#i think this is a greater theme to adaptation discourse

[tyranasaurusbec]

you know what i have additional thoughts

maybe i am also too quick to blanket-ly defend the adaptation. if we want to truly engage with uglies as a whole work now we probably do need to pick at the differences. why were those changes made? what are their ramifications? (both for the plot and the greater themes) - i'll probably need to do a re-read to actually get at that but like maybe that's worth it

i think people are too quick to give hate to the uglies movie for not being 100% perfectly accurate to the book

like scott westerfeld was heavily involved in the project so like maybe those changes are him choosing to make changes to change things in the originals he isn't happy with anymore

i'll admit, i don't remember all of the plot of the books anymore because i haven't reread them since being a teen. there are definitely changes big and small. but i think people are getting caught up in small changes and letting that ruin their experience with the movie. put a little trust in the production and let's hope we get the rest of the series to see if these changes are good or not (since some of these changes will directly affect the plot of pretties)

[septemberpoems]

Pact of the Shipper

You made a deal with a powerful entity way beyond your understanding. Blue eyes stare at you unblinking as you sign up for a life of servitude that could grant you immense power, but also mutually assured destruction. He gives you a Tumblr, the words Welcome to My Twisted Mind in purple letters on a black cover, the first page oddly listing all your interests and every page of the DSM-V remotely applicable to you.

His true name is David Karp, but you call him Daddy.

This is the Pact of the Shipper.

Cantrips:

Infestation Someone said something less-than-positive about your otp in the tag. They have anon asks enabled. Target has to make a con save or take 1d6 poison damage from your anon hate and, if it fails, is stunned for one round as they go on a short hiatus.

“Do you love the color of the sky?” (Lightning Lure) You throw out the aforementioned post at a creature you can see, forcing it to make a strength save to scroll through the entire thing. If it fails it’s forced to scroll all the way up again to click the old reblog, taking 1d8 psychic damage.

Create Dumpsterfire You conjure a dumpsterfire that fills a 5ft cube. Creatures must also make saving throws if they move into its space or end their turn there. The dumpsterfire will spread if the environment is susceptible.

Mutuals (Friends) Choose a creature you can see that isn’t hostile toward you. You gain advantage on charisma checks toward it for the duration. When the spell ends, the creature looks through your tumblr and discovers problematic discourse from two years ago, possibly attacking or getting other payback.

Spells

1st lvl Cause fear Target must succeed wis saving throw or become frightened of you. The target can repeat the saving throw at each end of its turn. The spell has no effect on deactivated accounts or pornbots.

Comprehend Keysmash You can understand any written language while the spell lasts. While you cannot discern the words of a spoken language, you understand the general gist of it and can respond in kind.

What colour is this dress? (Armor of Agathys) Blue and black? White and gold? Who knows. You gain 5 temporary hitpoints for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have them, it takes 5 cold or fire damage depending on what color you think it is.

2nd lvl Gpoy (Mirror image) Three posts appear, all of them of situations you’ve tagged with #Gpoy at some point. Each time a creature attacks you, roll a d20 to see if they hit the posts instead.

Mapcrunch (Misty Step) You teleport to the middle of a badly rendered forest. You have no sense of direction and have to rely on street signs to find your own way to the airport.

Suggestion You further a rumor you have no factual basis for to a creature of your choice that you can see and that can hear and understand you. You’re limited to 140 characters. Target makes a wisdom save. On failure, it spreads the rumor and goes on a rant.

3rd lvl All Hail the Glow Cloud (Gaseous Form) You turn a willing creature you touch and all it’s carrying into a mist for up to an hour.

The Ballpit (Hunger of Hadar) A 20-foot-radius void appears. All creatures in it get an extra hour in the ballpit. The void’s area is difficult terrain. Any creature that starts its turn in it takes 2d6 psychic damage. Any creature that ends its turn there must pass a dexterity save or take 2d6 poison damage from that one guy who peed in it.

Summon Lesser Demon You summon demons from the abyss. Roll to determine what appears: Clippy, Tumbeasts or a full copy of the script of Bee Movie in fanmail format.

4th lvl None of You Are Free of Sin (Banishment) Blocked, blocked, blocked. A creature you see must make a charisma save or be banished to another plane of existence.

I am Forcibly Removed From the Premises (Dimension Door) You instantaneously teleport yourself to any spot in range.

Summon Greater Demon You summon a demon of your choosing from the abyss. Boneghazi, Loss.jpg, and that daddy kink-cumsicle post are level-appropriate examples.

5th lvl Spooky Scary Skeletons (Dance Macabre) Up to five small or medium corpses you can see become undead, drafted to fight in the Skeleton War under your command for an hour. 

Hold Monster When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it. Choose a creature you can see. It must pass a charisma save or be paralyzed. You tenderly hold the creature in your arms. At the end of its turn it can make another save, ending the embrace on a success. Or maintaining it, if the feelings are mutual.

London Calling (Infernal Calling) You summon Sherlock Holmes from the BBC adaptation. He appears in an unoccupied space that you can see, unfriendly toward you and your terribly dull companions. On your turn you can use a free action to attempt to issue a verbal command, your charisma check versus his insight. You have advantage if you know the actor’s real name as opposed to the Tumblrised versions.

Enervation You’re just that annoying. Choose a creature you see to make a dexterity save. On success it takes 2d8 psychic damage. On failure, the target takes 4d8 damage from bashing its own head against the wall to make your talking stop. Whenever the spell deals damage you regain hit points equal to half of the amount of damage taken.

