[Article from: Convergence Culture – Henry Jenkins -- “Why Heather Can Write”]
Another fascinating article by Henry Jenkins that needs to be sliced apart by my mentality… I will, however, try to keep this a bit shorter than my previous ‘dissection’…
So, this article uses Harry Potter as its main focus to explain the things I talked about in my previous article; the intertwining of “new” media – aka digital media. This one is slightly different, however, because Harry Potter is actually a set of novels written by J.K. Rowling. Digital media only comes into play from the people that brought Harry Potter to it: fans. The “Harry Potter Wars” as the author calls it, is not necessarily a war, but merely a “struggle over competing notions of media literacy and how it should be taught” (Jenkins). Jenkins uses Harry Potter as a prime example how education and religion shape children’s lives; the situations, the effects, and the consequences.
Let’s look at the situations. Ever since Harry Potter was released, it has become a huge hit amongst people of all ages. One of the prime examples is fanfiction. What is fanfiction? There is no ‘single’ definition for that word. It’s merely a title to something fans created.
So what do I mean by that? Let’s look at an example: This article uses The Daily Prophet, an online ‘newspaper’, created by Heather Lawver, in which children of all ages can participate in and provide articles of all sorts. But these aren’t just ordinary articles, in fact, they are written as if they are set in the Harry Potter world. The ‘authors’ of these articles are children of all different ages and races, and they create profiles based on their fictional (imagined) life in the Harry Potter world. They write fictional experiences, using characters, places, and situations from the actual novel to make their own.
That is fanfiction.
The usage of something that was already created by someone else
to “costume-play” or create your own “view” of it.
Of course, such actions ended up having extreme consequences. After Warner Bros. (or WB for short) “bought” Harry Potter, they were afraid of losing their copyright rights, and these fanfictions threatened that. So WB sought legal actions against numerous websites that allowed for fans to post their fanficts.
What truly surprised me (from reading this article) is that the CHILDREN PROTESTED against that. Not the parents, not the teachers, but the children; the fans who, put all this time and effort, into something they all have created as a whole. They collected petitions, vociferated their opinions, and those who received the ‘cease-and-desist’ letters from WB, they publically posted them online for everyone to see.
These children were not going to allow WB take away their right to freedom of speech.
And they prevailed!
These fans, not only had themselves (a large collective whole) as support, but also adults who sympathized, some teachers – who felt that the children who wrote these fanfics actually bettered their literacy skills, and lawyers!
Of course, that just doesn’t stop there. The tensions between what is copyrighted and what is not are still there. Until that is resolved, issues like these will continue to arise. [See pages 189 and 190 inside the book for really good detailed information about all the copyright rights the article mentions]
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Next, I wanted to point out that I support the teachers who support their students when it comes to fanfiction. (Fanfiction is seen in many different forms, such as drawings, photography, but I mainly support the writing portion of it.) Why? It’s like the article mentioned, the children are teaching themselves how to write, and how to express themselves. These websites on which they post their fanfics on have moderators and helpers (almost like tutors) which assist the author in becoming a better writer. These mentors don’t just “instruct” but rather suggest “as a means of getting students to think the implications of their writing process”. Meaning instead of telling them what they did wrong, but why they got something wrong and how can they go about fixing said problems. [The article also makes a numerous other points as to why said collaboration is good, but I won’t be getting into that right now.]
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Lastly, this article brings up religion, and how Harry Potter is “against” religion. Jenkins brings forth many examples of priests burning Harry Potter books, claiming that they are satanic, and that they teach children the way of the occult. It also brings up the idea of banning, and ultimate control of what children should and should not read.
The best thing the article brings up however is the following:
“Rather than ban content that does not fully fit within their [Christian] worldview, the discernment movement teaches Christian children and parents how to read those books critically, how to ascribe new meanings to them, and how to use them as points of view into alternative spiritual perspectives” (Jenkins).
He even provides examples of that “discernment” with mentions that several “groups published study guides to accompany the Harry Potter books and film with ‘probing questions’ designed to explore the moral choices the characters made coupled with Bible verses that suggest how the same decisions are confronted within the Christian tradition” (Jenkins).
I agree with both quotes because they prove to children that it is perfectly acceptable to have their own point-of-views on things, and that those views are acceptable in the eyes of their elders and tradition. If the books/movies were banned, children would feel restricted – causing them to rebel – which could lead to unfortunate circumstances. This is showing them that there is order in the world, and that nobody is going to act crazy as to burn books in a treacherous way (which has happened – the article mentions a few instances), but rather go about situations respectfully and morally.
*****
To summarize my view: do not constrict children’s literacy. Times have changed, the autonomous way of learning (as stated in my previous blog post) is shifting to a more of a collaborative type. Children (students) just will not depend only on one source of information these days, but multiple. Because all these sources come from (more or less) the same age group (or mental capacity), it’s much easier for them to relate and feel “as one” with the group, and not having to be intimidated by adults – such as professors – if they make silly spelling mistakes, or need help with their grammar. If I were ever a professor, I would support students finding their own means of learning and using that to MY benefit, so that I can become a better teacher, and them, better students.
Obviously, there will always be a group (or several groups) of people who do not see eye-to-eye, and that’s perfectly okay. But what’s not okay is if one group tries to impose drastic changes upon the other without rectifying their wrongs or finding the middle ground. Like I said before, I support the intertwining of different things (such as using biblical quotes to correlate with the movie) instead of just entirely banning something a child likes.
So to close off, I will say that those who haven’t read this article should definitely go read it. Every person will have a different standpoint, and that’s perfectly okay, right? We live in a world of free speech – so why not put that to good use?
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed my even smaller overview on this fascinating article.
[Looks like I did not keep up to my word from the beginning of this article, this 'dissection' is nearly 1,300 words long. Apologies, my lovely readers, but I hope you have enjoyed it!]
-xANex
