Martens.+Transmedia+Teens+Affect,+Immaterial+Labor,+and+User-Generated+Content

=Martens, Marianne. "Transmedia Teens: Affect, Immaterial Labor, and User-generated Content."= //Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies// Vol. 17, No. 1 (February 2011), pp. 49-68. Print 9 March 2011.

Abstract
The internet offers teens (especially girls, who have embraced social aspects of the web) a voice in the books they read, from reviewing, blogging, and creating fan sites, to actually collaborating on books-in-progress — such as The Amanda Project — by writing portions of the book or suggesting storylines. But while these new means of participation are seemingly empowering for teenage girls, is this participation a form of empowerment, or is it merely a way for publishers to exploit teens’ labor to create commodified cultural products which they in turn can sell back to the teens who helped shape them? In an era of user-generated content, this article examines how teens’ affective labor as peer-to-peer-marketers and content creators is changing the transmedia cultural products created for them.

Argument
The article explores the way that teens (specifically girls) interact with the internet. Martens explains how the information teens are contributing is going directly to the marketers and publishers to redirect they things they requested right back at them in the form a new product. The article examines whether this is a form of teens letting their voice be heard or whether they are just being exploited for marketing purposes.

Key Passages
Martens sets up her entire argument with this passage:

Just as the foundations of book publishing have been shaken by content moving from the codex to ebooks to ‘transmedia’ (Jenkins,2006), meaning content which exists simultaneously on multiple platforms, it is not surprising that book publishers, too, are experimenting with user-generated content. Attracting and exploiting such content within a social setting has particularly strong potential with teens, especially teenage girls. 49

Selected Works Cited
Amanda Project, The (2009). URL (accessed 28 September 2010):http://www.theamandaproject.com/

Amazon.com. URL (accessed 28 February 2010): http://www.amazon.com/

Rowling JK (1998) //Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone//. New York: Scholastic.

Twilight Saga.com (2010). Official site. URL (accessed 27 September 2010): http://thetwilightsaga.com/