6th lvl True Seeing You’re so far down the meta spiral you solved the Reichenbach Fall before it even aired. For the duration of the spell you have truesight, notice all hidden references implying Destiel and/or Johnlock and you can see into the writer’s room, all with a range of 120 ft.

Don’t Blink! One creature of your choosing has to make a constitution save. On a failed save it is restrained. After three saves, the spell fades. After three fails, the creature turns to stone.

Devil’s Trap (Circle of Death) You recreate Sam and Dean’s devil trap with black pearl powder. Each creature in a 60 ft radius sphere must make a constitution saving throw, taking 8d6 necrotic damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. Should’ve used the salt.

7th lvl AU (Plane Shift) You and up to eight willing mutuals who link hands in a circle around an open Ao3 page are transported to its alternate universe. You can use this spell to banish an unwilling creature within melee range to an AU of your choosing.

The Police Box (Forcecage) It’s smaller on the inside! An immobile, invisible, cube-shaped prison composed of magical force springs into existence around an area you choose within range.

Feels (Power Word Pain) Cas saying dying, John watching Sherlock fall, Bad Wolf Bay… You speak a quote that causes waves of intense pain to assail one creature you can see within range. If the target has 100 hit points or fewer, it is subject to crippling pain. Otherwise the spell has no effect on it.

8th lvl I Can’t Even (Feeblemind) A creature you can see takes 4d6 psychic damage and makes an intelligence save. On failure its intelligence and charisma become 1. It can’t spell, unlock its phone, understand language or communicate legibly by any means. However, it can identify other shippers, and follow and protect them. It can repeat the save once an hour, ending the spell on a success. Repeat exposure to the source of I Can’t Even will require additional saving throws.

Dominate Monster You knew exactly what you were looking for when you clicked that tag on Ao3. A creature you see must pass a wisdom save or be charmed. If you’re fighting the monster it rolls an automatic success because this isn’t 50 Shades and safe, sane and consensual is a must. If the spell succeeds, until the end of your next turn, the creature takes only the actions you decide and nothing you don’t allow it to unless it uses the agreed upon safeword. Using an 8th lvl spell slot the duration is 1 hour, using a 9th lvl spell slot extends it to up to 8 hours.

Mishapocalypse (Maddening Darkness) He is everywhere. Nobody can escape Him. Misha fills a 60-foot-radius sphere, spreading around themes, into posts and inboxes. Missing E, Xkit or similar addons can’t penetrate the onslaught of pictures of Misha. If a creature stays on their dash, it makes a wisdom save. On a failed save, its theme and icon also becomes Misha. On a success, only its icon becomes Misha.

9th lvl Canon Otp (Psychic Scream) Up to ten shippers of opposing otps of your choice must make an intelligence save. On a fail, a target takes 14d6 psychic damage and is stunned. On a success, it takes half damage and isn’t stunned. If a target is killed by this spell, its head explodes. 

I Was There For Yahoo Groups (Foresight) An old fandom veteran, nothing fazes you anymore. Fandom wars, sites falling into the sea, it’s all old news. For 8 hours you can’t be surprised and have advantage on attack rolls, ability checks and saves. In addition, other shippers have disadvantage on attack rolls against you.

Reaching lvl 20 you become a SuperWhoLock. An ancient creature everyone has heard of, seen traces of, but nobody has ever claimed to be one out loud. It is a branding as much as it is a title, striking the average population with both nausea and fear.

[svankmajerbaby]

i think we may all agree that it appears that its exclusively a fanon thing that vfd as a whole is rotten and cruel, and that the distinction between a good side and a bad side of the schism as presented by the netflix show -especially with their erasure of elements like the kidnappings and the shady things the organization as a whole often did- has been ignored in favor of a theme of “sometimes wrong things must be done for a greater good” and all in all an idea of optimism and faith in the future, if not on authority figures. i honestly thought, though mostly through the discourse here regarding the book series, that this idea of vfd as an actual abusive organization regarding its members was meant to be noticed in the text -i do think its much more hard to miss in the atwq books -but i still think it’s very, very strange that, if there are some very clear clues to this idea of vfd as something that was never worth preserving or keeping up for the future generations, as something that created so much trauma and conflict, why daniel handler, who supposedly had great control over the show unlike with the movie, did not make an effort to have this very important aspect more present (or, like, present at all) in the netflix adaptation.

i think this could be attributed to a desire for happy endings and closure, not in the sense of purely sugarcoating darker subjects, but as a more general need to break from the kind of downer that has become so popular in media. even though i don’t think the core audience of children are particularly brought down by constant grimdark media (and just talking about core audience while talking about this show is hilarious to me, since i don’t think the show knew where it was aiming towards besides the obvious already established fanbase), i understand the almost paternalistic desire to show them a world where the answers are given, where their valiant efforts are rewarded, and where they can finally reach a safe place. i swear i get it. but that wasn’t the point of the books. it didn’t want to tell children that with perseverance and smarts they would thrive. it wanted to warn them of a complex, difficult, absurd world and try to prepare them to face it.

perhaps this show is what this generation needs -i don’t know how the Youth perceives this franchise now, the same way i don’t know how the Youth sees the problems and issues the world faces now (issues that some reviews of the show saw it was directly addressing, like the questioning of authority and the championing of intellectualism), but i do think the message of the books is highly unusual for its medium and very useful for all generations. perhaps i just feel like the netflix ending is a bit too close to the one we got with harry potter -an ending that wants to tell us that the children came out just like their noble parents, to reassure the audience and promise that it was all worth it. perhaps im just out of tune with the times. i just think that an ambiguous, perhaps even a bitter ending would have been both refreshing and sobering. im happy for the fuzzy warm feelings of seeing the quagmires and the widdershins reunited, and of seeing the frankly cathartic image of the victorious, hopeful baudelaires sailing on a sunny beach towards the horizon, but i can’t shake the feeling that i expected this show, that promised there were to be no happy endings, to end with a storm on the horizon and with children who have already weathered quite a few of them to still go determined into the sea.

