Göteborgs universitet
Institutionen för kulturvetenskaper
FL1200 Filmvetenskap, fortsättningskurs, 30 hp
Delkurs 4: Transmedialt berättande
Vårterminen 2012
The Social Spaces
Inside and Outside the Game
Tine Alavi
Examinator: Mats Björkin
Index
1. Introduction
1
2. Result
4
3. Analysis
5
4. Summerary
9
5. Sources
9
Abstract
As transmedia is changing and challenging conventional media and storytelling the
anticipation rises on the wait for future media and media engagements.
The Secret Society plays a central role in the mediation of the transmedial project “The
Superhero´s”, and presents it self through a questing game that moves with in multiple
distinct medias that in turn create the transmedial phenomena through strings of
attachments both inside and outside the product in question. This thesis seeks to
analyse the social space of the game, hence how spaces of relationships are produced
within and outside the game.
Other group members:
Anton
Cornelia
Jonas
Frida
Eric
Introduction
The Superhero Project
The project, The Superhero´s, is built around characters that from an outside perspective think
that they have superpowers. From an inside perspective, regarding a creator side, the
characters are actors who for the duration of the world construction period of this transmedial
project maintain in their respective character identities. The purpose of the project is therefore
to create a new world based on a specific group of characters that are in turn embodiments of
the superhero phenomenon.
The characters:
A German mind reader
A young invisible boy from Japan
A Tyrkish healer
Australian woman who has telekinetic powers (moving things with tank engines)
Super strong American man
Swedish elderly woman from the countryside who talks to animals and plants
The characters are presented through the release of their individual histories and engagements
in social media platforms; they are given an identity and transformed into “real” people
through their accounts. These accounts with in the social media spectrum are released when a
documentary of their lives and every day experiences is released. The documentary will carry
certain clues that open up for a continuing game of exploration that audiences can engage in.
The game is at once constructed around a phenomenon of a secret society, and the discovery
of the characters “real” identities. During the whole project audiences, players and others can
follow and socialise with the Superhero’s via platforms such as social media, television shows
(talk-shows), radio and public appearances. These engagements in turn release more clues that
advances and progresses the game. Once the game is solved or revealed a mainstream movie
is released which dramatically builds on the characters and their superhero world. Here the
mainstream world is opened up and releases a string of publicity and continuing branding,
through franchise, television, cyber-games, radio, books, sequels and a final documentary
about the whole project. It follows that this project can continue in all eternity if greed
endorses it.
Note that all of these efforts work through both vertical and horizontal phases. Each distinct
media can therefore work both inside and outside the transmedial project.
Research Purpose
The idea directly and indirectly pushes the boundaries of the objectivity-subjectivity problem
as it is constituted between a “fake” and a “real” world. Seeing that the world as we know it is
objective and constituted on categorization and boundaries; in this thesis the objectivesubjective problem will be considered a interrelationship that through the course of the project
is deconstructed and reinvented again and again. In this sense it becomes clear that the
intention of this project is not at firsthand to “foul” its audiences and users but seeks to opens
up for both active and interactive practice. Further, the project can be seen in levels across
grass-root and mainstream counter poles. This is an interesting experiment as the project from
a transmedial perspective can be analysed on more than just the mainstream level. In theory
this opens up for an unlimited patch of opportunity that can carry each level further even after
they meet.
The game is one of the inventions that are, in regards to the level of grass-root and
mainstream media, situated in the very intersection. This thesis seeks to explore the social
space and the social world of this particular distinct media, the game, with in the transmedial
project, The Superhero’s. The goal is to create knowledge of how the game can be understood
as a space of relationships with in the social world (reference to Bourdieus theory of social
space, see Theory).
Theory
Prior theory has as according to Dena been rather focused on distinct media and transmedial
practices within specific platforms rather than practices with in the transmedial spectrum
(Dena, 2009). Here the objective is to explore how Dena´s research purpose, to study the
indistinct nature of transmedial practices, can be understood through what Bourdieu calls
social space and the social world.
Further as Susanna Priest points out qualitative and quantitative media studies borrow much
of its theory and methodology from other disciplines (Priest, 2010). Here is an attempt of
applying a sociologist perspective.
According to Bourdieu people, groups and societies define and categorize a social space
through “… principles of differentiation or distribution constituted …” (Bourdieu, 1985, p.
724). Agents are therefore categorized in relations to other spaces (not an actual geographical
“place”) and the borders between them, for instance virtual world and physical world (or
more extrem, rich and poor). Differentiation and distribution of resources in form of capital
(economical, cultural, social and symbolic) and fields (positions of agents in the social world
or context) is embodied and objectively constructed as a social space of practices and
relationships (and in turn defines situations of power relationships; Bourdieu, 1985, p. 723725).
