CE 1 JOURNAL

SUBMITTED BY: MAHAM TARIQ KHAN ERP: 14374

- brings people together through fandoms and connect with each other - formative years were shaped in unison with Harry’s - from themoment you saw harry enter Hogwarts to the moment you saw the three of them standing in the ruins of Hogwarts sth special happened. every year you aged, the characters did too - you experienced everything together and now we look back and harry and his friends feel like our childhood friends - They were in a world very different from us that we could only imagine but their hearts and experiences were no different from us - helped us identify with them - follow with their quirks and fall in love with them - the dark side showed how the world outside our front doors is not all sunshine and rainbows either - as trio progressed with self discovery so did we with JK rowlings words - with these words we find the strength and wisdom to fight our own battles - it’s a friend created who pushes you, motivates you, inspires you and is there for you not just through childhood but through entire life - “What got me into the series wasn’t that I grew up alongside Ron, Harry and Hermione but that I could relate to what they’d lost, what they were trying to protect. And because it’s littered with beautiful notions like banishing fear with laughter, or being able to defeat something that’s determined to snuff out your happiness with a joyful thought.” - PARAPHRASED: As we grew in years, so did Harry. The problems he faced in Hogwarts or outside were ones we could all relate to though we never had the privilege to go to Hogwarts or learn magic. Harry Potter was about teenage life, about school, about growing up, and about identifying the difference between right and wrong. Little by little, JK Rowling's words and the lessons seeped into us, making us pretty exemplary human beings. While princes, princesses and dwarfs may teach our kids that miracles exist, Harry Potter propagates that those miracles exist because you make them happen

Theoretically, a similar approach could be applied to research on parasocial processes: examining the adolescent’s involvement in PSI/PSR, the identities of celebrities chosen for parasocial attention, and the qualities of the relationships imagined with media figures.

- group dynamics main friendships ayega. interpersonal relationships, social dynamics, dobby effect - themes: resilience in difficult times – rephrase – resilience in times of helplessness, grief, fear, anxiety - familial bonds: attachment theory, supportive relationships, friendships, need to talk about supportive relationships and bonds. parent-child attachments and relationship - empathy: dobby effect dobby effect- self punishment, eleviating your guilty conscience, you feel so guilty that you feel like you need to punish yourself Why is HP popular? • J.K. Rowling’s first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was published in 1997. • In seven extraordinary books published over ten years, Harry’s story became a massive worldwide bestseller, breaking all records and winning the devotion of legions of fans. • The novels have been translated into 80 languages, sold over 500 million copies, and made into 8 blockbuster films. • According to Bloomsbury, this figure means an average of one in 15 people in the world own a Harry Potter book. • "We think it’s fair to say that, 20 years and 500 million books later, Harry Potter still has the power to transport us to a whole new world within its pages. This is exactly why we’ll keep on reading them forever, passing them on for many generations to come." • In other words, Harry Potter is popular because people can relate to it. Though it takes place in a fantasy setting, the problems that Harry deals with are all too human. The genre just reveals these issues. • Harry Potter also lasts so long because so many people grew up with Harry. By doing so, Rowling secured fans for life for the boy wizard, who will most likely pass the love on to everyone they possibly can. Another reason for Harry Potter’s longevity is that the series has a positive effect on people. Many are inspired by Harry to “[discuss] religion and community and, perhaps, ways to make the world a better place and ourselves better Muggles.”

• The writing is accessible. The first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, reads more like literature aimed at pre-teens with more basic declarative sentence structure. However, she adds far more complex sentence structure that reads well in the rest of the books. The writer knows that you can’t wait to find out what happened next, but she also cares about how she writes the books. There is a good balance between sentences that get you to point B, and other sentences that make you contemplate character motives and linger over certain paragraphs. • One last thing: parents read these books to their kids. They catch themselves loving them as well. So the books work for children, teenagers and adults. Many teachers also love the books. That is an incredible writing feat. • One last thing: parents read these books to their kids. They catch themselves loving them as well. So the books work for children, teenagers and adults. Many teachers also love the books. That is an incredible writing feat.

