BEST MEDIA PUBLISHER AS A CULTURAL INTERMEDIARY: THE SELECTION OF WATTPAD POPULAR STORIES
Nabilah Rosyadah Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia Email:
[email protected]
ABSTRACT The popularity of the Wattpad as digital writing platform is used by Best Media, one of Indonesia major publisher to finding the potential authors. Though there was many stories that existed in Wattpad, not all the popular stories are contracted for major publishing. This research aims to see the selection process by Best Media editorial using three popular Wattpad novels and five Wattpad novels that have been published by Best Media. The argument of this research is the selection is not only because of the popularity but also based on the theme and quality of language according to Best Media standards. Keywords: Wattpad, digital writing, major publisher, popular novel, literature
INTRODUCTION A sign stating “Dibaca xxx-juta kali di Wattpad” (have been read millions times in Wattpad) was posted in fictional bookshelves in many book stores in Indonesia. Various publishers both old and new are competing to release novels that are claimed to have been read millions of times on a social platform called Wattpad. Wattpad according to Hermus (2013) as stated in Contreras, Gonzaga, Trovela, and Kagaoan (2015) is, "... the -world's largest community for discovering and sharing stories‖. It is a site where authors and readers can write, read, and interact with one another for free." As a site that brings together authors and readers, Wattpad has the potential to produce writers who will have a huge mass following or fans. This causes publishers to use Wattpad as a tool to look for writers primarily to look for bestseller books (Bold, 2016). In Indonesia, one publisher which looks for a writer or script on Wattpad is Best Media. As a new major publisher (established in 2015 under the publisher Melvana Media), Best Media successfully published A: Aku, Benci & Cinta (Wulanfadi, 2015) followed by Dear, Nathan (Erisca Febriani, 2016) and so on which became bestsellers in Indonesian book stores and a number of film producers even adapt the novels which were published by Best Media. From thousands of stories in Wattpad, this study analyzes how Best Media conducted script selection before it was published in the Indonesian novel industry, with the objective of knowing the criteria and standards of Best Media publishers as a cultural intermediary between the novel industry and Wattpad. The data used are five Wattpad novels published Best Media (A: Aku, Benci & Cinta - Wulanfadi (2015), Dear, Nathan - Erisca Febriani (2016), My High School Bride- Fallonyu (2016), The Coldest Boyfriend- Itsfiyawn (2016), and Jatuh Hati -_rahmaa (2017)) and Wattpad's popular novel which is not published or not yet published by major publishers, namely: (Vanilla-Srizqya (2013), Bad Girl and Cool Ketos - Lexa_Ndra (2016)-Aulialvn (2016). The data to be anaylzed was also collected by Conference: Language in The Online and Offline World (LOOW) 6, 08-09 Mei 2018. Universitas Petra Christian Surabaya.
utilizing ethnographic methods namely interviews with Best Media editor. The hypothesis of this research is the consideration of the popularity of manuscripts as the main factor. Best medium is a cultural intermediary of the novel industry in Indonesia, which also works as an agent that connect the production and consumption stages. Negus (2002) defines "Cultural intermediaries as a special occupation grouping linking production and consumption." In accordance to that role, Best Media does the selection of Wattpad scripts and decides the scripts for production and consumption. During the selection process, Best Media has set up criteria based on its vision and mission: “menghibur dan menginspirasi” or “to entertain and inspire.” Research findings also confirmed that the scripts would be rejected if the story has no unique, marketable, or differing characteristics in comparison to other novels. Other criteria for rejected novels are those with bad diction and style of language (interview with Budhi Prianto, 5 Februari 2018). Based on the criteria mentioned by Prianto (2018), this research found how Best Media works as a cultural intermediary by basing its decision on the novels‟ digital capital, romance as the dominant theme for the teenage market, and language as quality assessment. Digital Capital in the Selection Process: The Work of Cultural Intermediary Digital capital1 for each story on Wattpad is the main criteria of which the publisher decide whether or not it will publish the Wattpad novels. Each writer with a Wattpad account will have onlien reader and this shows the number of followers. Each work has views, comments, and votings information. These numbers are the writers' digital capital, a benchmark of how popular the author is at Wattpad. Digital capital, according to Docuyanan YAP (2015) is a publisher‟s asset, a mark of a story that can be marketed and will be purchased by readers who follow or love the story in Wattpad. Of the five printed novels published by Best Media, they all have more than two million reads (Table 1.0, viewed (on cover) of Best Media's novels). Nevertheless, in interviews, Best Media claims that the million reads are not the sole factor in the manuscript selection because there are manuscripts that are read not by millions of readers but they are read only by hundreds or thousands of readers which were still published. The publisher claims that the main consideration is the quality of the content including the theme, content, and style of language (interview with Budhi Prianto, 5 February 2018).
