책빙의물과 게임방송물 웹소설의 자기반영성 연구 -『전지적 독자 시점』과 『『납골당의 어린 왕자』를 중심으로

Abstract

One of the biggest characteristics of web novels is active close interactions in real time between authors and readers. Readers deliver their opinions about the narrative to authors by adding comments, and authors make proper reactions to readers and develop or revise the narrative accordingly. Texts are not determined finally by authors, but remain “in process” and revisable any time through active interactions between authors and readers. It is interesting that such author-text-reader changes themselves sometimes become materials of web novels and objects of reflective thinking. Good examples include works that accept the self-reflective motif of web novels as a genre element like the “book traveler genre” and “game broadcasting genre.” There have been relatively active discussions about the meta-characteristics and social meanings of the “book traveler genre,” but there has been not much discussion about how the “game broadcasting genre” reflects author-text-reader relationships. As it is demonstrated in such web novels as Omniscient Reader and The Little Prince of the Ossuary, however, the motifs of a book(game) travel and game broadcasting are frequently combined and trigger a consideration into the narrative environment of web novels. In such a case, the writer/reader protagonists having an adventure in the book and game worlds induce responses and support from viewers that watch their adventures through broadcasting based on their reinterpretations of the old narrative, continuing their “rewriting.” It shows that current web novels achieve narrative innovations through the reinterpretation and rewriting of the old genre novels and, at the same time, that this innovation process considers importantly in the process of persuading readers-viewers successfully.