HP AND POPULARITY - considered controversial - paved way for mainstreaming geek and fandom culture - the series helped make it cool to be a geek. People generally didn’t read the Harry Potter books in isolation; they wanted to talk about it with their friends, and then find more friends who loved the books as much as they did. This pattern coincided with the rise of “Web 2.0” — that is, an increasingly interactive and social internet. As more Harry Potter fans became more active online, they made discussion of YA fiction, fantasy, and science fiction seem commonplace. - In the early 2000s, Harry Potter fan forums, fanfiction and fan art archives, and email discussion groups exploded across the internet. Harry Potter conventions drew thousands of fans, and Harry Potter cosplay became a well-known sight at larger geek and comic cons - Around the same time, the “Wizard Rock” trend (shorthanded Wrock) gained momentum as Harry Potter fans on YouTube formed a litany of music groups — the first one being Harry and the Potters — devoted to personifying and singing about various characters from the books. It was later joined by another totally unique-to-Harry-Potter fan pursuit: Quidditch. In 2005, students at Vermont’s Middlebury college created the first real-life Quidditch game, which went on to spawn an international real-world college sport. - A number of Harry Potter fans also went on to make significant marks on mainstream culture. As a member of the University of Michigan theater troupe Starkid, a young Darren Criss starred as Harry Potter in the viral YouTube video A Very Potter Musical, and his popularity catapulted him into the role of Blaine on Glee and a career on Broadway. - Two longtime members of Harry Potter fandom, siblings John and Hank Green — now known more widely as the Vlogbrothers — got their start on YouTube during the site’s relative infancy, but it wasn’t until Hank Green’s 2007 song “Accio Deathly Hallows” went viral on the eve of the final Harry Potter book’s release that they became the true YouTube stars and industry success models they are today. - Other Harry Potter fans, like fan convention organizer Melissa Anelli and social activist Andrew Slack launched careers directly out of Harry Potter fandom. In general, the Harry Potter fandom was among the first to see a number of people actively leveraging their success through fandom toward their professional careers. Just as Harry Potter made it easier for fans to own their geeky habits, the Harry Potter fandom made it easier for fans to market those geeky habits as professional assets. - - The books faced their own fair share of criticism at the time. They were considered extremely controversial since it involved the concepts of wizardry and witchcraft. This was a matter of concern for a lot of conservative parents who were against its presence in school libraries. The books first topped the American Library Association’s list of the most banned books of the year in 1999, and remained in the top spot for most of the next decade. - - HP paved way for mainstreaming of fandom and geek culture. the series helped make it cool to be a geek. People generally didn’t read the Harry Potter books in isolation; they wanted to talk about it with their friends, and then find more friends who loved the books as much as they did. This pattern coincided with the rise of “Web 2.0” — that is, an increasingly interactive and social internet. As more Harry Potter fans became more active online, they made discussion of YA fiction, fantasy, and science fiction seem commonplace. In the early 2000s, Harry Potter fan forums, fanfiction and fan art archives, and email discussion groups exploded across the internet. Harry Potter conventions drew thousands of fans, and Harry Potter cosplay became a well-known sight at larger geek and comic cons.

- A number of Harry Potter fans also went on to make significant marks on mainstream culture. Darren Criss, a young university student starred as Harry Potter in the viral YouTube video A Very Potter Musical, and his popularity got him into the role of Blaine on Glee and a career on Broadway. - Two longtime members of Harry Potter fandom, siblings John and Hank Green — now known more widely as the Vlogbrothers — got their start on YouTube during the site’s relative infancy, but it wasn’t until Hank Green’s 2007 song “Accio Deathly Hallows” went viral on the eve of the final Harry Potter book’s release that they became the true YouTube stars and industry success models they are today with 3.33 million subscribers on Youtube

- In general HP was the first fandom to see a number of people actually making successful careers out of this fandom. Just as Harry Potter made it easier for fans to own their geeky habits, ìt made it easier for fans to market those geeky habits as professional assets.

IMP LIT REVIEW

- Vezalli - A new study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that reading the Harry Potter books in particular has similar effects, likely in part because Potter is continually in contact with stigmatized groups. The wizarding world is divided into three groups – purebloods, halfbloods and muggle brons. - The research group, led by professor Loris Vezzali of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy, conducted three related studies. In the first, 34 elementary school children were given a questionnaire assessing their attitudes towards immigrants who were frequently stigmatized in Italy. The children were then divided into two groups that met once a week for six weeks to read Harry Potter passages and discuss it with a research assistant. One group read passages relating to prejudice, like the scene where Draco Malfoy, a shockingly blond pure-blood wizard, calls Harry’s friend Hermione a “filthy little Mud-blood.” The control group read excerpts unrelated to prejudice, including the scene where Harry buys his first magic wand. A week after the last session, the children’s attitudes towards out-groups were assessed again. Among those who identified with the Harry Potter character, attitudes toward immigrants were found to be significantly improved in children who’d read passages dealing with prejudice. The attitudes of those who’d read neutral passages hadn’t changed. - Vezzali and colleagues conducted two follow-up studies with similar results. One found that reading Harry Potter improved attitudes towards homosexuals in Italian high school students. The other linked the books with more compassion towards refugees among English university students.

