52
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
of the debate around amateur and professional reading and production:
Tiziana Terranova addresses the capitalist exploitation of “free labour” in
the New Economy, alluding to a wide range of functions that adaptations
have in a global market with distributed modes of production, reception, and
dissemination. 68 Evgeny Morozov dismantles the rhetoric of “participative
liberation” even further by pointing to the fallacies of what he calls new
media’s “solutionism”. Not only does this view tend to “prize participation
in culture much more than culture itself,” but also a delegation of cultural
critique to the crowds’ rating or ranking neglects complex functions of professional criticism that go beyond personal taste and appreciation. 69 While
Morozov’s concepts of “professional” versus “crowd” reception of culture
may simplify the wide range of possible functions both on a professional
and an amateur level (not to mention the contingencies of these ascriptions
in general), his critique productively informs a view on adaptation beyond
an ahistorical idealization of a new media culture that neither accounts for
the existence of convergence phenomena before digital media nor critically
reflects on the political implications of such a culture.
It is not my attempt to argue for technological determinism or for the “rule
of the system” but rather the opposite: by developing an understanding of
the complexities and contingencies of adaptations, audiences can become
empowered to enjoy the creativity involved in decentralized systems while at
the same time being able to value individual ideas and origins. The different
functions of adaptations – whether aesthetic, social, economic, or political
– may account for the inherent “adaptability” of adaptations. At the same
time, they explain why popular and academic discourses on adaptations
have always been and perhaps will always be charged with irreconcilable
tensions, conflicting value ascriptions, and territorial struggles. As Fredric
Jameson reminds us, adaptations display the poststructuralist notion of
“Difference” on two levels: while representing the original’s “other,” “[d]
ifference is also opposition, antagonism, struggle, and it seems possible
that the differences between novel and film versions also harbor some
more-active tensions between word and image, if not literature and film
itself.” 70 To theorize adaptation from a perspective that emphasizes process,
complexity, and function means to take a fresh view on literature and culture
68 Terranova, Network Culture, 73.
69 Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix
Problems That Don’t Exist (London: Penguin, 2013), 178–179.
70 Fredric Jameson, “Afterword: Adaptation as a Philosophical Problem.” In True to the Spirit:
Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity, ed. by Colin MacCabe, Rick Warner, and Kathleen
Murray (Oxford University Press, 2011), 230.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
of the debate around amateur and professional reading and production:
Tiziana Terranova addresses the capitalist exploitation of “free labour” in
the New Economy, alluding to a wide range of functions that adaptations
have in a global market with distributed modes of production, reception, and
dissemination. 68 Evgeny Morozov dismantles the rhetoric of “participative
liberation” even further by pointing to the fallacies of what he calls new
media’s “solutionism”. Not only does this view tend to “prize participation
in culture much more than culture itself,” but also a delegation of cultural
critique to the crowds’ rating or ranking neglects complex functions of professional criticism that go beyond personal taste and appreciation. 69 While
Morozov’s concepts of “professional” versus “crowd” reception of culture
may simplify the wide range of possible functions both on a professional
and an amateur level (not to mention the contingencies of these ascriptions
in general), his critique productively informs a view on adaptation beyond
an ahistorical idealization of a new media culture that neither accounts for
the existence of convergence phenomena before digital media nor critically
reflects on the political implications of such a culture.
It is not my attempt to argue for technological determinism or for the “rule
of the system” but rather the opposite: by developing an understanding of
the complexities and contingencies of adaptations, audiences can become
empowered to enjoy the creativity involved in decentralized systems while at
the same time being able to value individual ideas and origins. The different
functions of adaptations – whether aesthetic, social, economic, or political
– may account for the inherent “adaptability” of adaptations. At the same
time, they explain why popular and academic discourses on adaptations
have always been and perhaps will always be charged with irreconcilable
tensions, conflicting value ascriptions, and territorial struggles. As Fredric
Jameson reminds us, adaptations display the poststructuralist notion of
“Difference” on two levels: while representing the original’s “other,” “[d]
ifference is also opposition, antagonism, struggle, and it seems possible
that the differences between novel and film versions also harbor some
more-active tensions between word and image, if not literature and film
itself.” 70 To theorize adaptation from a perspective that emphasizes process,
complexity, and function means to take a fresh view on literature and culture
68 Terranova, Network Culture, 73.
69 Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix
Problems That Don’t Exist (London: Penguin, 2013), 178–179.
70 Fredric Jameson, “Afterword: Adaptation as a Philosophical Problem.” In True to the Spirit:
Film Adaptation and the Question of Fidelity, ed. by Colin MacCabe, Rick Warner, and Kathleen
Murray (Oxford University Press, 2011), 230.