[makingscipub]

The Power of Plasticity: Epigenetics in Science Fiction

This is another guest post by Cath Ennis in our series of posts on epigenetics and popular culture.

***

One of the fascinating things about epigenetics is how quickly some of the public perceptions of the field have raced far beyond the actual state of the science. I’ve seen and heard countless online and real life discussions in which epigenetics is already assumed to play an active role in intergenerational inheritance (especially of trauma), plasticity. sexual orientation and gender identity, and myriad physical and mental health conditions.

Another common theme is the belief that new knowledge of epigenetics allows us to overcome genetics in general, and genetic predispositions to disease in particular, often via changes to diet, exercise, and other lifestyle interventions. (In many cases, this trope is spread by people selling expensive “epigenetic” supplements, sometimes in combination with direct-to-consumer epigenetic tests that supposedly identify deficiencies). Scientists are indeed working on aspects of all of these questions, but most of the findings to date are preliminary and correlative.

Anticipatory discourse analysis

Frustrating? Yes, sometimes – but always an excellent reminder of the need for scientists to be aware of common misunderstandings of this kind, and to be cautious when communicating our research findings to non-technical audiences. This type of premature discourse can also help those of us who are working to translate epigenetics for knowledge users downstream of research labs. For example, if the scientific evidence does eventually develop to the point of showing support for a causal role for epigenetics in intergenerational trauma, then an analysis of the current discourse on this topic will help us to analyse and predict the potential ramifications.

While there’s no lack of examples of premature discussion of epigenetics in the real world, we can find additional material in the realm of science fiction. Here, speculation is the whole point, and epigenetics provides some satisfyingly meaty material, such as non-genetic inheritance of the effects of temporary environmental exposures, and individual and species plasticity in response to external stimuli. I recently read two novels that make good use of the latter theme – The Power by Naomi Alderman, and Seveneves by Neal Stephenson.

Note: there are some (mostly) minor spoilers in the rest of the post (the one major spoiler is marked as such), but nothing that should spoil your enjoyment of either book. Unless you’re only reading them to see what they have to say about epigenetics, of course.

Epigenetics in science fiction

The Power – of epigenetic modifications

The Power explores a world in which young women start to gain the ability to deliver powerful electric shocks. The story follows several different characters as society starts to adapt to this new reality, from riots in Saudi Arabia to religious cults in the United States and the foundation of a new country in the Balkans by liberated victims of human trafficking, all the way to a dystopian far future with familiar, yet inverted, power structures.

This is an interesting case in that it’s not 100% clear whether the power is supposed to be caused by epigenetics, genetics, or both. In the following quotes, I’ve added bold text for parts that appear to suggest an epigenetic origin, and underlined the parts that lean towards genetics. Bold underlined text is ambiguous.

“a multinational group of scientists is certain now that the power is caused by an environmental build-up of nerve agent that was released during the Second World War. It’s changed the human genome. All girls born from now on will have the power – all of them.”

(I’ve seen people talk about epigenetic modifications “changing the genome” in other contexts, hence the ambiguous formatting for this phrase, which I would personally only use if I was describing changes to the actual DNA sequence. The fact that all women will now have the same power is technically also ambiguous, but a mutagenic environmental toxin wouldn’t be expected to induce exactly the same DNA sequence change in every single person exposed to it, so I’m going with epigenetics here).

“Although Guardian Angel [the causative agent] had been forgotten after the Second World War, it continued to concentrate and magnify its potency in the human body. Research has now established it as the undoubted trigger, once certain concentrations had been reached, for the development of the electrostatic power in women.

Any woman who was seven years old or younger during the Second World War may have skein buds on the points of her collarbones – although not all do; it will depend on what dose of Guardian Angel was received in early childhood, and on other genetic factors. These buds can be “activated” by a controlled burst of electrostatic power by a younger woman. […] It is theorized that Guardian Angel merely amplified a set of genetic possibilities already present in the human genome. It is possible that, in the past, more women possessed a skein but that this tendency was bred out over time”. […]

“Not all girls have it; contrary to early thinking, about five girls in a thousand are born without it. […] And there are a few boys with chromosome irregularities who have it, too”.

It’s possible that the author did intend a purely genetic origin for this phenotype. However, I think there are enough clues scattered throughout the text that we can be confident that there is supposed to be some kind of epigenetic component triggered by the nerve agent, probably on top of some underlying genetic variation. Luckily though, the exact origins of this new ability are superfluous to the story, and as such they don’t really need to be explained in any depth greater than what I like to call “epigenetic jazz hands”. So, plausible enough for sci-fi.

