The World Hobbit Project in Finland : Audience responses and transmedial user practices

Abstract

This article examines audience engagement with The Hobbit fantasy film trilogy as a participatory and transmedial experience. To do so, we use the data collected by The World Hobbit Project in order to investigate the transmedial user practices of the Finnish audience of the trilogy. We will, firstly, look at what kinds of transmedial user practices – and transmedia users – emerge from our data. Secondly, we will ask the following questions: How do transmedia users receive and experience the films? What are the meanings assigned to The Hobbit films and the fantasy texts and user practices related to them, and what do these meanings tell of the broader meanings and uses of fantasy? Doing so, we use both quantitative and qualitative research methods.