Reading Journals

To have a journal show up on this page, please be sure to tick the “Reading Journals” checkbox under “Categories” when creating a post (the categories tab should be on the lower right, outside of the entry field). Additionally, to help reduce the amount of scrolling everyone has to do, you can add a “Read More” link, which is the option second from the right on the tool bar in the text entry area.

Last Journal

Jackie3 Comments

Advertising in Harry Potter

            For my last journal, I looked at Phillip Nel’s article “Is There a Text in This Advertising Campaign Literature.” I do believe and agree that advertising is key within our culture. Growing up, every movie or show that came out had at least some kind of toy or game that came out as well. Now that I think of it, it would be weird if merchandise like that was not around, as a culture we are so accustomed to mass production and mass marketing. We obsess over these series and manage to produce more and more of these marketing ploys. Our society is full of consumers and we keep getting further and further into this lifestyle. It is true that corporate influences have taken over things such as children’s literature and turned it into a multi-million-dollar business. Continue reading →

Journal Draft- Gabby

rjpt2 Comments

 

The Harry Potter series showcases a world of magic and wonder for a young boy who never knew he had such powers. For some, the world of witches and wizards is a fun realm of fantasy meant as a harmless escape from reality. For others, the series is a dangerous and slippery slope that leads young children to actually make a pact with the devil and become witches and wizards themselves. Further, some of those people decide that the proper way to handle the evil they see in the book is to ban and/or burn the Harry Potter books. However, burning is less about preventing evil, and more about having and maintaining power. Continue reading →

Reading Journal 06 – Krista Shellhammer

Krista Shellhammer2 Comments

My journal is about the issues revolving around the ideas of “enemyslash” and “powerslash” in fanfiction, and why it is perhaps for the best that the old trend was to write around “buddyslash” particularly in a fan culture such as Harry Potter, which inevitably attracts children to its audience, and therefore needs to set a safe example for queer youth.

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Infatuation or Obsession: When is the Love of a Character Too Much

rjpt2 Comments

Within Hannah Schmidt’s article, A Magically Nice Guy: Parasocial Relationships with Harry Potter Across Different Cultures, the idea of parasocial relationships are discussed. Parasocial relationships are defined as a one sided relationship in which one party doesn’t know that the other person exists. This is seen mainly in your every day person becoming infatuated with a fictional character, or a famous person. These relationships can be healthy in helping a person to lead a better life, but they can also turn into an unhealthy obsession. This leads us to ask at what point we draw the line between infatuation and obsession.

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