When Bourdieu analyses classes he does not mean a class in a Marxist sense, and not far from
an actual group of agents but “ … a set of agents that will present fewer hindrances to
efforts at mobilization than any other set of agents” (Bourdieu, 1985, p. 725-726). Agents
with in a class, in a specific context (time and position), are more likely, but not always, to
have similar practises, interests, and attitudes, with exceptions of course. Nevertheless, these
classes that are apart of and are constructors of the social space can be analysed through the
positions of agents in an established space of relationships (ibid).
Bourdieus theory makes it possible to analyse interactions between agents and positions in the
social space through a study of how the space of (social) relationships are established between
agents (note that agents is not the equivalence to individuals. Agents can also, in this case be
the creators of the transmedial project, or institutions and groups that are affiliated with the
project in one way or another).
The way in which the analysis will be conducted is through an insight on three different
analytical levels that the game can harvest. These levels will be analysed through the study of
how the space of (social) relationships between agents are established both through the
construction of the social world of the game and the challenges that arise as users of the game
become a part of it and reconstruct it through their relationships to it and between each other.
Furthermore, ways to understand the games accessibility and representative target groups will
be discussed through Bourdieus theory of social spaces.
Result
The analysis resulted in multiple dimensions of understanding the social space of the
game. Presenting the terms capital, field, and habitus the intention was to understand
how both the creators and players create meaning throughout the process of
transmedial production, and how power and hierarchies in specific contexts can
demand certain efforts from either side. These power relationships are to be understood
as a part of the social space(s) in the game, and are not to be taken for granted, since
transmedia in general is highly dependent on a dynamic relationship between both
creator and user.
The space of (social) relationships were thus analysed through examples with
correspondent theory, which resulted in insight to how creators and players can
progress the game, how player to player can form relationships with in the social space,
how information can be interpreted, and how these agents can create symbolic meaning
and knowledge.
Analysis
The Interpretative and symbolic: Creators and players
The creators successively create a world of symbolic meaning and together with the
users interpretation and social communication the game progresses, and is constructed
as new symbolic meaning is requested and reproduced. In this scenario I will now call
the users, the players, in order to emphasize the symbolic value of the game and its
composition that is constructed through interpretive figures.
Thus, how the game can be reproduced through the symbolic value that players assert in
the game. For instance, the clues make the game proceed, but the value in which the
clues carry are dependent on how they are received and how they are interpreted. It is
not self-evident that the clues are conspicuously received or valued in the same
magnitude that the creators hope for. This makes the spaces of relationships even more
important and pushes the creators to understand and create knowledge of the social
spaces that the players engage in independent of the physical building stones.
In this sense the capital forms are constantly shifted between the creator side and the
player side, but also among players as any smaller or bigger shift can throw some capital
forms upside down. Note that the capital forms that I am mentioning are economical,
cultural, social, and symbolic.
According to Bourdieu the social space is on one dimension a result of capital (one the
other a result of field and doxa). The capital forms can with strength be transformed into
another capital form, which is often the case with economical capital; for instance a
transformation to cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986).
The game can therefore be seen as a set of social spaces in a social world (the game is in
its whole a social world initially constructed by the creators and reproduced by the
players). With in the spaces a struggle for position and power is conducted according to
capital. The creators in correspondence to the game have control and power over the
bigger picture, much like the state. For example, they have the resources and means to
change or even “end” (disconnect) the game as they please. On the other side the
players (and even audiences and watchers of the game) are at once impregnated with
the capital they enter the game with, and capital they get dependently within the game,
gained or otherwise struggled for as they move along in the game. For example, social
capital gives them opportunity to more or less socialize with in the social networks and
social forums that the game enables, or cultural capital on the sublevel of educational
capital enables them to understand the terms of the game more or less easily etc.
However, as the game has probability to change or reconstruct as new information or
new ways to play are presented over time and social spaces the capital invested by a
specific player of the game can demand a transformation of capital or/and threaten the
“volume” of capital the player beholds, in a sense this is a case for all types of games.
Likewise the creators of the game face a similar challenge. The economical capital that
they invest in the construction and progress of the game can at any time demand a
transformation in to cultural capital, as is the case when the creators are forced to
understand the social spaces that the players independently engage in, in order to grasp
their demands on the game. Note that symbolic capital is not an actual capital but it can
become any given capital form at a given moment in a given context. The creators can
release symbolic capital through for instance competitions. In the theory if a player wins
a competition with in the game the symbolic capital can present it self as for instance
economic capital obtained by the player or vice versa the player invests with economical
capital in the competition and loses to its symbolic value.
