Popular Authorship Reconfigured: Stephen King’s Authorial Personae from Print to Digital Environments

Despoina Feleki

doi:10.21825/aj.v3i1.1071

Abstract

The convergence of literary practices with computer information technologies (ICTs) has immensely affected writing processes and theories of authorship. This paper aims to foreground contemporary sociocultural conditions which have reconfigured authorship in relation to the materiality of the product through the example of Stephen King’s writing and marketing choices. An investigation of selected printed and digital works, including Misery, Lisey’s Story, Duma’s Key, and UR, showcases King’s concern for the future of authorship in the digital age and the position of the writer in the book and entertainment industries. This article seeks to trace the trajectory of the concept of the author who is seen moving from print to digital environments and being entangled in new forms of communication with the reader. In particular, King, who leaves control of the narrative story to experts in digital mediation, takes advantage of the new medium’s immediacy, comes closer to the recipients of his works, and manages to re-invent his authorial image while his name turns into a brand.

Highlights

The concepts surrounding authorial processes have always depended on socio-cultural and technological conditions, which, in turn, have had an effect on developments in writing practices
Rather than see writers in digital environments left weak and stripped of their power to build their fictive worlds on words, Diakopoulos et al regard the author in a “remix society” as a “Constraint Satisfier,” who has to reconcile “production constraints” – while making choices about the content and structure of the elements used within a particular medium – with “environmental constraints,” such as design, social norms, legal and economic facts (“The Evolution of Authorship in a Remix Society” 133)
Stephenking.com has been designed by Brian Stark and a network of computer experts, while King has remained the executive producer of the whole project. It offers a new space for his work to be remediated and hosts diverse instances of transmedia storytelling and online computer experiences, hoping to answer to the corporate need to repurpose King’s written content into digital form and to reload it in diverse formats made available on the internet

Summary

Introduction

The concepts surrounding authorial processes have always depended on socio-cultural and technological conditions, which, in turn, have had an effect on developments in writing practices. Printing and distribution changes in tandem with the advancements in digital technologies since the 1990s have entailed the involvement of media artists and other professionals, resulting in the molding of different types of collaborative authorship and a further redefinition of the author’s role in the writing process. It is the purpose of this essay to explore the multiple convergences resulting in the configuration of contemporary authorship theories. The analysis showcases the position King saves for his characters posing as writers and creative agents in some of his written works produced for the printed medium and moves on to examine King’s own role in the writing and dissemination processes for the creation of products designed to be accessed digitally

Techno-cultural Convergences and Collaborative Authorship

Stephen King’s Changing Authorial Faces

Brand Naming the Author: “Stephen’s Empire”

Conclusion

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources