Research thesis
The influence of authorial mediation through the author’s website
How does authorial mediation influence the audience of an author’s website? To answer this question, this master’s thesis in Books and Mediation draws on a questionnaire completed by 102 visitors to author websites and on interviews with people involved in creating them.
- Author
- Karl Forterre
- Supervision
- Jean-François Cerisier, co-supervised by Joachim Séné
- Degree
- Master’s degree (second year) in Books and Mediation: publishing, bookselling and literary life
- Institution
- University of Poitiers
- Date
- June 2023
- Text
- 223 pages, in French
Read the thesis (PDF, 223 pages, in French)
The research question
“What is the influence of authorial mediation on the audience of an author’s website?”
p. 9
Two definitions
Authorial mediation
“Authorial mediation is a process by which the author connects the public with their work. Its various channels include bookshop events, social media, television appearances and a presence on an author’s website. Through authorial mediation, the author seeks to give the public easier access to their work. This mediation draws on the author’s ethos, so that they can position themselves within the field of literature.”
p. 13
“This mediation, characterised by the nature of its sender, rests on the author’s ethos, which Ruth Amossy also calls authorial ethos, and on the author’s posture, as defined by Jérôme Meizoz.”
p. 12
The author’s website
“After some research, it turns out that there is no commonly accepted definition of the term author’s website. In order to start from a basis that will structure what follows, I put forward this definition: an author’s website is a web page or, more broadly, a digital space about the author and their work, regardless of any other criterion.”
p. 14
Method
- A questionnaire completed by 102 participants: 29 book professionals, 39 students or researchers and as many people from other backgrounds, each of whom could tick several categories.
- Six interviews, with Yves Aubard, Romain Naudin, Emmanuelle Pireyre, Jean-Charles Massera, Joachim Séné and Guillaume Teisseire, transcribed in the appendix.
- An analysis of the home pages of the websites of the best-selling authors of 2021.
- A theoretical framework drawing in particular on Saussure, Aristotle and Benjamin Hoffmann, author of a typology of authors’ websites.
Some findings
“The survey also showed that 74.5% of participants (76 of them) came away better informed about the author and/or their work after their visit.”
p. 107
“The visit influenced the image of the author in slightly more than a third of cases.”
p. 104
“We observe here that 28 of the 102 participants made a purchase prompted by a visit to an author’s website. A constant in the sample studied seems to indicate that a third of it is receptive to the mediation carried out by the author’s website.”
p. 105
“The promotion of the work therefore appears to take priority over that of the author.”
p. 109
Conclusion
“This research shows that the author’s website holds a very special place in the mediation of the author and their book.”
“Today the work is at the centre of the digital space that is the author’s website; visitors seek information about the book, but not only that. They also want to know more about its creator, to know the person and the work better and put them in context.”
p. 118
Contents
- Introduction
- Definitions
- A history of authors’ websites and of mediation
- Mediations and aims
- Metaphors: the author and authors’ websites
- The author’s website, politics and mediation
- Is an author read more thanks to their website?
- Who visits an author’s website?
- Analysis of the interviews
- Analysis of the data
- Making an author’s website: a playful approach to research
- My path as a future professional
- Conclusion, bibliography, web sources and appendices
Abstract in English, by the author
What influence does author mediation have on the audience of an author website?
Based on this question, this master memory explores the impact of authorial mediation on the audience of an author's website by examining the modalities of this mediation. A study was carried out to define this digital space, which has received little attention to date. A questionnaire was sent out to 102 people who had visited an author website, and interviews with people involved in the creation of author websites were recorded, transcribed and studied. The influence of mediation was explored through theoretical concepts raised by researchers such as Saussure, Barthe, Aristotle and Benjamin Hoffmann.
This work on several angles of the theme of digital mediation of the author and his auctoriality is part of a study programme centred on books, their professions and mediation.
Related key words : Influence, authorial mediation, author's website, questionnaire, interviews, public, mediation, reception.
How to cite this thesis
Forterre, Karl. L’influence de la médiation auctoriale du site d’auteur. Mémoire de master 2 Livres et médiations : édition, commercialisation et vie littéraire, sous la direction de Jean-François Cerisier et de Joachim Séné. Université de Poitiers, 2023, 223 p. https://karlforterre.fr/memoire/
The quotations are taken from the thesis; in other languages, they are translated from the French.