From the books to the screens, to the memes and beyond: Fans’ notions of Game of Thrones as an adaptation

Abstract

Parting from the awareness that not all consumers of US media are located within the geographical and linguistic context of the United States, this article contributes to media sociology with an approximation to the fandom of transnationally popular texts. Empirical findings presented here draw from a broader qualitative study on the reception of the series Game of Thrones (GoT) by 21 viewers from Argentina, Spain and Germany. Here I build on participants’ responses to both the original novels by George R.R. Martin and the series adaptation by HBO as distinctive media texts to explore notions of authorship, adaptation and cultural legitimacy. Given the polysemic, intertextual quality of contemporary’s memetic culture, I also discuss a case of digital re-appropriation of GoT’s characters within sociopolitical discourses in Argentina.