웹소설 소통의 매체성(mediality)과 독자의 위상 및 비평의 문제

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the role and status of the readers in web novel communication using the concept of ‘mediaity’. And is to reveal that the role of the reader has increased and is to examine the aspect of the process. The reader's subjectivity is triggered by the nature and environment of the web media, that is, the ‘mediality’, And the process in which the web novel reader was able to act as a critic is also in that context. The need for ‘criticism’ by a few elite readers in paper media is a problem of media constraints that paper has. Paper is a media that requires a fairly high opportunity cost in producing and distributing literary content as a ‘paper book’. On the other hand, the ‘Web media’ minimizes the opportunity cost of content completion and distribution when platforms are established. Criticism can be divided into “leading criticism” and “practical criticism,” and even if practical criticism serves as a “curation” for readers, “leading criticism” can be said to serve as gatekeeping and reproduction of the conventions. Leading criticism of web novels is not made by authoritative writers, but by the readers, in which case the role of gatekeeping is minimized and the role of convention reproduction is maximized. Accordingly, the phenomenon that the role of declaring and reproducing the genre was transferred to the reader-criticism, not to a few critics, has been fixed.