Introduction
With the release of J.K. Rowling’s debut novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1997, the Harry Potter phenomenon had its inception. It cannot be disputed that the Harry Potter series has traveled on the Hogwarts Express on its own and has become a worldwide phenomenon. Beyond the enthralling plot of a boy wonder immersed in a wizarding world, a global cult of fans clings to J.K. Rowling’s every word, throng movie cinemas to witness the onscreen enchantment, to quell their insatiable demands for Potter merchandise. This paper looks at Harry Potter through the lens of technology, how it came to be, and its dynamic through society and media.
Harry Potter Phenomenon Through Lens of Technology
The Monster Book has changed from being a fictitious object on paper and on film to a real-world item that has been made by numerous scholars, artists, engineers, and Harry Potter enthusiasts. The Monster Book functions in the domain of the supernatural, as seen through clocks that can find people since it is a sentient object in the Harry Potter world (Harrison 331). Outside the fictional universe, the growing number of homemade monster books emerging from basements and design studios are enhanced with digital tools to create the impression of magic. As a result, the actual world adopts illusionist magic in place of the supernatural magic found in the fictional world.
In the research and development stage, some of these magical technical items include a water faucet that coils up in reaction to wasteful water consumption and a clock that tolls the location of members of the family. These artifacts, along with others like them, may jointly benefit by having their own special workshop, much like The Monster Book. Such a workshop incorporates a fundamental idea of sustainable design by including creativity and production within its scope. Products and technology may be designed with the ability to modify and adapt from the very beginning.
At each step of the process, ethical considerations will need to be applied since many of these new technological affordances include the collection of personal data. Technology’s advantages should conversely also be examined for what they obscure and efface and if their overflow of information raises concerns. Software is at the root of this seeming paradox since it logs and shows metadata on an object’s connections with the outside world but fails to clearly record its second-order exchanges with users. While the book’s physical structure, such as its pages and spine, show signs of usage and aging, the software interface seems not to. Therefore, the software of the book looks impenetrable to material change, while the hardware is susceptible to it at the perceived level.
How the Phenomenon Came to be
There was no big-time marketing at the start of the Harry Potter phenomenon. Instead, a buzz was built and maintained in a very grassroots manner only on personal recommendations, playground talks, and customer satisfaction. Children and adults who originally read the novels and shared their thoughts with their social networks might be thought of as the Connectors. On the other side, the mavens are the reviewers, reporters, and interviewees who started talking about Potter in broad media outlets or on radio and television platforms (Einwächter 98). Since these groups sowed the seeds of the Potter phenomenon, the connectors and, later, the mavens were crucial to the publication of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
There were just 500 copies of Philosopher’s Stone’s initial printing. During the British Book Awards, the book did win the Children’s Book of the Year prize (Dugan 154). The book initially became popular as a result of positive evaluations from children. The novel immediately gained popularity as the teenagers who first read it shared the word with their friends about how amazing it was. Children have extensive networks owing to all the activities they engage in, from a camping trips to after-school sports, making them the perfect connectors. Although mavens play a crucial role in the early stages of transmedia storytelling, connectors are still a crucial component.
The majority of these pieces are from British publications that focus on J.K. Rowling’s life narrative as well as the literary value of the books. As interest in Rowling and Potter’s books grew, the number of articles about them nearly quadrupled between 1998 and 2000 (Dugan 154). These kinds of pieces, along with TV/radio interviews, are what first brought J.K. Rowling’s work to public attention and started the hype about Harry Potter on the internet.
As more adults joined on the Harry Potter bandwagon, Bloomsbury saw an opportunity in this untapped market and, in 1998, released a vintage edition of the first novel with an adult cover. Hence, this allowed more people to read it without feeling self-conscious about it being children’s fiction. Adults started to tell their networks about it, which started a similar word-of-mouth pattern among an older crowd. Consequently, the line between children’s and adult literature was officially dissolved, and from 1998 forward, there was a growing tendency for adults to read children’s books and boldly flirt with childhood once more.
