Calling All Copyfighters: Experts as Superheroes, Comic Books as Intervention and Boundary Making in Canadian Copyright Policy

Abstract

Critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1992) provides collective action scholars with means to interpret the practices of media, and particularly activist media, in politically engaging and mobilizing publics. Claims that novel forms of digital media bypass obstacles of mainstream media and facilitate greater public participation in policy-making require empirical and theoretical assessment. This article scrutinizes one notable digital intervention in copyright policy-making: an interactive and “clickable” PDF comic, published by Appropriation Art, presenting a framed narrative surrounding the “Fair Copyright for Canada” campaign. Analyzing the comic's composition and its intertextual, interdiscursive, and performative character, the analysis shows it is related to institutionalized political and mainstream media practice and, contrary to intention, helps reproduce traditional institutional divides between policy “insiders” and “outsiders.”