1. Università degli Studi di Pavia Tesi di laurea di Claudio Branca Relatore: Chiar.mo Prof. Paolo Costa Correlatore: Chiar.mo Prof. Paolo Jachia Anno accademico 2008/2009 Corso di Laurea Interfacoltà in Comunicazione Interculturale e Multimediale 3dbook: cultura convergente, cultura partecipativa e social novel 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel

2.  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

3. 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

4. Social novel Traditional forms of novel Traditional forms of novel develop linearly, tracing a one-way relation that connects a reader with a narrative world by means of the text written by a given author (or group of authors). There's only one narrative path, followed by both the author and the reader in their attempt to attach meaning to the text.

5. Social novel Adding a new dimension: 2 + 2 = 6 If we add a social dimension to the text, and extrude its conventional one-way narrative path to a complex three-dimensional and multi-directional pattern of users that are both authors and readers, we can build a social novel exploiting collaborative culture's potential. Text units get new meanings attached each time users create new incoming links from other text units, read them in their own narrative path and share this experience.

6. Social novel A definition Social novel is an open narrative metaverse hosted by a Content Management System (CMS), a Web-based software managing users-generated contents. Users shape the social novel by reading and writing in it. Shared authoriality enhances 3dbook overall potential. Both author-users and reader-users join a creative community, appropriating and sharing control over the narrative metaverse, its interpretation and constant re-creation.

7. 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

8. Cultural context Convergence culture – Henry Jenkins Media convergence is a process that gathers languages, contents, industries and audiences across different media and mixes them in new use genres. Convergence affects technology, culture and society. It is essential to trace its effects on all of the three for getting a comprehensive view on the process. Nowadays most of the streams of contents and audiences are converging to the Internet.

9. Cultural context Networked individualism – Wellman, Boase & Chen Long before the advent of the Internet and the convergence process, village-like communities started evolving into geographically dispersed social networks. Changes sprung from both technological and social innovations (faster and cheaper means of transportation, industrialization, urbanization…) and paved the way to a networked individualism. The Internet consolidates networked individualism: it enables people to maintain far-flung social networks providing sociability, support, information, sense of belonging and social identity.

10. Cultural context Virtual togetherness – Maria Bakardjeva Relevant changes in society are those that affect the “simple customer” in his everyday life, where users' habits are influenced by social and technological innovations, and in the meantime shape society and technology by enacting little behaviour genres. The Internet lets users choose their own degree of virtual togetherness, between different computer-mediated forms of meeting other users. “Real life” vs “virtual life” is a false dichotomy: interactions on the Internet fit with other aspects of our everyday life.

11. Cultural context A scheme for my use genres analysis These studies inspired the scheme I worked out and adopted for the analysis of the case studies I focused on.

12. 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

13. Case studies Overview I chose ten case studies in order to understand how users behave in contexts that are similar to the one I was going to build up with my social novel. I reviewed digital writing (blog), digital reading (e-book and BookGlutton), collective production of knowledge (Wikipedia), the role of author-users in social networks (MySpace, Facebook and deviantArt), interpretation and appropriation of a narrative metaverse (Matrix and the fanfictional newspaper The Daily Prophet - www.dprophet.com) and a collective writing experiment (www.scritturacollettiva.org).

14. Case studies A quick comparison In some of the cases it has been impossible to define a unique use genre, due to the scalability and complex nature of the use.

15. 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

16. Making of the project Guidelines Case studies provided some good indications about what users would expect from 3dbook: ● a comfortable and enjoyable reading experience ● different degrees of participation and virtual togetherness ● free access to contents and regard for authors' rights ● a metaverse open to users' interpretations and rich in suggestions for further development ● an adaptive and not too intrusive method of managing and interweaving user-generated content

17. Making of the project Building up the platform First I needed a Content Management System (CMS). I chose a domain and installed on the remote server Joomla! Secondly I outlined a starting plot for the metaverse. (v.1.5.14), added all the modules, plug-ins and components I needed and built a custom Template. Last I laid down the rules for 3dbook and built 3dbookWiki to collect them all in one place, so that they could be easily found and read by users.

18. 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

19. Overview on 3dbook Structure of the social novel

20. Overview on 3dbook Reading

21. Overview on 3dbook Writing

22. 3dbook: convergence culture, participatory culture and social novel  Social novel  Cultural context  Case studies  Making of the project  Overview on 3dbook  Future perspectives

23. Future perspectives “3dbook – Cry of the Fallen” road map The 3dbook social novel “Cry of the Fallen”, and 3dbookWiki are online and open to users’ contribution. As soon as possible 3dbook.ning.com will offer to the community a social network application. I’ll add to 3dbookWiki more sources of inspiration for 3dbook author-users and raw narrative materials.

24. Future perspectives Extending 3dbook network 3dbook platform should be made fully readable by vocal browsers. If the social novel reached a sizable audience and daily publishing rate it would be reasonable to bring out a periodical review of selected novels among the most read and valuable. This review could take the form of a blog, but could also reach traditional editorial channels.

25. Conclusions Evolving practices Convergence and participation are changing culture, society and technology, mixing practices one with the other and originating new forms of culture. Those changes offer to Internet users new ways of talking, socializing, getting information, working, producing, consuming, creating,... in addition to the pre-existent ones. Users will integrate the Internet in their everyday life more and more, opening in culture unexplored territories which we’re challenged to settle. 3dbook is intended to be a first attempt to colonize those regions.