Transtextual heroes and antiheroes; the caso Kony2012

Abstract

In the frame of the narratological theory of structural and generative semiotics, the article defines narrations as “civilizing machines”, indispensable in order for a social group and its members to perpetuate through time and transmit through space their hierarchy of values. After tackling the problem of the representation of evil in narrations, and above all in the iconic transposition of verbal tales, the essay reflects on what is left of the efficaciousness of the narrative device when it is subject not only to intersemiotic translations, but also to transmediatic operations. Having defined transmediality as transtextuality, the article manifests a series of doubts on the effectiveness of a tale that, as a product of the digitalization of expressive substances and the consequent being scattered through a globalized, Protean, and fragmentary communication, continuously challenges the textual frame and requires, from those who receive it, a metanarrative competence. The essay concludes with the analysis of a case study, the social activism short movie Kony2012.