Reconfiguring the Reader: Convergence and Participation in Modern Young Adult Fantasy Fiction
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Reconfiguring the Reader: Convergence and Participation in Modern Young Adult Fantasy Fiction by Giuliana Fenech BA, MA A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics University of Newcastle upon Tyne September 2014 1 Abstract This thesis explores digital-age literary and reading practices as they were influenced by participatory culture at the turn of the century. Participatory culture is analysed here through the work of Henry Jenkins, Hans Heino Ewers, Margaret Mackey and Katy Varnelis and is recognised as one in which individuals are socially connected to each other in an environment that offers support for creating and sharing interpretations and original works. It has relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic participation, and fosters the sense of community growing around people’s common interests and ideologies, as expressed through performative manifestations such as gaming and fandom. Because juvenile fantasy fiction generally, and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997- 2007) specifically, were at the centre of significant developments in response to participatory culture, Rowling’s books are used as a case study on the basis of which changing practices of reading, writing and interpretation of story, principally by children and young people, are mapped and appraised. One aim of this thesis is to evaluate how far participatory culture has affected what it means to be a reader of a text that exists in multiple formats: how each version of the text constructs and addresses its readers/viewers/players/co-creators, and the dynamics and interdependence between the different versions. A second but related aim is to test the claims of new media theorists, including Janet Murray, Pierre Lévy and Marie-Laure Ryan, among others, to establish how far texts, readers and the processes of reading have in fact changed. Specifically, it looks at how far the promises of reader participation and co-creation have been fulfilled, especially within the genre of children’s literature. 2 Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my children, Jack and Ruby, With immense love and gratitude for allowing mummy to achieve this goal! And also, to my parents, Godfrey and Helen, Without whom I would never have had the courage to dream so big and the strength to achieve those dreams. 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Kimberley Reynolds, whose knowledge, feedback and support on many levels, have made this work possible. Dr James Annesley, who has provided constructive feedback throughout my studies, Professor John Beck for reminding me to consider what my thesis is not about, as well as what it is! Professor Peter Reynolds, for discussing His Dark Materials with me, Dr Meiko O’Halloran, Dr Jennifer Orr and Dr Lucy Pearson, for their kind encouragement, and the CLUGG group at Newcastle for sharing their convivial academic network with me. Thanks are also due to Dr Noel Brown for his support in the final stages of writing. From the University of Malta, I would like to thank; Professor Ivan Callus for his mentorship and guidance, for his unwavering belief in legacy and rigour, for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be part of the Department of English, as well as, Dr James Corby for khôra and more. Thanks are also due to my friends and colleagues; Daniel Vella, Dr Norbert Bugeja, Dr Alex Grech, Lara Schembri and Chris Gruppetta, for taking the time to discuss aspects of my work with me. Also, Jacob Piccinino for his moral support. Special thanks go to Audra Micallef and all the girls at DT. I would also like to thank all of my students, without whom, the joy of discovery would be a very solitary one. 4 Contents Chapter 1: Participatory Culture: The Production, Distribution and Interpretation of Story in the Digital Age 6 Chapter 2: Cinematic Texts, Intertextual Commodities and Immersion in Transmedia Narrative 74 Chapter 3: Interactivity and Play in Digital Tie-In Games 117 Chapter 4: A Focus on Harry Potter Fandom: from Reading to Creating/Curating? 145 Chapter 5: Emergent Interactivity, Play and Performance: Locating the Reader in Transmedia 205 Bibliography 222 Filmography 234 5 Chapter 1: Participatory Culture: The Production, Distribution and Interpretation of Story in the Digital Age This thesis explores digital-age literary and reading practices as they were influenced by participatory culture at the turn of this century. During this time, changing business and communication models influenced the way in which cultural industries operated. The spheres of public and private, production and distribution, ownership and access had to be reconsidered and were characterised by convergence culture. Convergence culture developed an environment that is based on active participation and offers support for creating and sharing interpretations and original works. It has relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic participation, and fosters the sense of community growing around people’s common interests and ideologies. It is also a product of the relationship between communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow around them and the activities they support. Participatory culture led to, and was influenced by, new phenomena such as convergence and transmedia, by studies of the relationships between texts and media, and by new terminology. Terms such as ‘remediation’, ‘distributed narrative’, ‘ubiquitous narrative’, ‘network culture’ and ‘social semiotics’ were coined to describe what was happening to narrative. As stories responded to changes in the cultural and political economy of the time and travelled across media platforms, they also quickly gathered large audiences and were re-framed as media franchises. They became the products of global conglomerates that have emerged, at least in part, as the unofficial regulators of the network culture of apparent access and openness introduced by computer technology and the Internet. Although single-medium adaptations have always enjoyed popularity in the history of media’s development, by the turn of the century, audiences were required to go beyond engagement 6 with single media platforms. The visual/aural dimension that television offered, film’s representation of spectacle, the ergodicity of digital games and the hypermedia of Internet sites, require readers to engage with the shift from mono or singular modal systems of communication to the multi-modal methods of reading, writing and interpretation that came about with transmedia narratives as they spread across various media platforms.1 Convergence and the Analysis of Participatory Culture in Context Henry Jenkins is a central figure in the debate on participatory culture, convergence and transmedia. Since 1992 he has published eleven books and numerous articles on new media and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (2002), Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition (2003), Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006) and Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture (2013). He maintains that the shifting media landscape at the turn of the century demonstrates the emergence of a cultural context that supports widespread participation in the production and distribution of transmedia products. In this context, media systems consisting both of communication technologies and the social, cultural and political practices that shape and surround them, are constantly adapting to accommodate the needs of society, whilst in turn being formed by them. Jenkins differentiates between interactive and participatory forms of engagement (interactivity being a property of the technological framework of media and participation the property of culture). His research shows convergence 1 Ergodic narrative, a term coined by Espen Aarseth in his book Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Maryland: John Hopkins University Press: 1997), refers to texts that require a nontrivial effort from readers in the process of interpretation. The term ‘nontrivial effort’ indicates that readers are given more agency within the narrative and therefore they take control over their reading path. The extent to which this happens in various texts is described further in Aarseth’s book. Hypermedia is an extension of hypertext where texts are extended through links that can be clicked on via links. In hypermedia texts this is extended by allowing the reader to click on images, sounds, movies and graphics in order to create a nonlinear narrative (Ted Nelson 1965). 7 influencing and drawing upon both aspects of engagement, making it a crucial background against which to gain a deeper insight into the participatory culture at the turn of the Twenty- first century. Change, in this area, has been rapid and Jenkins documented much of it in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, where he identifies convergence culture as the force that was then defining the future of media and communication landscapes and practices. His definition of convergence as a creative and economic process is central to the shift being studied throughout this thesis, because it highlights the context in which the literary landscape changed in the mid-1990s to generate the political, economic and aesthetic pressures to which story production was then responding. First and foremost, Jenkins identifies transmedia as one of the predominant characteristics of the time. In an earlier article entitled