Social and Political Narrative: Audience Engagement in The Boys

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_37How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Realistic narrative; audience participation; the boys; digital ethnography; social media

Abstract

Contemporary television series increasingly strive to construct realistic narratives that engage with current social and political issues. To achieve this, they develop characters and storylines that mirror real-world conflicts and invite the audience to play an active role in the interpretive process. This study examines the social and political dimensions of the narrative in The Boys, as well as how audiences engage with and reinterpret the series through social media platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and Instagram. Using a qualitative approach grounded in digital ethnography, we analyzed viewers’ posts, comments, and reactions to the show’s ideological messages. The findings indicate that the audience primarily falls into three groups: critics, who reflect on the content from a political perspective; defenders, who reinforce the series’ ideological stance; and passive consumers, who engage with the show mainly as entertainment without deeper questioning. Audience participation not only amplifies the narrative’s reach but also shapes the thematic development of the series, revealing a symbolic dialogue between producers and viewers. The study concludes that The Boys functions as a platform for social and political critique, where the audience acts as a symbolic co-author—transforming fiction into a space of debate, representation, and the construction of media citizenship. The series thus exemplifies the power of fictional narratives to influence public perception and foster critical digital participation.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Antony Jose Ferrel Atoche
AU  - Yasmin Sayan-Casquino
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/10/22
TI  - Social and Political Narrative: Audience Engagement in The Boys
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies 2025 (ICOMTA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 405
EP  - 413
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_37
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-868-4_37
ID  - Atoche2025
ER  -