The functioning of the teenagers in the Harry Potter fandom in their narrative

Abstract

Aim of the research: The aim of the article is to present the styles of functioning of a teenager in the fan community of Harry Potter in his narrative, as well as to learn about that culture as an example of a side culture of popular culture.

Methods: To achieve the assumed aim, the following methods were used: narrative interview, participant observation and hermeneutic analysis of the content created by fans of the Harry Potter series. The article attempts to describe the problem in a gadamerian way: from general to detailed, paying attention to cultural, pedagogical, psychological and sociological issues. Therefore, the considerations were supplemented with the concept of psychology of Edward Nęcka's work or the culture of participation of Henry Jenkins.

Results: Teenagers actively participate in the life of a fandom by shaping its structure and creating fanfiction. In this environment, young people strive to establish interpersonal interactions by exchanging opinions on the topic of interest to them, e.g. the legitimacy of the existence of a given pairing or schematic construction of a fanatic, but also to cooperate with other fan authors. In the fandom, there is a hierarchy of members, headed by fans-authors considered to be the so-called classic fanfiction creators.

Conclusions: The passion of exploring the universe of the novel (here: the novel series "Harry Potter") and modifying it, becomes a contribution to the search for a target group of fans in which a teenager would be accepted, liked and appreciated. Teenagers are successful in co-existence in fandom, but they also fail. In other words, the culture of participation favors the process of socialization which, according to Antonina Kłoskowska, among others material influence of the culture apparatus (Kłoskowska, 1969, p. 325). In addition, creating fanfiction has an educational value, namely improving the hard and soft skills of teenagers.