(I found that the most realistic part of the book, though, was the fictional message board entry reading “The government has been causing this change for years through carefully measured doses of hormones called VACCINATIONS. VAC as in VACUOUS, SIN as in our sinful souls, NATION as in the once great people who have been destroyed by this”. Spend enough time on real-life “epigenetics Twitter” and you’ll see exactly how realistic this little snippet is).

Overall The Power is a great read with some interesting concepts and compelling storytelling, but I found the ending a little heavy-handed. I thought while I was reading it that it would make a great movie, so I was excited to hear that Amazon are working on an adaptation.

Seveneves and ‘going epi‘

In contrast, Seveneves has some explicitly epigenetic themes, but is less fun to read, mostly due to its unnecessary length (my paperback edition runs to 860 pages) and inexplicable focus on explaining the precise, complicated details of the maneuvers needed to shift the orbits of space stations, and the physics of how chains move in regular and zero gravity. We don’t even reach the book’s eponymous scenario – that the human race finds itself effectively reduced to seven fertile women living in space, one of whom is a geneticist – until about two thirds of the way through.

Once we finally arrive at this point, we learn that each of the seven “Eves” gets to choose how the geneticist, Moira, manipulates their own genetic material. This is done via automictic parthenogenesis (jazz hands!) for the first couple of generations, until they can figure out how to synthesize a Y chromosome to produce male offspring. Moira offers to fix all existing genetic and radiation-induced mutations, and also to add one “free” genetic alteration or improvement per Eve. One woman chooses to enhance her offspring’s intelligence, another favours strength and discipline, another empathy, and so on. Moira herself chooses an epigenetic twist:

“If [catastrophic event had happened] a couple of decades earlier, Eve Moira wouldn’t have known about epigenetics. It was still a new science at the time she was sent up to the Cloud Ark […] Like most children of her era, she’d been taught to believe that the genome – the sequence of base pairs expressed in the chromosomes in every nucleus of the body – said everything there was to say about the genetic destiny of an organism […] The central promise of genomics – that by knowing an organism’s genome, scientists could know the organism – had fallen far short as it had become obvious that the phenotype (the actual creature that met the biologist’s eye, with all of its observable traits and behaviors) was a function not only of its genotype (its DNA sequence) but also of countless nanodecisions being made from moment to moment within the organism’s cells by the regulatory mechanisms that determined which genes to express and which to silence. […] When creating the children of the other six Eves, Moira had avoided using epigenetic techniques. She had felt at liberty, however, to perform some experiments on her own genome”. This tinkering is later described as “making her children into Swiss Army Knives” (highlighting added).

An updated version of the technique Moira uses to tweak her own genome is also used in the book to help re-seed the recovering Earth with new plant and animal species, in advance of human resettlement:

“thousands of years later, epigenetics was sufficiently well understood to be programmed into the DNA of some of the newly created species that would be let loose on the surface of New Earth. And one of the planks in the Get It Done platform was to use epigenetics for all it was worth. So rather than trying to sequence and breed a new sub-species of coyote that was optimized for, and that would breed true in, a particular environment, the GID approach was to produce a race of canines that would, over the course of only a few generations, become coyotes or wolves or dogs – or something that didn’t fit into any of those categories – depending on what happened to work best. They would all start with a similar genetic code, but different parts of it would end up being expressed or suppressed depending on circumstances.”

The results of these experiments are described as follows: ”Epigenetic transformation had been rampant – and, since Survey was thin on the ground, largely unobserved by humans. Still, when it led to results that humans saw, and happened to find surprising, it was known as “going epi.” Use of the phrase was discouraged for being unscientific”.

Jump forward five thousand years, and the thriving human population is now divided into seven distinct races, each descended from and named after their respective Eve. Epigenetic Swiss Army Knife “Moirans” are unique in that “which of [their] genes were being expressed at a given time, and which were laying dormant, was changeable to a degree far beyond what humans were normally capable of. It would have amounted to a kind of superpower, had there been a way to control it”.

The first Moiran we meet is called Kath Two. Our first hint of how Moira’s tinkering has affected her descendants comes from a conversation with a colleague who’s concerned that Kath Two’s sleepiness means that she might be starting to go epi. The colleague wishes her well: “”I hope your adjustment – whether or not it includes becoming Kath Amalthova Three – is a smooth one””. We later learn that “Kath One had died at the age of thirteen and been replaced by Kath Two, whose brain had a rather different set of emotional responses”, and also that “like a lot of young Moirans, Kath Two didn’t even try to establish a fixed home. With a home came a social circle, and perhaps a family. All of which was fine for the people of the other races. But until a Moiran “took a set,” such permanent arrangements were unwise, placing husband, children, coworkers, and friends at risk of waking up one day to find that their wife, mother, colleague, or pal had effectively died and been replaced by someone else. […] “Sometimes the results were brilliant. Rarely they were fatal. Sometimes they were inconvenient, or downright embarrassing. Most of the latter cases had something to do with what happened, like it or not, when a Moiran fell in love.” […] “As long as a Moiran kept changing, she could keep changing, but if she stayed one way for too long she would “take a set”, as the expression went, and find it hard to change back.”

The stimuli that can trigger an epigenetic shift include fatigue; close contact with animals, especially ones that are themselves going epi; and traumatic experiences, the latter effect apparently known in military jargon as POTESH (post-traumatic epigenetic shift). Someone who gives her name as Cantabrigia Barth Five is greeted with “Five. Wow. “You must have seen some crazy shit””, although a famous two-hundred-year old Twelve (“Epigenetic shifts could roll back many of the visible effects of aging”) is also mentioned. Here we see some parallels with real-life epigenetic science, which includes studies of how trauma and other stressful experiences, especially those encountered in the first few years of life, affect gene regulation. (I think there’s also a very interesting parallel here with the way Dæmons in Philip Pullman’s work can change form when their humans are young, but become fixed once their human reaches puberty).

So, in this world, “going epi” is a phrase in common parlance, epigenetic science is used to accelerate the natural process of evolution, and an epigenetic shift in a Moiran human is considered to be as significant as death and rebirth as an entirely different person (albeit with some retention of memories from earlier incarnations). Given that Moira’s epigenetic tinkering isn’t defined or explained in any level of detail (jazz hands!), this is actually a nice example of a somewhat plausible (and at least internally consistent) use of epigenetics in science fiction.

BUT. Do NOT get me started on how this book handles evolution. In this world, a five thousand year-long  population explosion hasn’t been enough to diversify the physical and personality traits of the descendants of each Eve; all members of a given race still have an extremely strong resemblance to each other, as well as to their shared ancestor. Meanwhile, back on Earth, [MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD] a tiny isolated human population that managed to survive after the seven Eves and their companions left for space has somehow evolved at a much higher rate through selective breeding alone – no epigenetic jazz hands here! These humans are now hairless aquatic beings with blubber; mottled skin; flaps over their ears, eyes, and nostrils; webbed fingers; sharp teeth; and no external genitalia. All while the other seven races continue to be defined by the single genetic tweaks their respective Eves asked Moira to make to their genomes.

Stretching the science within science fiction is just fine by me, as long as it’s internally consistent; in my opinion, Seveneves passes on the epigenetics front, but fails when it comes to evolution. Of course, this might not have bothered me so much if I hadn’t had to wade through hundreds of pages of orbital mechanics and physics of chains to reach that point.

Is there more out there?

I’m aware of lots of other instances of epigenetics being used in fiction, including the television shows Orphan Black, The Watchmen, Transparent, and Blackish. I haven’t seen these shows myself yet, but they’re on my list. Let me know if you have any other examples to share!

——

Cath Ennis is a Knowledge Translation Specialist with the University of British Columbia’s Human Early Learning Partnership and the Kobor Lab at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

  Image credit: almapopescu via http://www.jovoto.com

    The post The Power of Plasticity: Epigenetics in Science Fiction appeared first on Making Science Public.

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[djgblogger-blog]

Why journalists should engage with their readers: a view from Slovakia

http://bit.ly/2wEwbwy

The first print edition of Denník N, in 2015. Dennik N

What happens when journalists join in the discussion in the often-frightening comments section below their articles? That’s one of the questions I sought to answer in my book, Discussing the News: the uneasy alliance of participatory journalists and the critical public, published earlier this year.

In traditional newspaper culture, journalists do not often engage with their readers. So, as a researcher I jumped at the chance of witnessing an attempt to foster a more conversational relationship between journalists and the public at the newly-founded Slovak daily, Denník N.

The newspaper is based in the Slovakian capital Bratislava. It was set up by the senior editors of Slovakia’s second-most read daily, SME, who walked out in protest in September 2014 when a financial group suspected of political influence and corruption acquired a 50% stake in the newspaper.

Half the newsroom followed them into a new venture, which was initially only online. In January 2015, they launched a print edition five days a week.

Slovakian newspaper_Denník N’s_ newsroom. www.dennikn.sk

Participation and editorial independence

As an antidote to the rise of media oligarchs in Central Europe, Denník N relies on a subscription-based business model. It views this approach as a condition for editorial independence and sees it as a promising strategy in Slovakia, where internet penetration rate is of 85% and the press is free.

In this country of over 5 million people, readers are above-average news consumers. According to a 2015 poll conducted for my research about 72% of respondents were active participants in news dissemination, both via social networks and on newspaper websites. What’s more, according to the 2016 Digital News Report, Slovakia is the leading EU nation for commenting on news websites.

Slovakia: poll of 1,004 adults, December 2015, by FOCUS. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2016

By building a strong relationship with its audience, Denník N sought to offset the chronic dependence of media organisations on institutional or private shareholders with potentially conflicting interests. Participation was a natural extension of this philosophy as it encourages readers to subscribe and make the media more independent.

The newspaper encouraged its journalists not just to read the comments on their articles but to respond to them. And, to varying degrees, they did.

Journalists reply on journalism

In analysing these exchanges and talking to journalists, I discovered that there were certain comment types that journalists significantly over- or under-selected for reply.

They had a strong preference for comments about journalism. Readers commenting on editorial choices – mistakes, headlines, accusations of bias – rather than on the theme of an article were more likely to get a response.

The journalists’ responses drew on a stable repertoire of argumentative forms. Basically, when they engaged – beyond simple acknowledgements and thanks – they resorted either to process or to authority arguments. These, as Andrew Abbott describes in his book The System of Professions, are strategies of professional legitimisation.

Journalist responds to an error notification. www.dennikn.sk

In the screenshot above, a reporter thanks a reader for spotting a typo before explaining that the report was published “two minutes after the President’s official statement arrived”. This reference to the time pressure that online newspapers work under when dealing with breaking news highlights that they sometimes sacrifice orthographic precision for speed.

