Understand (through) drifting characterization of the average empirical reader in The Empty Kingdom

Abstract

This article describes the implicit and empirical reader of the digital work of fiction The Empty Kingdom (Merlin Goodbrey, 2015), based on the mixed analysis of a sample of 50 questionnaires completed by 11-12 year old students from two primary schools in the province of Barcelona, ​​within the framework of the project “Teaching to read digital literature” (“Enseñar a leer literatura digital”) (GRETEL-UAB). The data allow us to recognise, firstly, the modes of participation and interpretative challenges that this digital work poses for its readers and, secondly, the main difficulties that students manifest in the concrete reading experience. This analysis leads to the establishment and characterisation of three reader profiles, as well as the tracing of a number of implications relevant to the mediation of digital works of fiction, something in which the school needs to be actively involved so as not to leave readers adrift in the construction of meaning.