Participatory Culture and Transmedia Storytelling

The desire for presence and the high frequency of cultural mashups are an integral part of contemporary 'bastard culture' (Schäfer 2011) and might be addressed as the single most important motivator in contemporary audiences: reading alone just won’t do. What is crucial in participatory culture is the dynamic, divergent, and even divisive appropriation of texts in performances staged by performative communities. The (often self-referential) co-presence of producers and consumers is constitutive of this culture of ‘pro-suming’ and YouTube or blogs are the transient Net spaces for these communities of ‘pro-sumption,’ spaces that are -characterized by, among other things, the sharing of knowledge and expertise based on voluntary affiliations” (Jenkins, 2006). The course will investigate mashup tactics as a cultural provocation based on 'postmodern' strategies of appropriation, parody, irony, hybridity and bricolage. They may not be adaptations, but they are appropriations that often employ a nonsense aesthetics to undermine the objets trouvés of legitimate discourses with the -complexified meanings- of irony. Focusing on a plethora of texts from literary remixes (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), The Meowmorphosis (2011)) to complied videos on YouTube et al. (Fan Supercut, Literal Video, Fandub, Lip Dub, Synchro, Gag Sub, Animutation, Rickrolling), the class will investigate these media-parodic meta-strategies in the context of an 'illegitimate' 'participatory' DIY culture. By remixing a text participatory culture seeks to inhabit it (with Bourdieu, it becomes 'furniture') and to take part in its cultural presence. This desire for, and battle over, quasi-anonymous -presentification- (Gumbrecht 2004) is a key force in contemporary mashup culture. Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, Routledge 2006. Eckart Voigts-Virchow, -Pride and Promiscuity and Zombies, or: Miss Austen Mashed Up in the Affinity Spaces of Participatory Culture- in Oliver Lindner, Pascal Nicklas, Eds. Adaptation and Cultural Appropriation . Berlin: DeGruyter, 2012. 34-56. You need to know the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice. In order to check your knowledge of this text, we will write a quiz on this text in the second week of term. Seminar für Anglistik 2/3 credit points (-Studienleistungen-): active participation, an expert group presentation and three-page essay. Deadline: end of February. 5/6 credit points (-Prüfungsleistungen-): active participation, an expert group presentation and an additional essay of 10 to 15 (5 credit points) or 15 to 20 pages (7 credit points, 3 credit point -Prüfungsleistung”). Deadline: end of March. Universität Siegen 20122 WiSe 2012/13 Univ.-Prof. Dr. Voigts Virchow Eckart