Reconstructing LOST: Connecting storyworld geography to narrative comprehension in online Wiki communities

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines how viewers of the ABC television show Lost collaboratively reconstructed the geography of the fictional island at the center of the show’s plot through an online encyclopedic wiki, Wikia’s Lostpedia. Examining participant activity on the wiki site over the course of the show’s six-year run reveals how narrative audiences initially processed information about the storyworld space as well as how those audiences revised their ideas and assumptions as the serialized story progressed. Here I use “The Island” page’s revision history to trace the means by which participants negotiated and organized the information concerning where the island was located in the “real world.” Secondly, I move to approaches used in locating and organizing landmarks. Finally, I address the ways in which participants synthesized this information into the creation of their own maps and the problems they encountered in doing so.