The Transmedia Games: Flows of Literacy Across Corporate and User-Produced Spaces

• In Event: Virtual Worlds and Video Games: Synergies in Research

Abstract

Purpose & Perspective. In this presentation we use qualitative content analyses of products and artifacts from the Hunger Games media franchise to explore literacy practices as embedded in corporate and fan-produced transmedia ecologies. Sociocultural theory stresses the importance of understanding the ecologies in which literacy and learning practices are embedded. Research that looks synergistically at meaning-making in transmedia ecologies can help us to understand the reach of literacy practices across platforms and how the sponsors (Brandt, 2001) of such practices (e.g., corporations, fandoms) are implicated in the creation and propagation of distinct opportunities for literate participation via the franchise.

Data Sources. Data for this study include Hunger Games-related texts (books, fan fiction stories, websites, fan videos), products (video games), and artefacts (curricular materials) produced by the publishing company Scholastic, the marketing company Lionsgate, and by fans of the franchise. Qualitative content analysis is used to compare and contrast patterns in relation to the following questions:
● What types of entry-points for literate participation are sponsored by the official producers of these transmedia products?
● What types of entry-points for literate participation are created by consumers or prosumers of these transmedia products?
● How might these entry-points shape and constrain young people’s literate participation?

Results. Our analyses suggest that official and fan-sponsored activities differentially support “drillable” practices (those that inspire fans to delve deeply into the existing storyworld) and “spreadable” practices (those that encourage fans to adapt content to suit their own purposes) as forms of literate engagement (Smith, 2011). While corporate-sponsored activities do promote movement across media platforms, they do so in a way that confines literate exploration to the borders of the official storyworld. Such structured participation mirrors how literacy is often viewed in traditional school settings-- as a tool for drilling down into officially-sanctioned curricular materials. In contrast, fannish meaning-making practices “spread” the reach of the Hunger Games narrative beyond the official storyworld and adapt said narrative for their own purposes. When fans adapt narratives, they go beyond functional and performative uses of literacy and instead begin using literacy in ways that allow them “to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society” (UNESCO, 2004).

Significance. It is incumbent upon us as researchers and educators to think of literacy in ways that extend beyond reading and writing into various forms of transmediation, and to understand how young people’s ability and willingness (or not) to participate across media will determine literate success (or failure). Moreover, young people’s ability to mobilize transmedial literacies in the service of their own goals needs to be understood in the larger contexts of corporately-sponsored transmedia that attempts to harness literate energies and keep them focused in narrowed ways. To this end, further research must be attuned to the power relations always present in media ecologies and consider what critical media literacy might look like in networked ecologies.

Author

• Rebecca Ward Black, University of California - Irvine