Title–Author
Number of Viewed (stated on the cover)
Theme
Best Media’s Novel
1
A: Aku, Benci, & 2,4 million Cinta (Wulanfadi)
Two rivals fall in love
Dear, Nathan (Erisca Febriani)
A bad boy character fell in love with an innocent girl
7,5 million
Ragnedda (2017) defines digital capital as a collection of expertise, experience, abilities, knowledge related to information and communication technology, can be converted to various capital or other capital.
My High School Bride
2 million
Forced marriage of a grown man and a school girl
The Coldest Boyfriend (Itsfiyawn)
4 million
Aggressive girl pursuing cool guys
Jatuh Hati (_rahmaa)
7,5 million
Marriage contract due to debt
(Fallonyu)
Not published by Best Media Title-Author
Number of Viewed (by 2018)
Theme
Vanilla (srizqya)
2, 7 million
Bestfriends turned lovers
Bad Girl and Cool Ketos (Lexa_Ndra)
3,61 million
A naughty girl and the head of the student organization was mated by their respective parents
Bad Girl (aulialvn)
4,36 million
A naughty girl falls in love with the new kid
Table 1.0 Based on Table 1.0, Best Media's novels are read by 2 to 7.5 million readers in Watpadd before the publisher decided to publish them. Table 1.0 also shows the number of eligible Wattpad novels to be published in Best Media (in 2018 these novels were read more than two million times); however, Best Media does not publish them. Of the amount of digital capital, it is seen that Best Media is market-oriented by selecting Wattpad novels that already have a fan base and high reading counts.
Romance as Dominant Theme and Teenager as the Targeted Market The dominant theme chosen by Best Media is a romance story targeted at teenagers. In table 1.0, the five Best Media novels are romantic novel romans with teenagers are the target readers although Best Media is also eyeing adult targets by publishing Jatuh Hati. The selection of romance and adolescents could not be separated from the potential of adolescents as consumers as proposed Saputra, Lestari, Milasari, and Sholikhah (2017): “…kelompok usia remaja adalah salah satu pasar yang potensial bagi produsen. Alasannya antara lain karena pola konsumsi seseorang terbentuk pada usia remaja. Di samping itu, gaya hidup remaja biasanya meniru teman, tidak realistis, dan cenderung boros dalam menggunakan uanganya.” The teenager are market focus for the producer because the pattern of consumption.
Conference: Language in The Online and Offline World (LOOW) 6, 08-09 Mei 2018. Universitas Petra Christian Surabaya.
Language as Quality Assessment Research findings reveal that language shows the quality of authors. Best Media searches for authors who have knowledge of the General Spelling Guidelines of Indonesia (PUEBI) which is represented through the way the author writes and uses words.
Figure 1. Excerpts from Chapter 1 My High School Bride (left) and the prologue in Bad Girl and Cool Ketos (right) My High School Bride (left) is selected by Best Media to be published and it follows the PUEBI spelling regulation even though it is not perfect and has also complied with the use of punctuation. Meanwhile, Bad Girl and Cool Ketos (right) has not complied with PUEBI represented by the absence of a dot at the end of the sentence. The quality of authors judged by the ability to write based on the PUEBI standard is one aspect of Best Media's consideration to pursue popular texts found in Wattpad. The ability to use PUEBI properly is a signifer of authors‟ writing ability and despite not fully mastering it still shows how the author tries to learn spelling. In the world of professional publishing, spelling is something that is noticed primarily by editors. Authors who have good enough PUEBI ability receive extra points because it represents the willingness of writers to appear professional that is in accordance with Indonesian standards. Another aspect of language other than the spelling is not allowing harsh words, which is Best Media‟s policy in selecting manuscipts. Best Media denotes a position as a cultural intermediary that censors harsh words-dirty or that are considered impolite. Some crude words or swearing that must be censored in the script include: anjing, tai, babi, bitch.
Figure 2. Crude Words in Bad Girl and Cool Ketos (not published by Best Media) Sumber: https://www.wattpad.com/story/81423661-bad-girl-and-cool-ketos
There are crude and swear words such as "tai" and "anjing" on Wattpad novel Bad Girl and Cool Ketos (figure 2). The word "anjing" was used by the character Neyla, the mother of the main female character (Citra) who finds her child scolded by the principal and Bianca-a female teacher who is also the aunt of Citra who is annoyed at her niece. While the main female character rebukes his aunt and teacher, Bianca uses the word "tai" (human feces). Saputra, Lestari, Milasari, and Sholikhah (2017) in their analysis of adolescent characters hanging out on hedonism Vlogs studying Youtube teenage Indonesian video say that one of the teenage deviations today is the use of bad language (pp.32) "(Lickona, 2013) characterized by the use of the word "anjing lo" or "anjirr". Words like those in picture 2 (anjing, tai) are considered as bad language category according to Saputra, Lestari, Milasari, and Sholikhah (2017). In Best Media, editorial policy states that if in the manuscripts such words are found then they must be replaced with better words, for example brengsek or asshole or kurang ajar or brash (interview with Prianto, 5 February 2018). Even so, there are words that Saputra, Lestari, Milasari, and Sholikhah (2017) say are not good but qualify to be featured in Best Media's novels such as "anjir" one of the jargon that uses a form of refinement or euphemism with sound changes. (Megawati, 2016: 23) as found in The Coldest Boyfriend of Best Media: “Anjrit! Gak sopan lo maho!” geramku seraya mendorong tubuhnya biar jatuh dari kasur. Mana mau aku seranjang sama makhluk nista ini. (The Coldest Boyfriend, 2016:64) The dialogue on page 64 (printed version) shows the main male character, Sena is suddenly visited by his best friend Rio. Without further ado Rio immediately lay down on Sena's mattress that was greeted by Sena‟s crude words. Here, there is no change in the word anjrit which means Best Media does not consider the word needs to be refined or replaced. From some of the harsh words or admonitions found in Best Media novels, there are different things about the refinement of a curse like the word "anjrit" or the same word "anjrit" which actually a subtle swear word in Indonesian. It was not altered because the word is considered more subtle. In addition to Best Media publishers, the writer becomes a „policeman‟ who maintains language politeness as what Fallonyu did on his Wattpad account in the My High School Bride story (figure 3).
