The author function in flux: Digital participation in transmedia and the contested rise of fan-authorship in Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the Witcher

Abstract

This dissertation examines the destabilisation of traditional authorship in the context of digital participatory culture, focusing on how transmedia convergence has reshaped the interpretive and creative power dynamics between authors, texts, and audiences. Drawing upon Henry Jenkins’s theories of participatory culture and “textual poaching” (1992; 2008; 2013), Pierre Lévy’s model of collective intelligence (2019), and John Fiske’s analyses of power and resistance in cultural production (1993), the study explores how networked audiences increasingly function as co-authors within transmedia ecosystems. Through comparative analyses of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and The Witcher, the dissertation traces how fan interventions, ranging from online discourse and fanfiction to social media activism, challenge the singularity of authorial control and reshape canonical meaning. It specifically interrogates J.K. Rowling’s contested commentary post the publication of the Harry Potter novels; the influence of fan theorising on HBO’s Game of Thrones (notably “Cleganebowl”); and the collaborative world-building between Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels, CD Projekt Red’s games, and Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher. These case studies demonstrate that the author function, as defined by Foucault (1977, p. 113), can now be distributed across digital networks, wherein creators and audiences engage in continuous negotiation over narrative authority. By situating these interactions within the broader logics of convergence culture and networked media, this dissertation argues that digital participation has expanded reader response to the point where it has generated a new paradigm of fan-authorship, wherein collective intelligence and transmedia production converge to redefine both creative agency and cultural power in the twenty-first century.