Writing games: Collaborative Writing in Digital-Ludic Spaces

This dissertation examines how social network site (SNS) platforms enhance writers’ experiences of pleasure and play in the process of writing together. My primary site of study is Protagonize.com, a SNS that encourages member-generated collaborative creative writing. Correlating Bakhtin’s theory of utterance, Huizinga’s understanding of play, and Wittgenstein’s concept of language games, I argue that Protagonize.com allows writers to engage in writing practices where authorship becomes inherently collaborative, context adapts to users’ needs, and the social-dimension of language emerges.