Keywords

Rheoric, composition, discourse, place, placemaking, space, certeau, online place, online space, practice

Abstract

This thesis investigates the potential for the online production of place, specifically as it applies to the host site for the Homestuck web comic, MS Paint Adventures, and its attendant fandom. The proliferation of digital environments such as video games, web sites, and chat rooms has led to numerous opportunities for the study of online spaces and the numerous practices that take place within them. The lack of physical location in online spaces can, however, make it difficult to conceptualize of a web site as real, a problem that has often led researchers to develop new theories of space that do not rely on material places. This thesis was inspired by questions about the potential for the production of online place, and how and to what extent this operation can be studied through the application of a theory of place. Applying Certeau's theory of place from The Practice of Everyday Life this thesis theorizes the operations through which Andrew Hussie created MS Paint Adventures as a habitable place. Hussie accomplishes this through the generation and maintenance of authority, the creation of stable and ordered elements, and the establishment of the "proper," the rules and reality that govern the site. In addition, I theorize about the space that MS Paint Adventures as a place attempts to create, a space where readers are encouraged and enabled to engage with the web comic Homestuck and with each other through meaningful online interaction, and about the ways in which the site can be, and is, inhabited. Ultimately, I explore the extent to which web sites, though lacking physical location, can be fairly and logically conceived of, and therefore examined as, habitable places.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2014

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Rios, Gabriela

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Writing and Rhetoric

Degree Program

English; Rhetoric and Composition

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0005416

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005416

Language

English

Release Date

August 2015

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Subjects

Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic; Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities

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