tank offering different accounts of what happened at the party. Bay explains that she was too drunk to consent to sex, while Tank insists that she said yes and he had no way of knowing she had blacked out. Weiss noted in her Flavorwire interview that they purposely chose to show differing accounts from each character's perspective to mimic common real-life situations in which no one ever knows exactly and objectively what happened.
[3.5] Berridge (2013) argues that teen drama's tendency toward large casts and a focus on relationships allows for them to put the actual discussion of sexual violence at the center of these types of story lines. Often within discussions between characters, writers can "self-consciously deploy rape myths to then interrogate them" (482). Indeed, the show uses various character reactions to Bay's confiding in them about what happened to her to highlight common reactions to sexual assault. For instance, after Bay wakes up, she is upset because she thinks she cheated on her boyfriend Emmet; however, she has a nagging feeling that something else is wrong, so she confides in her birth mother Regina (Constance Marie) later that night, pretending that she's asking the question for a friend:
[3.6] Bay: Actually, Tess has a boyfriend, a pretty serious one. I think she loves him a lot. But, I guess last night, she got really drunk. Like, smashed. And when she woke up this morning, she found out that she had sex with someone else, but she doesn't remember it. Nothing. Blackout. Does that count as cheating? I mean, does she have to tell her boyfriend?
Regina: Well that's awful.
Bay: That she cheated.
Regina: No, that she was raped.
Bay: What?
Regina: Well if she was so drunk that she couldn't remember it the next day, then she didn't give consent.
Bay: Right.
Regina: Well, in my opinion. In a lot of people's opinions.
Bay: But she wasn't passed out. And what if she did give consent, but she just doesn't remember it?
Regina: If she said yes, but she said it when she was that wasted, the guy should not have had sex with her period.
Bay: I don't know that I agree with you. But thank you. I'll tell her.
[3.7] In this conversation, Regina's character is used to interrogate the myths that Bay believes about sexual assault. These types of conversations happen between nearly every member of the cast, giving voice to the range of reactions that are typically offered surrounding sexual assault from "it isn't a victim's fault if they are raped," to "if both people are drunk, it isn't assault" to "women shouldn't play victims." Though a wide range of opinions are offered across the cast, the show ultimately makes the argument that "yes means yes" and affirmative consent is required for sex in all circumstances, pushing back against characters that claim otherwise. The use of talk and emotional reaction in teen dramas means that consent and assault are discussed repeatedly as a central plot point, allowing the show to not only reflect common conversations about rape, but also to educate the audience, and help viewers work out their own knowledge, ideas, and feelings.
[3.8] The show goes beyond discussion of sexual assault as an individual issue and attempts to address campus policies surrounding student sexual assault. Thanks to the teen drama trope in which all adults connected to the teen characters work at the school their kids and their friends attend, Bay is able to discuss college policies with her boyfriend's mother, Melody (Marlee Matlin), who is the administrator of the deaf program and the dorm where the party took place. By the end of episode 4.05, Bay is sure that something isn't right and has confided in Daphne and her brother. Because of the interconnectedness of the characters on the show, this means that in the opening scene of 4.06, Melody has found out about the assault and calls Bay into her office to discuss a potential investigation. In this scene Melody explains what Title IX is and how the school will investigate the events of the party. This scene complicates the story, because Melody is Bay's boyfriend's mom, and also serves as an educational moment, because Melody is the first one to bring up Title IX, what it is, and how it affects university responses to sexual assault on campus (figure 2).
Figure 2. Screenshot from 4.06 "Black and Gray," Switched at Birth (2015). [View larger image.]
[3.9] While sexual violence in teen dramas and on television in general is often framed as an individual crime rather than a systemic political issue (Berridge 2013, 482), here the show tries to broaden the scope of the discussion beyond interpersonal relationships. Additionally, teen drama's use of serialization means that the emotional aftermath can play out over multiple episodes or even seasons. At the end of episode 4.06, Bay ultimately decides to tell the university investigators about what happened to her, confronts Tank about her decision, and finds out that Tank will be expelled from school. This episode closes one chapter of the story, but it sets in motion an emotional aftermath that will play out over a long period of time, just as it does for real-life survivors.