This is what’s called a process argument, in that the author provides an insight into the conditions of production of an article. The logic is that if people have a better understanding of a process they might be more understanding of the results.

The second type of justification is the authority argument. In commenting on their own pieces, journalists would, wherever possible efface their own voice and defer to other, more credible authorities. They might quote in greater depth one of the sources of their article, link to an official report, scientific article or statistical database, or cite a public opinion poll in order to back up the facts or interpretations outlined in the piece.

In both process and authority arguments, Slovak journalists used the discussion as an accountability instrument, acting almost in the manner of readers’ editors or ombudsmen.

Polemic conversations

Occasionally, they took a different track. Some writers crossed the line of neutrality and distance that journalists usually keep, and digressed from facts to interpretations. They took up or threw down polemical gauntlets and got into arguments.

Denník N’s first print edition. www.dennikn.sk

The three who did so most frequently had different backgrounds and beats: one was a commentator writing mostly on economic issues; another was a young reporter on the foreign news desk covering controversial topics such as gay rights and the refugee crisis; and the third was a correspondent writing long-form reportage and interviews.

When faced with criticism, some bluntly told commenters that they were wrong, or ridiculed their assertion by calling it “laughable”. Doing this risks inflaming the discussion, but they sensed this kind of reply was in keeping with the spirit of online discussions: animated verbal conflict is acceptable there.

The same goes in many well-established media genres: heated debates, as television and radio reporters have long known, make for very good viewing and listening.

Denník N’s “polemicising” journalists took on a distinct “discursive identity” in their comments, a style they would never indulge as newspaper reporters (unless they were writing opinion pieces). In other words, they recognised the characteristics of a genre and adapted their own discourse accordingly.

Just as I’m using a genre-specific form of writing in this article (which differs from the style of my book, though it’s still based on or derived from it), I witnessed astute journalists at Denník N treating discussions as a distinct genre, one that is only now emerging. It challenges them to learn to talk credibly in poorly scripted situations, ones that journalism school doesn’t really touch.

As journalists must now juggle several digital channels of communication – both to retain relevance with an online audience (for marketing purposes) and to explore new forms of dialogue between information-producers and information-consumers (from a democratic perspective) – this is an increasingly important skill.

Not commenters: contributors

According to French philosopher Joëlle Zask, participation is contributory if each participant in a situation retains the possibility of making and claiming a difference through their intervention. The contributor is thus valued for his or her singularity.

So here’s a modest proposal: let’s call a person who discusses the news a “contributor”, instead of using less dignified terms such as commenter or user.

The term is a useful boundary object; it allows journalists and their increasingly critical publics to meet on neutral ground without equalising their status.

By encouraging journalists to consider their “below-the-line” critics as contributors, we can challenge them to think of their own published texts as provisional accounts, always open to outside additions, clarifications, objections and corrections.

But by asking journalists to think of themselves as contributors when they engage with a critical online audience in comments or on social media, we give them a sort of professional shield. They can more easily value the time they spend in the dialogue, while still treating it as different from and subsidiary to their main role as writer, safe in the knowledge that they are not tacitly endorsing the claim that we are all journalists now.

And if we agree that these contributors – both readers and journalists – can constructively exchange, clicking on the comment button becomes a much less frightening experience.

Simon Smith received funding from the European Commission (Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship).

[buttboyfilms-blog]

my essay on sally potter’s bad movie “orlando” vs virginia woolf’s good book “orlando”

im pretty sure my prof like loves this choppy ass borinfg motherfucking movie so i didnt actually say that it sucked

i am spineless

; - )