The Construction and Reconstruction: Positions in the Social Spaces
The creators implement clues and stories that users can find through social media, radio
interviews with the superhero´s, multi-media competitions and other platforms. They preconstruct the social world using multiple platforms in order to broaden the target groups and
to target across media with different functions and discourses. As with the Harry Potter world
users engage in crosscut conversations about the mysterious Secret Society and the
superhero’s. They blogg, chat and push the game by guessing, betting, competing etc. and reconstruct the social world accordingly. By engaging in dialogue with the superhero’s on
social media’s (facebook, twitter, websites), users have the opportunity to push the hero´s
boundaries and perhaps get clues that take them further in the game. As users move forward
they up their position. They also up their position within the social world of the game when
they write about it, share clues, and present their guesses etc. The creator’s position is also on
the line. As users progress in the social world of the game, the creators are pushed to release
new clues, stories, and character experiences, they learn of new dimensions to the game in a
constant review of users demands. An example could be to create new characters.
This game is not to be confused with a virtual game, it is far from it; the game has every
possibility of becoming a quest that reveals “reality” (the made up world) at every given
moment (a possible unveiling will however not per say change the game, rather it would make
it more of a virtual and practical game, rather than an experimental one, seeing that meaning
is created through the relationships between the spaces of the social world).
The position of players and creators play an important role in the construction and
reconstruction (or rather reproduction) of the game. What Bourdieu calls field!
A specific player can in one context of the game be successful and obtain power, while in
another context be subject domination and loss. Field is naturally very dependent of capital
and can further change the chances of a player to in any given moment during the challenge.
For example, a player has come across a clue when watching a television interview with one
of the superhero’s. The clue is information revealing an artefact at a museum. The identity of
the artefact can be obtained through a puzzle on the superhero’s website that the player has to
solve. Once solved the player has to google the artefact in order to decode its meaning etc. All
these different contexts can be more or less challenging. The player can if needed start a
dialogue on a social network (facebook, blogg etc.) and lead a conversation with other
players, and therefore receive help. Nevertheless, the different field therefore determines the
opportunity at hand and can be more or less demanding. The position of the player on this
dimension is therefore constituted through how power is obtained and maintained within the
different fields.
Through these different fields spaces of relationships are build, rebuild and deconstructed as
players move within the social world of the game.
Thus Practices in Play
The users seek to solve the mystery of the superhero’s secret society, that is the overall
mission. However, what defines the game is rather a social process that guides the
participators. In turn these social processes lead to practice. Practise in this sense is a
complex phenomena that is, according to Bourdieu, shaped by Habitus (Bourdieu, 1986).
Habitus is embodied by agents through structure and society that guide them to act or
think in specific ways, and to reproduce patterns. Habitus can change over time and in
specific fields and is not a conscious condition but happens unknowingly (Bourdieu,
1977).
If we for the sake of analysis take the creators as the structures’ of the game, at least an
initial constructor, and the players as agents who are practising with in it and outside it,
the practice of the players depend in large of how the creators organise the game, how
they convey information, and how they exchange knowledge. Furthermore, each player
is influenced by the habitus that constitutes it from the outside. Each player therefore
plays accordingly to the embodied habitus that enables it to do things in a certain way.
Likewise the creators might be highly influenced in their practices by how the media or
transmedial discourse with in the framework of production and ideologies has been or
is. For instance, this could be that transmedial productions think of transmedia as a
product or a brand that has to be made in to media and more media, with in more
platforms and more platforms etc. that are somehow intertwined, instead of seeing
transmedia (or any media) as a space of (social) relationships with in a constructed
“universe”. Such an approach, with a consideration of all its entailments (field, capital
etc.) could help to understand what challenges media and its users, and what could
possibly change and perhaps incite new ways of production and new ways of creating
meaning and knowledge.
Summary
The goal was to look at how a particular distinct media with in The Superhero´s project,
in this case the game, could be understood as a space of (social) relationships using
Bourdieus definition of what a social space is.
Here the game shows not to be exclusively a distinct media, and a distinct part in a
transmedial project but also a social space were creators and users together define and
categorize the boundaries and limitations of their relationship. More or less power and
influence over contextual spaces and their content is than seen as a part of the analysis
of a transmedial project.
The objective here is that regardless of project intention, for instance with in unique
platforms or the transmedial practice as a whole, an analysis of the social space and thus
relationships, whether conscious or not, creates knowledge of the social world that is
constructed (fictively).
Sources
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practise. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1885. The Social Space and the Genesis of Groups. In Theory and Society.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.) Handbook of Theory
and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York, Greenwood.
Dena, Cristy. 2009. Transmedia Practice: Theorising the Practice of Expressing a Fictional
World across Distinct Media and Environments: Sidney: University of Sidney
Hornig Priest, Susanna. 2010. Doing Media Research, 2 ed. London: SAGE