Role of Technology in the Harry Potter
Due to the growth of the Internet, Harry Potter remained alive and multiplying. The Harry Potter webmaster, Emerson Spartz of Leaky Cauldron, contends that the Potter universe once more erupted, moving from a publishing phenomenon to a cultural phenomenon (Einwächter 100). Around 2000, the rise of new media literacy had heightened. The use of new media literacy for persuasive communication requires the development of critical thinking skills as well as the capacity to evaluate and create material using new media formats. As a result, community hubs were beginning to emerge on mailing lists, message boards, and blogs.
Due to this, the fans became captivated on the internet while they waited impatiently for news of the fifth Harry Potter novel. The fans were creating their own fictional stories, engaging in lengthy debates in which they dissected every aspect of the canon, and coming up with creative ideas to keep the wait bearable. By the time the fifth novel was released in 2003, a passionate, active, and thriving internet community was flowing over into the internet and bookshops.
Why it is a Phenomenon
In the realm of literature, Harry Potter managed to become more than just a blockbuster. The Potter phenomenon has expanded beyond the literary community through transmedia storytelling and had a remarkable impact on popular culture (Schiller 103). Since the advent of video games, reading books has not been incredibly popular. Instead of reading books, children become more intrigued by what is on cable television or the electronic game they play. J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter have rekindled children’s enthusiasm for reading, and parents are also reading the novels aloud to their children. Hence, this has been the novel’s largest cultural influence to date.
Without Rowling’s creation of a unique universe and language for Harry and his colleagues, there would not be a universal language like that of Harry Potter and the Wizarding World. These languages and worlds are now well-known and understood on a global scale. This is transformed from a book into its own fantastic world owing to Potter’s language. In addition to telling an engrossing, emotionally gripping tale that draws on conventional morality tales, Rowling also vividly depicts a world that many people wish actually existed. Since the people she creates in this fantastical universe are so genuine and relatable, anybody and everyone can find some way to connect with the narrative she is presenting.
Rowling invented a language to correspond with her fantastical universe; wizards naturally needed their own dialect and terminology and unique animals. Words like “Quidditch,” for example, now add to vocabulary and take permanent places in imagination (Haverals and Geybels 274). If the books had not been so extensively read or embraced, these terms would not be understood by everyone, demonstrating the fame of the books and their impact on society.
The Dynamic between Society and Media in the Harry Potter Phenomenon
The popularity of Harry Potter opened the door for mainstream geek and fan culture. It welcomed cultural fusion since its stories could be shared on many social media channels. When stories are shared across several media channels, and readers or viewers have the ability to change or otherwise respond to culture, this is known as cultural convergence. Interestingly, the Television series made being a geek appear fashionable. The Potter novels were often not read alone; instead, readers sought to discuss them with their friends and subsequently make new acquaintances who shared their enthusiasm for the series. Online debate of young adult (YA) novels and science fiction grew increasingly prevalent as more Potter fans became active.
It became more and more difficult to dismiss fantasy and science, fiction enthusiasts. This was due to the success of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, as well as the growing prominence of the Potter fanbase online. Through Potter, the concept of a contemporary, mainstream fandom developed around a significant sci-fi/fantasy and was well-established and widely acknowledged. Both in and outside of the fandom, Potter enthusiasts continue to express their creativity (Tsay-Vogel and Sanders 5). Potter fan sites, archives of fan literature and fan art, and email group discussions emerged online in the early 2000s.
Numerous Harry Potter fans attended conventions, and cosplay from the series became commonplace at major geek and comic gatherings. As a result of being able to get together and discuss a similar issue, there was a sense of community practice among the people (Tsay-Vogel and Sanders 2). A community of practice (CoP) is a group of individuals who come together to achieve individual and group objectives and have a similar concern, set of issues or topic of interest. Numerous music groups dedicated to portraying and singing about different characters from the novels were created by Potter fans on YouTube. Subsequently, Quidditch, a completely exclusive Potter fan activity, joined it (Haverals and Geybels 274). The first real-life Quidditch match was developed by students at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2005, and it later became an international phenomenon.
Conclusion
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which began in the late 1990s, was not anticipated to become a huge global success but eventually became. Studying popular culture, like the Harry Potter films, is an increasingly popular study subject, and identifying Harry Potter-specific resources might help. Scholars should examine how, why, and what else the narrative implies beyond being a fantastic and skillfully written book since the tale of one eleven-year-old child has evolved into such a popular cultural figure.
Works Cited
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