Storyworlds—media worlds—fan worlds
What do Harry Potter, vampires, Lego, Taylor Swift, and Heartstopper have in common? They are each a media world, comprising cultural output across all media forms: film, TV, fanfic and novels, social media mashups, fanart, cosplay and massive fandoms. We aim to uncover the many facets of popularity by working with the concept of ‘genre worlds’ (Driscoll et al 2018), taking a cultural approach to the media industry, its media forms, and its social world of fandom to look at the big picture of how popular genres, online platforms, texts, adaptations, and celebrities interact so fully in our lives and the lives of our students—suggesting, therefore, a pedagogical ELT dimension (Booth) to explore. Aspects covered include: genre tropes and conventions (Driscoll et al), audience and reader response (Felski), participative culture (Jenkins), and fandom (Stein). We will analyse fanfic and Youtube mashups, and antifandom threads, all the while thinking about how these skills and exercises might be transferable to your own ELT school classrooms
I am going to model this class with examples from the media world of Heartstopper. Please make sure you have read or watched enough of it to know it, and browse at least some fan content:
Romance YA graphic fiction: Alice Oseman, Heartstopper volume 1 2016 book or free on Tumblr: https://heartstoppercomic.tumblr.com/post/148737198070 ; Netflix series 1 ; read one fanfic of your choice (hint: pick something short, eg under 5,000 words): https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Heartstopper%20(Webcomic)/works ; and one forum discussion, eg Reddit, Fanforum, Mumsnet, Substack, Quora, etc.
Your task for the semester is to choose one media world you love and explore it across all its story, media and fan world aspects before settling on one aspect of all of this to write your SP or BA thesis.
- Trainer/in: Kennedy Melissa