[3.10] With this episode and with the ensuing online conversation, the writers and the network wanted to push the narrative about sexual assault beyond the commonsensical, mistaken impression that rape is only perpetrated by strangers or bad guys and to update long-held standards of consent. As Newcomb and Hirsch argue (1983), television shows that make the best use of the medium as a cultural forum "raise the forum/discussion to an intense and obvious level" not only dealing subtextually with contemporary issues, but actively raising questions and commenting on them (49). Rather than simply reflecting common-sense notions of sexual assault, Switched at Birth sought to move the conversation in a new direction; however, the conversation tended to fall along well-worn lines when it moved to Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. While many TV critics and those who already agreed with Switched at Birth's stance on consent and assault applauded the story line, those fans who were uncomfortable with the direction of the story line were vocal in their discontent in ways that the online campaign was ill-equipped to deal with. In the next section, I'll explore the ways in which online fan practices have the potential to hinder potentially progressive conversation surrounding controversial issues without adequate scaffolding or support from those leading such conversations.
4. Millennial network branding and fan engagement
[4.1] As television outlets have proliferated through cable and streaming services, programming, both for adults and teens, has increasingly explored controversial and sensitive issues. Simultaneously, online fandom and social media engagement surrounding television has also proliferated, thus raising questions as to the role of online fan discussions of such sensitive topics. While audiences have always differed in their interpretation and reaction to television programming, how does the ability to put these opinions in a public forum change the potential of television messaging? How do and how should networks guide fan conversation, particularly with regard to programming for teens and young adults about important and potentially triggering issues? Stein (2015) traces the evolution of the types of network branding and millennial fan practices that characterized the hybrid educational/marketing strategy ABC Family took in conjunction with the Switched at Birth sexual assault arc. In her work, she interrogates the ways in which traditional modes of fan practice have become conflated with millennial modes of media consumption. Stein specifically addresses ABC Family's rebrand in 2007 in which the network introduced its tagline "A New Kind of Family" as a way to attract millennial viewers turned off by the idea of traditional, conservative family programming. This audience was interested in the "edginess of youth culture" but still wanted the "safety of family values" (16). The network therefore worked to emphasize the edginess of its shows' narrative content but also the transmedia elements of its series and opportunities for digital engagement. In 2007, this meant marketing the ABC Family website as a place fans could engage with the shows while sharing their own videos and stories about family and friends (17); ten years later, digital engagement has shifted from the ABC Family website to Freeform's social media accounts. The switch to the name Freeform is the logical conclusion to the 2007 rebranding. By dropping the term "Family" from the network name, execs hope they can attract casual viewers who still associate the word with wholesome, traditional values. The 2016 press release announcing the switch referred to ABC Family as the "most social television network"; and indeed, the network relaunched with a daylong virtual event on Twitter, Periscope, Vine, and BuzzFeed, as well as a live Facebook chat, Instagram content, and a Pretty Little Liars Snapchat filter. The fan base cultivated by ABC Family and now Freeform is tech savvy and engaged with the network's shows across social media platforms, in spaces that are both official and unofficial.
[4.2] Newcomb and Hirsch (1983) argue that television producers and executives are cultural interpreters that "read the culture" through its relation to the market, an argument that can be extended to marketing departments (53). At the same time, audiences bring their own background and personal beliefs to their reading of a text. While this process has always taken place, convergence culture increasingly makes these conversations visible across media platforms and across time and space (Jenkins 2006). As Matt Hills (2013) notes, fan activities and relationships have changed with shifting technologies and the "democratization of production" (130). While fan discussion may once have been limited to living rooms and friend groups, fan talk in the form of live tweeting and Facebook comments no longer "exists only for its moment of speaking" (Fiske 1992, 39) but rather is reproducible, circulatable, and public. However, while social media engagement increasingly allows for conversations around controversial narratives to take place among fans, the mutually negotiated process of reading, creating, and interpreting culture is a complex process that social media platforms, fans, and network social media managers often have trouble navigating. Further, the potential pitfalls of social media fan talk merit additional attention when debates about the realities of sexual assault and consent are intertwined with discussions about character and plot.
[4.3] To explore the potential for both productive and destructive discussion surrounding sensitive story lines, I examined the Twitter and Facebook conversations held within official spaces leading up to and following episodes 4.04 through 4.06. Over the course of these episodes, the show's producers harnessed the existing social media publicity infrastructure of both ABC Family and Switched at Birth, using the network's and series' social media accounts to publicize the official conversation the show's stars and writers would lead on Twitter during and after episode 4.05 about consent and sexual assault (figure 3).
Figure 3. The Switched at Birth official Twitter handle promotes #SwitchedAfterChat for 4.05 "At First Clear Word" (2015). [View larger image.]
[4.4] They also enlisted the help of Break The Cycle, a nonprofit that runs dating abuse programs for young people. Break the Cycle's Twitter handle also publicized its involvement leading up to the episode (figure 4).
