Abstract

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the possibilities of empathic experience created by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral's book and iPad app Chopsticks (2012), using as a theoretical framework Marshall McLuhan's theories concerning "hot" and "cool" media in Understanding Media and the significance of changing "sense ratios" created by the extension of new technologies "into the social world," as he first posited in The Gutenberg Galaxy. Exploring the tension between my own textual analysis and the affective responses reported by youth interpreters and by Goodreads reviewers, I explore how Chopsticks invites readers to enter "the multimodal subjunctive" (Mackey, 2008, 2011), compelling consideration of our senses and emotions in interactive meaning-making processes. Inspired by Jenkin's theories concerning transmedia storytelling, I propose the term "trans-sensory storytelling" as a means for theorizing the meaning-making possibilities of changing sense ratios when an app's engagement with touch and sound extends the visuality of a book. I argue that investigation into this process might help counter moral panics based on implicit assumptions about a projected future dystopia in which the disappearance of childhood, the book, and the human capacity for empathy are all falsely connected.

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