Borrowing, Transforming and Adapting Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography Eighty-four years after the publication of Virginia Woolf’s enigmatic Orlando: A Biography, Sally Potter’s adaptation sought to readapt the sprawling narrative to suit her own historical moment. Through the lens of Dudley Andrew’s Adaptation, the relationship between Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel and Sally Potter’s 1993 film adaptation can best be understood as a combination of the “fidelity and transformation” and the “borrowing” modes of adaptation (31). Potter’s film succeeds in transforming Woolf’s difficult chronology through the use of specifically cinematic visual cues. Where the film takes liberties is in its borrowing of the gender aspect of Woolf’s text, which it flushes out to paint a more comprehensive picture of transhistorical British misogyny. While Potter’s adaptation occludes certain literary aspects of the novel, it translates the illogical continuities, in time and gender, with cinema-specific narrative devices, rendering it a faithful cinematic adaptation. Sally Potter’s adaptation of Orlando: A Biography succeeds in transmuting the narrative structure of the Woolf’s novel into cinematic form. In Dudley Andrew’s Adaptation, he outlines three modes of considering the relation between film and text in cases of adaptation. He delineates these categories: “borrowing, intersection, and fidelity of transformation,” (Andrew 29). Orlando is able to replicate Woolf’s illogical continuities across gender and time through the use of specifically cinematic means, emblematic of Dudley’s “fidelity of transformation” relation between texts (29). This method of adaptation assumes the task of reproducing “something essential about an original text… conventionally treated in relation to the ‘letter’ and to the ‘spirit’ of a text,” (Andrew 31). Potter’s adaptation, in this respect, is more concerned with fidelity to the letter of Woolf’s novel. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, with Britain under the rule of Queen Elizabeth, the film features a similar, if not exactly transformed chronological trajectory for its protagonist. The transmutability of chronology between literary antecedent and filmic adaptation is described by Andrew: “The skeleton of the original can, more or less thoroughly, become the skeleton of a film,” (32). With a high degree of fidelity, Sally Potter’s film depicts the experiences of Orlando as described in the sprawling narrative of Orlando: A Biography. In both literary source and film adaptation, Orlando traverses from the court of Queen Elizabeth to the deserts of the Ottoman Empire, switching genders while an armed revolution rages before arriving in the British high literary circles of the eighteenth century, finally arriving in the “present day” of novel/film to have her work praised by a publishing firm. In this manner of having her character travel a generally similar chronological trajectory, eschewing the temporal limitations of logical human aging, Potter’s work maintains a degree of fidelity to the “letter” of Woolf’s work. Whereas Woolf’s novel is required to utilize lengthy descriptive sequences to depict the rapid progressions in temporality and scenery, Sally Potter’s film is able to accomplish the same through the use of elaborate costume design. Seymour Chatman distinguishes between two ways time is structured in narrative: “story-time” and “discourse time,” (Chatman 122). Story time refers to the time sequence of plot events, taking place within the self-enclosed narrative. Discourse time, on the other hand, is the time taken to present the narrative, existing outside of the events of the plot (Chatman 122). All prose narratives are subject to a degree of oscillation between these two modes of narrative time structuring. Being an insistently self-reflexive fictional biography, however, the oscillation manifest in Woolf’s novel is immediately conspicuous. Rather than simply stating the facts of description, Woolf’s biographer insists on clarifying the subjective nature of his/her voice. This frequently results in the use of the direct address, as manifest in the passage occurring prior to the description of Orlando’s first seven-day sleep: “The biographer is now faced with a difficulty which it is better perhaps to confess than to gloss over,” (Woolf 49). As a fictional biography, rather than a traditional prose narrative, Orlando: A Biography is often required by form to maintain such visible distinctions between story and discourse time. However, these periodic moments of digression from the biographical record of Orlando’s life serve a greater purpose, fundamental to the large aspect of Woolf’s novel which meditates on literature and narrative. Orlando: A Biography features such narrative ellipses as previously quoted to reflect on how readers perceive truth in literature. Complaining of the protagonist’s visible inactivity during a period of intense poetic energy, the biographer philosophizes: “Life, it has been agreed by everyone whose opinion is worth consulting, is the only fit subject for novelist or biographer; life, the same authorities have decided, has nothing whatever to do with sitting still in a chair and thinking,” (Woolf 197). This passage illustrates Woolf’s self-reflexive preoccupation in Orlando, reflecting on the manner in which the often uneventful truth of life can be occluded by the means of storytelling. Detailing the process of the purportedly factual telling of Orlando’s story allows Woolf to reflect on her status as an author, illuminating the contradictions between literature, factuality, and subjective truth. In this respect, literature is not merely the medium of Woolf’s original text, but a theme and preoccupation of the novel’s discourse time throughout.   Film, as opposed to prose narrative, does not have the naturalized privilege of alternating between story time and discourse time. While description and other instances of discourse time in literature are able to momentarily divorce themselves from the time-pressure of the plot, narrative film, a necessarily visual medium, is not able to do so without interrupting the flow of the story. As Chatman outlines: “Whereas in novels, movements and hence events are at best constructions imaged by the reader out of words, that is, abstract symbols which are different from them in kind, the movements on the screen are so iconic ... that the illusion of time passage simply cannot be divorced from them,” (130). This distinguishment between mediums is made readily apparent when contrasting Virginia Woolf’s descriptive treatment of her story’s chronology and Sally Potter’s visual treatment. The narrative’s illogical temporal continuity presents unique difficulties for filmic adaptation. Akin to Chatman, Dudley Andrew in turn proclaims the necessarily visual signification of cinema, stating: “Generally film is found to work from perception toward signification, … from the givenness of a world to the meaning of a story cut out of that world,” (32). Insofar as Woolf is able to skirt chronological confusion with her direct pronouncements of alleged biographical difficulties, Potter’s film is forced to grapple with such issues through the use of strictly visual cues. Tasked with transforming the leaps and bounds of Orlando’s story, costume design is essential to Orlando’s cinematic chronology. From the fanned-out, high-collared extravagance of the Elizabethan Age, to the powdered makeup and long wigs of the eighteenth