Mediology of Literature: A Sociocultural Approach for the Study of Narrative Ecosystems. The Case of The Body Snatchers

Abstract

The mediology of literature is a disciplinary approach to the study of the complex literary forms of digital society (Ragone 2014). This approach is based on the theories about the literary medium developed by Marshall McLuhan (1954, 1962, 1964, 2011). This paper aims to investigate how the mediological approach can help to analyze contemporary narrative ecosystems (Innocenti, Pescatore 2017, 2014, 2012). These ecosystems are structured by wide-ranging media processes: convergence (Jenkins 2006), serialization, and transmediality (Scolari 2013, 2009, Freeman, Gambarato 2018). Through the analysis of the narrative ecosystem centered on the novel The Body Snatchers (1954), our research aims to highlight how literature produces universal cultural myths, how these myths evolve through interaction with media, technological and social environments, how media metaphors can anticipate and foreshadow the cultural processes of the digital society.