Figure 4. In these Twitter posts, Lizzy Weiss and Break the Cycle promote #SwitchedAfterChat. [View larger image.]
[4.5] While I directly quote all official Twitter handles, I include no identifying information of viewers and fans on Facebook and Twitter. Instead, I'll just try to summarize general trends. To find conversations, I searched the official hashtags #SwitchedAfterChat, #SwitchedatBirth, and #BaysDecision from January 25 to February 17 to capture conversation both leading up to and reacting to the episodes under examination. I also read through Facebook comments on the official Switched at Birth page's promotional post made immediately after 4.05 aired (February 4, 2015). Because of all the promotional posts from the season, this one received the most comments and sparked the most debate among commenters (figure 5).
Figure 5. Example of ABC Family's Facebook promotional engagement for Switched at Birth showing the #BaysDecision hashtag. [View larger image.]
[4.6] An examination of this social media campaign shows ABC Family's reliance on its usual transmedia branding strategies to both foster conversation and educate its viewers on sexual assault and consent faced three sometimes contradictory challenges: (1) network branding strategies often undercut the seriousness of sensitive issues and story lines; (2) the story opened potential discussion that was limited by official social media engagement; and (3) despite attempts at limitation, social media accounts weren't able to adequately push back problematic assumptions about sexual assault and consent.
[4.7] Before getting into the online discussion itself, I want to note the uneasy relationship between network social media engagement strategies and sexual assault education present in the airing of these episodes. While the promotion of the Switched After-Chat pushed the partnership of ABC Family with nonprofits like Break the Cycle, indicating the seriousness of the discussion, the displaying of on-screen hashtags during the episode tended to undercut the real-life trauma that sexual assault victims face. ABC Family, and now Freeform, will often promote episodes with hashtags about a major upcoming plot point. This hashtag then displays on screen during pivotal moments during episodes to encourage, organize, and track social media conversation surrounding certain plotlines. In this case, however, because the typical dramatic beats of a teen drama were tied up with the difficult and raw experience of sexual assault, the use of pithy hashtags for promotion felt inappropriate. One of the most disquieting examples was the use of the hashtag #BaysDecision, leading up to and during the conversation between Bay and Tank in 4.06 "Black and Gray" when Bay explains that she's decided to cooperate with the Title IX investigation against Tank (figure 6).
Figure 6. ABC Family promotional material for 4.06 "Black and Gray," Switched at Birth (2015). The hashtag #BaysDecision was used both in promotional material displayed on screen during the episode. [View larger image.]
[4.8] While encouraging fans to discuss and work through their likely complicated feelings about the episode, the direct application of branding strategies to an educational plotline about young people and sexual assault starts to reveal the ways in which the social media marketing infrastructure isn't designed to adequately guide such a precarious discussion.
[4.9] Moving to the online fan activity itself, the network's aim was and still is to cultivate the correct type of fans, ones who are "willing to go the extra mile in terms of textual investment yet happy to play within the officially demarcated lines"(18). Stein argues that ABC Family essentially sought to domesticate fan behavior by merging it with millennial viewer practices. The network needs to harness online fandom in order to bolster its brand without encouraging any behavior too far outside of the mainstream and to attract viewers who are media savvy yet still "malleable for advertisers" (18). This means that while the episode itself may have opened possibilities for the discussion of sexual assault, the official Twitter engagement stuck to a constrained set of talking points, even when faced with complicated questions or pushback from fans. The merging of educational talking points with the needs of millennial brand engagement led to stilted and scripted conversations that rarely moved beyond the repetition of the need for "clear, affirmative consent" in sexual situations. Although Weiss claims she wanted to "spark conversation" and let fans come to their own conclusions about the story, the official message of both the episode and the Twitter campaign led by the show's stars and writers guided fans to take away a single, specific message: that Bay wasn't at fault for Tank's having sex with her while she was drunk. Figure 7 illustrates a typical exchange.
Figure 7. Max Adler and Break the Cycle discuss sexual assault on Twitter during the #SwitchedAfterChat. [View larger image.]
