42
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
an adaptation have an effect on the way we perceive the “original,” on the
relationship between original and adaptation, and on future adaptations.
Any change that results from the interaction between the complex forces
at hand in adaptation changes the overall picture, no matter how small.
Another major implication of looking at adaptation through a Pragmatist
lens is that even though every difference matters, not all differences matter
to the same degree. Pragmatism clearly differentiates between the chaos
of “pure experience” and the need to create some sort of structure, what
James calls “superstructure,” for a text to be able to communicate. Applied
to adaptation, this suggests that during the course of time, there may emerge
certain patterns of dominance. For reasons that are historically contingent,
certain stories and versions of stories travel across time and cultures while
others get lost; certain media proliferate and certain images become iconic,
while others turn out to be mere fads. Mediated knowledge, to use James’
words again, is “like a snowball’s growth”; 38 it is a proliferating, self-regulating
system which is in a constant process of validation, change, and adaptation.
The use of network studies for adaptation studies
While a Pragmatist view on adaptation highlights the processual nature of
culture as/and knowledge, a discussion of the functions of adaptation requires
another perspective, one which focuses even more on the vertical dimension
of adaptations as part of a larger system of culture and knowledge. Network
studies can be regarded as a continuation of an epistemological tradition that
goes back to Pragmatist and even Transcendentalist thinking. 39 Drawing on
systems theory, cybernetics, and complexity theory, network studies offer a
theoretical framework that allows us to locate the functions of adaptation
not (only) within the recursive interactions between adaptation processes
but within the complex systems of interconnections and abstract mappings.
To conceptualize cultural production in terms of networks is not new.
Poststructuralist theories of intertextuality assume that texts form complex
webs of cross-references and interdependencies. Julie Sanders has therefore
rightfully called adaptation “a subsection of the over-arching practice of
38 James, “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth,” 96.
39 Cf. Regina Schober, “‘Partial Members of a Vast Natural Network”: Notions of Interconnectedness in American Transcendentalism and Pragmatism.” In Network Theory and American Studies,
special issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies, ed. by Ulfried Reichardt, Heike Schäfer, and
Regina Schober, 60.1 (2015), 97–119.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
an adaptation have an effect on the way we perceive the “original,” on the
relationship between original and adaptation, and on future adaptations.
Any change that results from the interaction between the complex forces
at hand in adaptation changes the overall picture, no matter how small.
Another major implication of looking at adaptation through a Pragmatist
lens is that even though every difference matters, not all differences matter
to the same degree. Pragmatism clearly differentiates between the chaos
of “pure experience” and the need to create some sort of structure, what
James calls “superstructure,” for a text to be able to communicate. Applied
to adaptation, this suggests that during the course of time, there may emerge
certain patterns of dominance. For reasons that are historically contingent,
certain stories and versions of stories travel across time and cultures while
others get lost; certain media proliferate and certain images become iconic,
while others turn out to be mere fads. Mediated knowledge, to use James’
words again, is “like a snowball’s growth”; 38 it is a proliferating, self-regulating
system which is in a constant process of validation, change, and adaptation.
The use of network studies for adaptation studies
While a Pragmatist view on adaptation highlights the processual nature of
culture as/and knowledge, a discussion of the functions of adaptation requires
another perspective, one which focuses even more on the vertical dimension
of adaptations as part of a larger system of culture and knowledge. Network
studies can be regarded as a continuation of an epistemological tradition that
goes back to Pragmatist and even Transcendentalist thinking. 39 Drawing on
systems theory, cybernetics, and complexity theory, network studies offer a
theoretical framework that allows us to locate the functions of adaptation
not (only) within the recursive interactions between adaptation processes
but within the complex systems of interconnections and abstract mappings.
To conceptualize cultural production in terms of networks is not new.
Poststructuralist theories of intertextuality assume that texts form complex
webs of cross-references and interdependencies. Julie Sanders has therefore
rightfully called adaptation “a subsection of the over-arching practice of
38 James, “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth,” 96.
39 Cf. Regina Schober, “‘Partial Members of a Vast Natural Network”: Notions of Interconnectedness in American Transcendentalism and Pragmatism.” In Network Theory and American Studies,
special issue of Amerikastudien/American Studies, ed. by Ulfried Reichardt, Heike Schäfer, and
Regina Schober, 60.1 (2015), 97–119.