century, to the demure, plaid evening gowns of the Victorians, and, finally, emerging in the 1990’s with a tight braid, high waisted khaki pants and knee-high boots, the transhistorical nature of Tilda Swinton’s Orlando is communicated primarily through the means of Sandy Powell’s historical costuming. Chatman goes on to describe the limitations of film in this regard, stating that “the filmmaker … has to depend on the audience’s agreement to the justice of the visual clues,” (129). Here, Potter shows a slight reluctance to rely solely on the cinema specific means of distinguishing the many temporal settings, opting to employ dividing chapter titles for each temporally divided segment of the film (ex. Death, Love, Poetry), a decidedly novelistic device. Although surrendering some of Woolf’s literary self-reflexivity, Potter’s adaptation is able to transform the sprawling chronological structure of Woolf’s novel into film through the use of visual cues specific to the cinematic medium. Temporal concerns are not the only issue of continuity at stake in a non-literary adaptation of Orlando: A Biography. In a narrative juncture requiring the extreme suspension of disbelief, Woolf outlines Orlando’s abrupt shift from man to woman. The novel’s discourse time promptly states: “He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess — he was a woman,” (Woolf 102). Woolf grants this event no definitive explanation, declaring, “let other pens treat of sex and sexuality; we quit such odious subjects as soon as we can,” (103). Although Woolf’s biographer deigns not to explain the logistics of Orlando’s transition, gender as flimsy construct is a theme frequently alluded to over the course of the novel’s encompassed centuries. Orlando’s initial heteronormative relationship with Sasha fails due to his misunderstanding of her feminine subjectivity, impossible to reconcile with his projected vision of her. From here, Orlando’s relationships take the form of seduction at the hands of a cross-dressing Archduchess, causing him to flee the country, followed by a failed reconciliation with the male Archduke once Orlando has transitioned to female form. Even her loving companionship with Shelmerdine is characterized by a suspicion of the gendered divide between them, as Shelmerdine asks her incredulously, “‘Are you positive you aren’t a man?’” (Woolf 189). This aspect of Woolf’s original text is often touched upon directly within the characters’ dialogue or in the biographer’s discourse, and even more often subtly emphasized in the gender dynamics between sexes. In large part a love letter to Woolf’s secret lesbian companion Vita Sackville-West, Orlando: A Biography emphasizes the arbitrary and restrictive nature of prescriptive gender roles in British society. While gender undoubtedly plays a large part in the social politics and satire of Woolf’s novel, it lies at the heart of Sally Potter’s 1992 cinematic adaptation. It is in this aspect of the antecedent text with which Potter engages in Andrew’s mode of adaptation designated “borrowing,” (30). In this relation between a source text and adaptation, Andrew states: “the audience is expected to enjoy basking in a certain preestablished presence and to call up new or especially powerful aspects of a cherished work,” (Andrew 30). Although Woolf’s novel has gained a high degree of literary prestige for a variety of reasons, its proto feminist, scathing critique of gender roles is what lends the novel its persisting relevance into the twenty first century. Sally Potter’s adaptation forefronts and develops this “especially powerful aspect” of Orlando: A Biography through the use of specifically cinematic means (Andrew 30). In the largely androgynous costumes of the film’s early segments, queer screen legend Quentin Crisp dons a wig and powdered makeup for the part of Queen Elizabeth. Opposite him is Tilda Swinton, cross-dressed as the opposite sex, but clad in similarly androgynous period garb. In this fashion, the film’s commitment to embracing Woolf’s theme of gender mutability is made immediately evident. This is made possible cinematically by the use of visibly known actors, a mechanism unavailable to prose narrative. In addition to this formal interest in gendered performances, Potter’s film adds in a number of references to gender throughout the diegesis. Whereas Woolf’s novel presents no explicit reasoning for Orlando’s transition, merely presenting it as a historical fact, Potter’s adaptation positions the transition immediately after a scene exhibiting Orlando’s unwillingness to conform to the norms of his gender, allowing us to infer causality through the naturalized cinematic function of editing. In the scene of the transition, as well, Potter’s camera grants the viewer a sense of seamlessness in the gender transition which Woolf’s biographer could only assert. While the novel is forced to state: “The change seemed to have been accomplished painlessly and completely and in such a way that Orlando herself showed no surprise at it,” Potter’s film visually displays for us the smooth simplicity of her transition (Woolf 103). After removing her wig to reveal long, feminine red hair, the camera depicts a close up of Orlando’s bathing hands, with her apparently new breasts barely intruding into a corner of the frame, before culminating in the final reveal as Orlando turns to the mirror to see her full, naked female body, declaring to the audience: “Same person. No difference at all. Just a different sex.” While the direct address in Orlando’s summative utterance seeks to mimic the coy, self-reflexive tone of Woolf’s biographer, the rest of the scene depicts a fluid gender transition through strictly visual, cinematic means. The film’s approach to gender manifests otherwise in its repeated use of Jimmy Somerville’s falsetto in soundtracking, another cinema-specific mechanism, and its exhibition of the rampant misogyny of Britain’s high literary circles in Orlando’s eighteenth century period. In its conclusion, Sally Potter’s adaptation makes a final alteration to the source material which profoundly shifts its meaning with regards to gender. Where Woolf’s novel leaves Orlando married with a son, having won the lawsuits to keep her castle in her possession, Potter’s film envisions Orlando in 1992 as a single mother of one daughter, dispossessed of her family’s estate by Britain’s patriarchal laws of inheritance. Through adamant use of cinema’s visual advantages, Sally Potter’s adaptation positions the borrowed theme of gender mutability at the apex of what Woolf’s source work has to offer a modern adaptation. In conclusion, Sally Potter’s 1992 film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, Orlando: A Biography is faithful in its adaptive practice. The film engages in what Dudley Andrew would term a “transforming” of Woolf’s extended chronology, using specifically cinematic means such as costume design to convey temporal difference. Although losing some of Woolf’s self-reflexive wit in the process, it nonetheless effectively conveys the skeletal structure of the novel. In addition to this transformation of narrative structure, Potter’s adaptation makes use of the borrowing technique to develop the aspect of gender mutability present in the source text. Orlando (1992) imaginatively reconstructs aspects of Virginia Woolf’s novel using the cinematic sign system. While maintaining, and abandoning, certain other aspects of the text, it adapts Woolf’s story not only to fit a new medium, but a new era of gendered politics.