[4.10] Furthermore, while both the episode and the ensuing social media conversation sought to shift the onus of responsibility from the victim to the perpetrator by emphasizing that "yes means yes," the social media campaign failed further the episode's conversation about the wider cultural, political, and social ideologies that lead to campus rape culture. This is the main area in which the media text and social media paratexts diverge. While the episode tried to invoke wider systems of power in its portrayal of sexual assault, the online chat largely framed sexual assault as an issue between two individuals. Networks may be able to distance themselves somewhat from controversial storytelling within their series, but online network branding, publicity, and legal concerns likely necessitate that ABC Family's social media accounts avoid saying anything controversial, complicated, or combative. Even—perhaps especially—surrounding complex and divisive subjects, official accounts need to place boundaries around fan discussion. ABC Family's social media campaign seemed comfortable educating its audience about individual responsibility in cases of rape and sexual assault, but less comfortable addressing the societal ideologies and systems undergirding campus rape culture or in educating fans who were not already on board with affirmative consent or the existence of rape culture. This is the clearest example of the ways in which the goals of the series did not necessarily align with the goals of the network. Further, it highlights the ways in which Switched at Birth sits at an uneasy intersection of cultural forum, educational text, and network property.
[4.11] When fans did ask complicated questions, tried to engage in debate, or pushed back against talking points, official accounts directed them to seek further information from Break The Cycle's (https://www.breakthecycle.org/blog/back-school-defining-consent-sexual-relationships) and Love Is Respect's (http://www.loveisrespect.org/healthy-relationships/what-consent/) websites, two organizations that emphasize affirmative consent and constant communication within sexual relationships and that encourage the use of their hotlines to talk to professionals about consent, dating, and sexual activity. Both the episode and the Twitter conversation seemed to take their talking points from these and similar educational nonprofits that stress that "asking for consent every step of the way means engaging in open and honest communication between both partners" and that "alcohol…is not an excuse" (https://www.breakthecycle.org/blog/back-school-defining-consent-sexual-relationships). The use of such educational material both within the episode and the online campaign further underscores the instructional aims of the story arc beyond entertainment or even "sparking discussion." However, in practice, the online instruction did not appear to be designed to go beyond delivering the message of affirmative consent. Neither the network or the nonprofits had a cohesive strategy for engaging in a more complicated productive dialogue with fans who were resistant to or confused by the message.
[4.12] For instance, when one viewer said she could see both Tank's and Bay's sides and asked how she should feel if this had happened to her, Break the Cycle responded by sending her to the Love Is Respect website to talk to counselors about consent and assault. This is, of course, likely useful for this particular fan or others seeking these types of resources, but does little to visibly engage with the question on Twitter in a forum being read by other fans. Similarly, another viewer asked how she could protect herself, since she was the same age as Bay, to which Break the Cycle responded, "Always remember, it's never your responsibility to protect yourself from sexual assault." While this is a necessary message to combat the ideology that women are responsible for keeping themselves from being raped, it fails to educate audiences about actions they can take to combat rape culture and to agitate for concrete solutions like policy changes and campus reform. To be clear, I don't want to be cynical or suggest that these resources aren't vital and useful, especially to younger viewers who may need support or education. The decision to partner with sexual assault organizations to educate viewers is, of course, an admirable one. Rather, I use these examples to highlight the ways in which online discussions can constrain the extent to which social or political issues raised within teenage television can be explored within official network spaces. Both Berridge (2013) and Stein (2015) note the ways in which popular television and social media hold potential for expanded creativity, imagination, and conversation that isn't always fully realized.
[4.13] An additional contradictory issue with the campaign was a failure to constrain potentially destructive conversation. While millennial network social media engagement tries to guide fan behavior by promoting the use of official hashtags, suggesting topics of discussion, and encouraging interaction with network accounts, as Stein (2015) further theorizes, millennial fans don't just engage in discussion within official boundaries or along intended ideological lines. Rather, the "ideological meaning and aesthetic moments set in motion by a millennial television series and its paratexts enter a stew of swirling meanings that coexist online in network condoned spaces and in spaces beyond network control" (63). Although the reaction to the episode by television critics was almost universally positive, fans were notably divided between praise and anger. While Weiss wanted younger audience members to understand that rape isn't always perpetrated by "bad guys" or strangers, this message seemed to get away from her within the ensuing fan debate. At best, fans seemed to dig their heels into whatever their previously held beliefs about assault and consent were before the episode. In other words, the same genre conventions that help open discussions about health and sexual assault within soaps and teen dramas—serialized story lines, ongoing conversations about issues, fan attachment to characters, and story lines that reject black and white morality—also have the potential to derail them.