Conference: Language in The Online and Offline World (LOOW) 6, 08-09 Mei 2018. Universitas Petra Christian Surabaya.
Figure 3. Authors‟ rules concerning foul language Source: (https://www.wattpad.com/215992650-my-high-school-bride-xxix-badfeeling/page/3)
Figure 3 shows that Fallonyu (@rrkimly) as the author of My High School Bride forbids the readers to comment with harsh and crude words. This is inseparable from Fallonyu's view of language courtesy represented in the novel My High School Bride, which is the absence of harsh or impolite words. The reader who commented by using these harsh words was related to the age - especially the teenager who was the target market. Meanwhile, Fallonyu was in his twenties (born in 1991, at the time replying the comments, he was twenty-five-year-old). This generation gap results in different views on language. From this, it could be concluded that Best Media chose the author who has the proper language principle of not speaking harshly, in accordance with the criteria of Best Media language rules. From the language aspect, there is a different level between the novel chosen by Best Media and those which are not selected. Best Media choses the story based on the criteria found in the five novels while in three novels which are not published by Best Media, there are discontented criteria, such as lacking PUEBI skills and foul language usage. CONCLUSION The selection of stories and writers that publishers could not be separated from the market as argued by Bold (2016): " Many publishers are now persistently looking for potential bestsellers, and authors who can be used as marketable commodities.” Nevertheless, the popularity of manuscripts or authors is not the only selection factor conducted by Best Media as a cultural intermediary, which served as an intermediary between the market of Indonesian novel industry and printed-novel readers. Based on the data analysis, Best Media also looks at themes and languages. However, the theme of each novel in the corpus of this study is different and they were published mainly because they are read a million times. Moreover, Best Media examines the language mainly in terms of spelling and language politeness. From the research findings, Best Media publisher has several standards: has the potential because the manuscripts are unique, marketable product, has differentiation from other texts, contains good language style (including spelling and does not contain foul or crude language). In terms of language, besides Best Media as the
cultural intermediary, the author also acts as a gatekeeper of language politeness. From the findings, either Best Media publishers or Best Media published authors have similar language standards in terms of language politeness and writing quality (spelling).
REFERENCES Ann, D. J. C, Grace J, G. H., Marielle C. N. T. B., dan Kagaoan AB. G. M. A. C. (2015). The “Wattyfever”: Constructs of Wattpad readers on Wattpad‟s role in their lives. LPU Laguna Journal of Arts and Sciences, 2 (1), 308-327. Bold, M. R. (2016). The return of the social author: Negotiating authority and influence on Wattpad. New York: Sage Publications, 1-46. Docuyanan Yap, N. M. (2015). The significance of modern styles on contemporary Philippine young adult fiction. Philippine: University of the Philippiner Baguio. Ragnedda, M. (2017). The third digital divide: A Weberian approach to digital inequalities. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-1-4724-7126-0 (hbk). ISBN: 978-1315-60600-2 (ebk). https://books.google.co.id/books?id=Mz8lDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq =digital+capital+social&source=bl&ots=jagP23BSfq&sig=bd_HnkWW7RapqdY3I Pyc0pbCbO4&hl=id&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJwsPFq5zXAhUKjpQKHV1hBH8Q 6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q&f=true. Sandi Saputra, Ririn Dewi Lestari, Milasari, Octarina Hidayatus Sholikhah. (2017). Analisis karakter remaja gaul pada hedonisme Vlog. Mediapsi (3) no 1, 26-33. Corpus: _Rahmaa. (2017). Jatuh Hati. Depok: Best Media. Erisca Febriani. (2016). Dear, Nathan. Depok: Best Media. Fallonyu. (2016). My High School Bride. Depok: Best Media. Itsfiyawn. (2016). The Coldest Boyfriend. Depok: Best Media. Wulanfadi. (2015). A: Aku, Benci, & