Fan fiction and transmedia literacy practices on Wattpad: exploring the narrative and aesthetic skills of teenagers

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2022.mar.12

Keywords:

Fan fiction, Reading, Creative writing, Collaborative writing, Teenagers, Adolescents, Transmedia skills, Narrative, Aesthetics, Media literacy, Informal learning, Genres, Hybridization, Self-publishing, Platforms, Wattpad

Abstract

In recent years, Wattpad has become the leading collaborative reading and writing platform allowing young writers to publish their works, some of which belong to the tradition of fan fiction, including stories derived from a source text from popular culture. The main objective of this article is to explore how teenagers reading and writing fan fiction on Wattpad apply transmedia skills related to production and narrative and esthetic reflection. Using a theoretical framework that integrates transmedia literacy, fan fiction communities as affinity spaces, and Wattpad as a tool to promote transmedia reading, we carry out a qualitative study using data collected from workshops, media newspapers, and interviews with adolescents in five different Spanish regions. The results highlight identity-play in the production of the stories, in which fanfics about real-life celebrities from the teenagers´ media universes coexist with original stories inspired by the authors´ personal lives and interests. Likewise, there is a trend toward the hybridization of fan fiction with languages and formats more typical of social media platforms, such as Instagram, with a superficial application of narrative and esthetic transmedia skills related to fan fiction practices.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abad-Ruiz, Bárbara (2011). "Fanfiction: fomento de la escritura creativa a través de las formas emergentes de literatura". Tonos: revista de estudios filológicos, n. 21. https://www.um.es/tonosdigital/znum21/secciones/tritonos-1-fanfiction.htm

Albarello, Francisco (2019). Lectura transmedia. Leer, escribir conversar en el ecosistema de pantallas. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Ampersand. ISBN: 978 987 4161 24 5

Alvermann, Donna, E.; Moon, Jennifer S.; Hagood, Margaret C. (2018). Popular culture in the classroom: Teaching and researching critical media literacy. London: Routledge. ISBN: 1 3 842 336 X

Aragon, Cecilia; Davis, Katie (2019). Writers in the secret garden: Fanfiction, youth and new forms of mentoring. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN: 978 0 26 253 780 3

Bacon-Smith, Camille (1992). Enterprising women: Television fandom and the creation of popular myth. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN: 978 0 8 122137 99

Biniek, Patrycja (2018). "Evolution of the Mary Sue character in works by Wattpad social platform users". Polish journal of English studies, v. 4, n. 1, pp. 35-55. https://pjes.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/PJES-4.1-3-Biniek.pdf

Bird, S. Elizabeth (2011). "Are we all produsers now?". Cultural studies, v. 25, n. 4-5, pp. 502-516. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2011.600532

Black, Rebecca W. (2005). "Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English language learners in an online fanfiction community". Journal of adolescent & adult literacy, v. 49, n. 2, pp. 118-128. https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.49.2.4

Booth, Paul (2012). "Fandom in the classroom: A pedagogy of fan studies". In: Larsen, Katherine; Zubernis, Lynn. Fan culture: Theory/practice. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 174-187. ISBN: 1 4438 3783 0

Bourdieu, Pierre (1998). La distinción: criterios y bases sociales del gusto. Madrid: Taurus. ISBN: 84 306 0338 7

Boyd, Danah (2014). It´s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. London / New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN: 978 0 3001 990 00

Buckingham, David (2007). "Media education goes digital: An introduction". Learning, media and technology, v. 32, n. 2, pp. 111-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439880701343006

Busse, Kristina; Hellekson, Karen (2006). "Introduction". In: Hellekson, Karen; Busse, Kristina (eds.). Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the Internet: New essays, Jefferson, NC: McFarland, pp. 5-32. ISBN: 978 07 864 2640 9

Cassany, Daniel (2013). "Prácticas letradas vernáculas: lo que leen y escriben los jóvenes. In: Castro-Casado, Margarita; Gómez-Castro, Cristina; Llanillo-Gutiérrez, Francisco F.; Sánchez-Rodrí­guez, Susana; Slowik, Miroslav (coords.). Unplugged: la palabra como nueva tecnologí­a. Santander: Universidad de Cantabria, pp. 5-32. ISBN: 978 84 460 3830 6

Castro-Martí­nez, Andrea; Dí­az-Morilla, Pablo (2021). "Tuiteratura: contar historias con los hilos y recursos de Twitter". Ocnos: revista de estudios sobre lectura, v. 20, n. 1, pp. 82-95. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2021.20.1.2481

Cobo, Cristóbal; Moravec, John W. (2011). Aprendizaje invisible: hacia una nueva ecologí­a de la educación. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. ISBN: 84 47 535 185

Coppa, Francesca (2017). The fanfiction reader: Folk tales for the digital age. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 978 0 472 073 481

Costa-Sánchez, Carmen; Guerrero-Pico, Mar (2020). "What is WhatsApp for? Developing transmedia skills and informal learning strategies through the use of WhatsApp. A case study with teenagers from Spain". Social media and society, v. 6, n. 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120942886

Couldry, Nick (2011). "More sociology, more culture, more politics. Or, a modest proposal for "˜convergence´ studies". Cultural studies, v. 25, n. 4-5, pp. 487-501. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2011.600528

Curwood, Jen-Scott (2013). "The hunger games: Literature, literacy, and online affinity spaces". Language arts, v. 90, n. 6, pp. 417-427. https://library.ncte.org/journals/la/issues/v90-6

De-Kosnik, Abigail (2016). Rogue archives: Digital cultural memory and media fandom. MIT Press. ISBN: 978 0 26 2336 765

DeLuca, Katherine (2018). "Shared passions, shared compositions: Online fandom communities and affinity groups as sites for public writing pedagogy". Computers and compositions, v. 47, pp. 75-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2017.12.003

Establés, Marí­a-José; Guerrero-Pico, Mar; Contreras-Espinosa, Ruth (2019). "Jugadores, escritores e influencers en redes sociales: procesos de profesionalización entre adolescentes". Revista latina de comunicación social, v. 74, pp. 214- 236. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2019-1328

Falguera-Garcí­a, Enric; Selfa-Sastre, Moisés (2021). "Poesí­a en red: lectura y escritura en Wattpad". Ocnos: revista de estudios sobre lectura, v. 20, n. 3. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2021.20.3.2431

Ferrés-Prat, Joan; Piscitelli, Alejandro (2012). "Media competence. Articulated proposal of dimensions and indicators". Comunicar, v. 38, pp. 75-82. https://doi.org/10.3916/C38-2012-02-08

Fitriyah, Aidatul; Nisa´, Risa-Febriani-Aulia; Rumambo-Pandin, Moses-Glorino (2022). "The popularity of the Wattpad application in increasing millennial generation´s literacy through literary works". OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/74h2v

Funk, Stephen; Kellner, Douglas; Share, Jeff (2016). "Critical media literacy as transformative pedagogy". In: Yildiz, Melda N.; Keengwe, Jared (eds.). Handbook of research on media literacy in the digital age. IGI Global, pp. 1-30. ISBN: 1 46 669 6672

Garcí­a-Roca, Anastasio (2016). "Prácticas lectoras en espacios de afinidad: formas participativas en la cultura digital". Ocnos: revista de estudios sobre lectura, v. 15, n. 1, pp. 42-51. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2016.15.1.979

Garcí­a-Roca, Anastasio (2019). "Los fanfictions como escritura en colaboración: modelos de lectores beta". El profesional de la información, v. 28, n. 4. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.jul.04

Garcí­a-Roca, Anastasio; De-Amo, José-Manuel (2019). "Jóvenes escritores en la red: un estudio exploratorio sobre perfiles de Wattpad". Ocnos: revista de estudios sobre lectura, v. 18, n.3, pp. 18-28. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2019.18.3.1968

Gee, James Paul (2004). Situated language and learning. A critique of traditional schooling. New York/London: Routledge. ISBN: 978 0 41 531 77 64

Gil-Quintana, Javier; Camarero-Cano, Lucí­a; Osuna-Acedo, Sara (2020). "Adolescentes creativos. El despertar del aprendizaje y la narrativa transmedia en la sociedad del conocimiento". En: Osuna-Acedo, Sara; Gil-Quintana, Javier; Marta-Lazo, Carmen (eds.). Aprendizaje más allá de las aulas. Didácticas especí­ficas en contextos no formales. Madrid: Tirant lo Blanch Humanidades, pp. 19-36. ISBN: 978 84 17973 032

Guelmes-Valdés, Esperanza-Lucí­a; Carballo-Barca, Miriam (2017). "Reflexiones actuales en torno al camino metodológico en las investigaciones pedagógicas". Universidad y sociedad, v. 9, n. 3, pp. 290-299. http://scielo.sld.cu/pdf/rus/v9n3/rus45317.pdf

Guerrero-Pico, Mar (2015). "Producción y lectura de fan fiction en la comunidad online de la serie Fringe: transmedialidad, competencia y alfabetización mediática". Palabra clave, v. 18, n. 3, pp. 722-745. https://doi.org/10.5294/pacla.2015.18.3.5

Guerrero-Pico, Mar; Masanet, Maria-Jose; Scolari, Carlos A. (2019) "Toward a typology of young produsers: Teenagers´ transmedia skills, media production, and narrative and aesthetic appreciation". New media & society, v. 21, n. 2, pp. 336-353. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818796470

Hartley, John (2009). "Uses of YouTube. Digital literacy and the growth of knowledge". In: Burgess, Jean; Green, Joshua (eds.). YouTube: online video and participatory culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity, pp. 126-143. ISBN: 978 0 745644790

Hedrick, Ashley (2020). ""˜He is so bad but he does it so well´: Interviews with One Direction fans about writing romantic and erotic fiction online". Sex education, v. 21, n. 6, pp. 693-707. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2020.1852075

Hellekson, Karen (2009). "A fannish field of value: Online fan gift culture". Cinema journal, v. 48, n. 4, pp. 113-118. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.0.0140

Hernández-Hernández, Denise; Cassany, Daniel; López-González, Rocí­o (eds.). (2018). Prácticas de lectura y escritura en la era digital. Córdoba: Editorial Brujas/México: SocialTIC. ISBN: 978 987 760 110 7

Hills, Matt (2002). Fan cultures. London: Routledge. ISBN: 978 0 41524 0253

Ito, Mizuko; Baumer, Sonia; Bittanti, Matteo; Boyd, Danah; Cody, Rachel; Herr-Stephenson, Becky; Horst, Heather A.; Lange, Patricia G.; Mahendran, Dylan; Martinez, Katynka Z.; Pascoe, C. J. (2010). Hanging out, messing around, and geeking out: Kids living and learning with new media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. ISBN: 978 0 2625185 4 3

Ito, Mizuko; Gutierrez, Kris; Livingstone, Sonia; Penuel, Bill; Rhodes, Jean; Salen, Katie; Shor, Juliet; Sefton-Green, Julian; Watkins, Craig (2013). Connected learning: An agenda for research and design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub. ISBN: 978 0 9887255 0 8

Jenkins, Henry (1992). Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. London: Routledge. ISBN: 978 0 41 55332 94

Jenkins, Henry (2019). ""˜Arts happens not in isolation, but in community´: The collective literacies of media fandom". Culture science journal, v. 11, n. 1, pp. 78-88. https://doi.org/10.5334/csci.125

Jenkins, Henry; Clinton, Katie; Purushotma Ravi; Robison, Alice J.; Weigel, Margaret (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st Century. Chicago, IL: MacArthur Foundation. ISBN: 978 0 2625 136 23

Jenkins, Henry; Green, Joshua; Ford, Sam (2013). Spreadable media: Creating value and meaning in a networked culture. New York: New York University Press. ISBN: 978 0 814 7435 08

Jenkins, Henry; Ito, Mizuko; Boyd, Danah (2015). Participatory culture in a networked era: A conversation on youth, learning, commerce, and politics. Cambridge: Polity Press. ISBN: 978 0 745 66070 7

Kelley, Brittany (2016). "Chocolate frogs for my betas!: Practicing literacy at one online fanfiction website". Computers and composition, v. 40, pp. 48-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2016.03.001

Lacasa, Pilar (2020). Adolescent fans. Practices, discourses, communities. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN: 978 1 4331 5827 8.

Lachney, Michael (2012). "Students as fans: Student fandom as a means to facilitate new media literacy in public middle schools". In: Larsen, Katherine; Zubernis, Lynn. Fan culture: Theory/practice. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 188-207. ISBN: 1 4438 3783 0

Lammers, Jayne C.; Marsh, Valerie L. (2015). "Going public. An adolescent´s networked writing on fanfiction.net". Journal of adolescent & adult literacy, v. 59, n. 3, pp. 277-285. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.416

Lankshear, Colin; Knobel, Michelle (2006). New literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning (2nd ed.). Maidenhead: McGraw Hill Open University Press. ISBN: 978 0 3352 29949

Lindgren-Leavenworth, Maria (2015). "The paratext of fan fiction". Narrative, v. 23, n. 1, pp. 40-60. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2015.0004

Livingstone, Sonia; Haddon, Leslie; Gí¶rzig, Anke; í“lafsson, Kjartan (2011). Risks and safety on the Internet: The perspectives of European children: Full findings and policy implications from the EU kids online survey of 9-16 year olds and their parents in 25 countries. London: London School of Economics. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/33731

Livingstone, Sonia; Sefton-Green, Julian (2016). The class. Living and learning in the digital age. New York: NYU Press. ISBN: 978 1 479824243

Lluch, Gemma (2014). "Jóvenes y adolescentes hablan de lectura en la red". Ocnos: revista de estudios sobre lectura, v. 7, pp. 7-20. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2014.11.01

Lluch, Gemma (2017). "Los jóvenes y adolescentes comparten la lectura". En: Lluch, Gemma; Cruces, Francisco. ¿Cómo leemos en la sociedad digital? Lectores, booktubers y prosumidores. Barcelona: Ariel, pp. 31-51. ISBN: 978 84 08 17845 3

Lugo, Nohemí­ (2016). Diseño de narrativas transmedia para la transalfabetización. Tesis doctoral: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/396131

Lugo, Nohemí­ (2020). Transmedia learning for preverbal children with autism: Taking advantage of digital culture and devices. Madrid: Editorial Sindéresis. ISBN: 978 84 18206 41 2

Manovich, Lev (2013). Software takes command. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN: 978 1 623 567 453

Masanet, Maria-Jose; Guerrero-Pico, Mar; Establés, Marí­a-José (2019). "From digital native to digital apprentice. A case study of the transmedia skills and informal learning strategies of adolescents in Spain". Learning, media and technology, v. 44, n. 4, pp. 400-413. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2019.1641513

Masanet, Maria-Jose; Márquez, Israel; Pires, Fernanda; Lanzeni, Débora (2020). "Self-exposure in social media: Teenagers´ transmedia practices and skills for the construction of a personal brand". In: Mas, Lluí­s (ed.). Innovation in branding and advertising communication, pp. 136-153. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003009276

Moreira, Marco-Antonio (1997). Aprendizaje significativo: un concepto subyacente. En: Moreira, Marco-Antonio; Caballero-Sahalices, Maria-Concesa; Rodrí­guez-Palmero, Marí­a-Luz (coords.). Actas del encuentro internacional sobre el aprendizaje significativo. Burgos: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Burgos, pp. 19-44. ISBN: 84 922382 3 2

Pedrero-Esteban, Luis-Miguel; Pérez-Escoda, Ana; Establés, Marí­a-José (2021). "Brexit´s impact on Spanish media discourse: news coverage and audience reaction on Twitter". Profesional de la información, v. 30, n. 6. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2021.nov.10

Pereira, Sara; Moura, Pedro; Masanet, Maria-Jose; Taddeo, Gabriella; Tirocchi, Simona (2018). "Media uses and production practices: case study with teens from Portugal, Spain and Italy". Comunicación y sociedad, v. 33, pp. 84-114. https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v0i33.7091

Pianzola, Federico; Rebora, Simone; Lauer, Gerhard (2020). "Wattpad as a resource for literary studies. Quantitative and qualitative examples of the importance of digital social reading and readers´ comments in the margins". PloS one, v. 15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226708

Pink, Sarah; Ardèvol, Elisenda (2018). "Estrategias etnográficas para revelar prácticas transmedia de los adolescentes". En: Scolari, Carlos-Alberto (ed.). Adolescentes, medios de comunicación y culturas colaborativas. Aprovechando las competencias transmedia de los jóvenes en el aula. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, pp. 114-124. ISBN: 978 84 0900 2931

Polo-Rojas, Néstor-David (2018). "Lectoescritura juvenil en tiempos de narraciones transmedia". Comunicación y sociedad, v. 33, pp. 41-64. https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v0i33.7003

Ramdarshan-Bold, Melanie (2018). "The return of the social author: Negotiating authority and influence on Wattpad". Convergence: The international journal of research into new media technologies, v. 24, n. 2, pp. 117-136. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856516654459

Sauro, Shannon (2020). "Fan fiction and informal language learning". In: Dressman, Mark; Sadler, Randall-William (eds.). The handbook of informal language learning. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 139-152. ISBN: 978 1 119 47244 5

Scolari, Carlos A. (2018). "Introducción. Del alfabetismo mediático al alfabetismo transmedia". En: Scolari, Carlos A. (ed.). Adolescentes, medios de comunicación y culturas colaborativas. Aprovechando las competencias transmedia de los jóvenes en el aula. Barcelona: Transmedia Literacy Research Team - H2020 Research and Innovation Actions, pp. 14-23. ISBN: 978 84 09 00293 1

Scolari, Carlos A.; Masanet, Maria-Jose; Guerrero-Pico, Mar; Establés, Marí­a-José (2018). "Transmedia literacy in the new media ecology: Teens transmedia skills and informal learning strategies". El profesional de la información, v. 27, n. 4, pp. 801-812. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2018.jul.09

Tabernero-Sala, Rosa (2016). "Los epitextos virtuales en la difusión del libro infantil: Hacia una poética del book-trailer. Un modelo de análisis". Ocnos: revista de estudios sobre lectura, v. 15, n. 2, pp. 21-36. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2016.15.2.1125

Taddeo, Gabriella (2019). "Meanings of digital participation into the narrative online communities". Italian journal of sociology of education, v. 11, n. 2, pp. 331-350. https://doi.org/10.14658/pupj.ijse.2019.2.15

Tomasena, José-Miguel (2019). "Negotiating collaborations: BookTubers, the publishing industry, and YouTube´s ecosystem". Social media and society, v. 5, n. 4. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119894004

Torrego-González, Alba; Gutiérrez-Martí­n, Alfonso (2018). "El consumo literario como experiencia compartida en entornos transmedia. El caso de El club de los incomprendidos". Revista mediterránea de comunicación, v. 15, n. 1, pp. 11-23. https://doi.org/10.14198/MEDCOM2018.9.2.7

Van-Deursen, Alexander J. A. M.; Van-Dijck, Jan A. G. M. (2014). "The digital divide shifts to differences in usage". New media & society, v. 31, n. 1, pp. 41-58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813487959

Van-Dijck, Jose (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 0 199 9707 85

Vázquez-Calvo, Boris; Garcí­a-Roca, Anastasio; López-Báez, Cristina (2020). "Domesticar la "˜selva digital´: el fanfiction a examen a través de la mirada de una fanfictioner". Edmetic: revista de educación mediática y TIC, v. 9, n. 1, pp. 21-51. https://doi.org/10.21071/edmetic.v9i1.12239

Wattpad (2021). Wattpad board of directors approves agreement to be acquired by Naver, the South Korean Internet conglomerate and home of Webtoon, a leading global digital comics platform. Press. Wattpad, 21 February. https://company.wattpad.com/blog/p7qymwnq1yr0d8ohf9w2wss0sbxqzg-3QD5Y

Published

2022-03-29

How to Cite

Guerrero-Pico, M., Establés, M.-J., & Costa-Sánchez, C. (2022). Fan fiction and transmedia literacy practices on Wattpad: exploring the narrative and aesthetic skills of teenagers. Profesional De La información, 31(2). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2022.mar.12