Developing methods to trace participation patterns across online writing

• Published in: Learning, culture and social interaction culture and social interaction, 2020-03, Vol.24, p.100288, Article 100288
• Main Authors: Magnifico, Alecia Marie, Lammers, Jayne C., Curwood, Jen Scott
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Affinity spaces; Fanfiction; Feedback; Online writing; Writing
• ISSN: 2210-6561; 2210-657X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.02.013

Scholars of media literacy have described a range of ways adolescents use digital tools across spaces to conceptualize, produce, and share creative works. Research often focuses on the identities and experiences of young expert creators, even though activities like archiving, lurking, reading, liking, reviewing, and sharing original and transformative works are central. Few researchers have devised methods to analyze these common participation patterns, or how they stretch across multiple sites and spaces. Here, we begin to consider this challenge by focusing on a linguistic analysis method we developed to study feedback that fanfiction authors receive from their readers. We outline this method and then focus on how this work has helped us to (1) consider a broader range of fanfiction activities and (2) interrogate our methodological practices and reflect on our assumptions about learning, collaboration, and writing. As venues for young people's creative activities increasingly move online, researchers must develop new methods of understanding learning and literacies, and, eventually, how transliteracies move across these spaces. Even where complete accounts of participation are rare, we can glean information about readers and writers by examining a wider range of online activity.