[4.14] Not surprisingly, because the writers worked so hard to mimic real-life situations, viewers had many negative reactions to Bay's fictional assault, comparable to those of real-life incidents of sexual assault. First, because Tank was such a well-liked character, as actual assailants often are, many fans took his side and criticized the writers for destroying his character, and blamed Bay for not taking responsibility for her actions. Comments ranged from fans expressing sympathy for Tank's side to fans expressing anger at the writers to fans arguing that Bay's character just felt guilty for cheating on her boyfriend and therefore decided to blame it on Tank. Secondly, because the writers chose only to show the night's events from Bay and Tank's differing perspectives and not from a third-person omniscient point of view, fans were frustrated that there was no cut-and-dry answer to how they should interpret the outcome. For instance, in the two weeks after the episode aired, one commentator on the Double X Chromosome Subreddit, an unofficial space for discussing women's issues, argued, "It would have been better if the course of the night's events were explicit." Finally, as often happens in discussions of real-world assault cases, fans were upset that Tank got in trouble even though he was also drunk, and accused the writers of forcing a "dangerous agenda" on their audience. Another Redditor from the same thread argued that the writers were basically claiming that "men can't be raped" and undermining the credibility of "real" survivors by claiming Bay was a victim when she wasn't.
[4.15] This conversation also serves as an example of how fan talk moves between official and unofficial channels. While fan talk took place within condoned spaces officially encouraged by ABC Family, conversations also happened in unofficial spaces like Reddit threads, showing the ways in which millennial engagement extends beyond network-defined channels. Social media is seen by networks as a useful way to engage with fans, encourage live viewing, create interactive experiences, and attract media savvy viewers; however, social media has similar potential to bring fans together in ways that push back against network messaging and unite viewers in anger or disappointment rather than pleasure and enjoyment. Further, social media engagement has the potential both to help and hinder television series' attempts to push certain social and political ideologies. While pop culture holds potential for health education and social issue awareness, millennial fan engagement and the rise of social TV complicates the ways in which these messages reach their intended audience. As audience and fan scholars have long argued, networks, writers, critics, and scholars cannot take as a given that audiences will take from a text its intended meaning. Social media engagement both makes resistant readings more visible and carries the potential to spread such readings across space and time. Resistant readings carry additional significance when they are tied up with educating and promoting discussion of issues like sexual assault and rape culture that already face significant pushback within the public sphere.
[4.16] In this case, while the writers intended for their handling of sexual assault to complicate television's usual narratives, and though the genre of the teen drama was indeed used to complicate the typical sexual assault story line, the online chat makes visible the ways in which nuance and complexity, while generally seen as admirable, can be rejected by viewers' negotiated readings of the text. Further, the online conversation brings these negotiated and openly hostile readings beyond viewers' own living rooms, potentially undermining the intended outcome of the Switched After-Chat.
5. Conclusion
[5.1] This case study examines the ways in which discussions surrounding sensitive or controversial topics can be both helped and hindered through fan talk surrounding television texts, and how the educational potential of shows like Switched at Birth needs to be accompanied by more sophisticated social media engagement. ABC Family's clumsy attempt to apply its usual #SwitchedAfterChat framework to an especially sensitive and complicated story about sexual assault makes visible the ways in which the awareness and education encouraged by millennial teen dramas can be undercut by these same conventions. While many television critics applauded the producers and writers for complicating the usual depiction of sexual assault on television, the social media conversation made clear that many fans found the narrative frustrating in ways that caused them to dig their heels in on their preexisting understanding of sexual assault and consent. These challenges, of course, aren't confined to teen TV but play out within adult programming as well. As debates about sensitive topics, from sexual assault to racism to sexuality to religion, play out on our television screens and online, how might networks and fans themselves work to foster a more productive online space? As anyone who has spent time on Twitter knows, the platform has the potential to both foster and break down discussion, so it's no surprise that fan conversation is any different. No network or showrunner will ever nor should ever want to control all ensuing fan talk; however, if networks want to better foster conversations surrounding their own programming, they need to commit resources to doing so rather than relying on typical marketing strategies. Instead of sticking to a rote set of talking points or employing actors and actresses to guide complex conversations, networks might bring in educators familiar with online spaces and debate to more fully respond to fan questions, pushback, and divisive rhetoric. While partnering with a nonprofit is a useful first step, a broader approach to sexual assault would need to involve not only those equipped to deal with individual concerns, but also experts knowledgeable about the social and political contexts in which sexual assault happens and is understood. Networks might also foster relationships with fans who frequently guide and engage in discussion to help lead ensuing conversations surrounding particularly sensitive episodes. While I don't have space to address a wider range of programming in this piece, future research may further theorize fan talk as debate over social issues and best practices as to how networks and fans can foster productive discussions surrounding sensitive topics both within millennial spaces and within a broader range of media texts.