- A study published last year in Science found that reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or nonfiction, results in keener social perception and increased empathy — empathy being defined more or less as the ability to alternate between different perspectives on a particular person or situation. Literature with complex, developed themes and characters appears to let readers occupy or adopt perspectives they might otherwise not consider (KIDD & COSTANO)

- Parasocial interaction – Gap in literature on PSI in books. dominated by media o 3 factors – physical attractiveness, personality and social agreeableness of the character, competence and successes of the character o one-sided. reader can choose to terminate it whenever they want. o interaction leads to a relationship - It will help us to gauge the relatability level and how much readers connect to the characters - Likert scale questionnaire: I like harry potter. I would want to be friends with harry potter. - Identify a favorite character. then ask questions about that character. note down attributes that remind you of that character (FINALIZED METHODOLOGY!!) - social cognitive theory - describes the influence of individual experiences, the actions of others, and environmental factors on individual behaviors.

PARAPHRASED: - It has been found that “media characters can serve as role models and the relationship with them can help teenagers in constructing their own identity and learn more about social roles and role-compatible behavior” (Schmid & Klimmt, 2011). A key scientific concept that aims to examine the relationships between media characters and users is the parasocial interaction (PSI). Parasocial was a term coined by Horton & Wohl (1956) who explained it as an “illusionary experience, such that media audiences interact with personas as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them.” (Horton & Wohl, 1956) - PSI is referred to the interaction between media user and the media strictly while consuming the content. However, if this interaction is no longer confined to the and takes form of a dynamic similar to a real-life relationship, it is termed as parasocial relationship (PSR). (Schramm, 2008) However, the difference between a real-life relationship and a parasocial relationship is that a PSR is strictly one-sided only and not necessarily reciprocated and, secondly, the user may break it off anytime when he/she wishes. Although one-sided, it involves a deep emotional and intimate connection between the user and the content they consume. - Although the research in PSI and PSR is dominated by research between media entities, celebrities, content and users, there is very limited research into the world of literature. To cover up the gap, (Schramm & Liebers, 2017) carried out a study in which they hypothesized a link between “ease of cognitive access, reading pleasure, experience of presence, and PSR.” The authors write that it is imperative to venture into studying the relationship between readers and books because they provide “a medium that is famous, among other things, for giving the audience private insights into the thoughts and motivations of the protagonists. In doing so, books generally offer the audience a greater chance to reconstruct a media character’s motivations and feelings than films can offer. This might strengthen the way we feel about a media character, regardless of whether the feeling is amicable, hateful, or romantic.” Although there have been researches conducted on books such as Harry Potter and their fans (Schmid & Klimmt, 2011), a series which largely known for its books, the methodology carried out by the researchers did not limit the participants to readers only but also included those who considered themselves fan of the series by watching the movies. By collecting data through online questionnaires where they were asked to identify their favorite characters from their favorite books and then list down attributes. There results confirmed their hypothesis that “media reception can influence PSR in literature as well and such relationships develop mainly after the reception.” Inspired by Schramm’s work, this thesis also intends to draw into the PSI between Harry Potter characters, stories and the readers who consume the content by furthering the research into the realm of PSI and PSRs in the world of literature. In a way, this will be similar to looking at how social cognitive learning theory may or may not work by way of imitation attitudes and behaviors through reading.

- Theory of mind

- Simulation theory, also referred to as empathy theory, was developed by Robert Gordon in 1986. Gordon proposed that “we can predict others’ behavior by answering the question, ‘What would I do in that person’s situation?’” (LOOK MORE INTO THIS – MS ZAINAB)

- In 2006, Mar, et al. conducted a study, based on simulation, in which they found that empathy and theory of mind were increased in those who read fiction. They also found that individuals who mostly read nonfiction tended to be less empathetic and have less capacity for theory of mind. In their discussion, the researchers pointed out that when learning to fly a plane, people use a flight simulator to improve their flying skills. They compared this to people engaging in simulations of fiction, which enable them to become better in the subject matter of the story, including empathy and understanding others.

SHOULD I INCLUDE LITERARY THEORIES AS WELL? Example: Transactional reader-response theory: The transactional theory signifies that both the reader and the text play important roles in the formation of meaning. Meaning is produced by continuous transaction between the reader and the text, employing the meaning potential of the text and the reader's experiential reservoir. (Marhaeni, 2016)