A Million Penguins Research Report
Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: Other commentators suggested that the wiki was likely to be a failure, albeit a -delightful‖ one.7 It was certainly unorthodox.The authors who came together were not the usual writerly stereotypes scribbling away alone in attics, but an intriguing mix of ‗gardeners' intent on nurturing the novel; ‗vandals' determined to ruin it, and ‗performers' hoping to make it showcase for their talents.What they created together turned out to be quite unique.Later Ettinghausen would blog: -as the project evolved I think I stopped thinking about it as a literary experiment and started thinking about it more as a social experiment.‖. 8 A year on, he now says -it's the best thing I've ever done … but I would never do it again.‖9 Research FrameworkThis report focuses on some of the social behaviours that occurred during the time the wiki novel was live and attempts to understand them within the context of wiki culture.The research focused on two questions: what was the role of the discussion around the writing, and what patterns of social behaviour occurred among the contributors?Framing the research questions in this way allowed us to approach -A Million Penguins‖ as a cultural text and, inevitably, led us to critique the question underlying the wikinovel experiment --can a community write a novel?‖
Authors: Sue Thomas, Bruce Mason
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: De Montfort University
OpenAlex ID: W2262578284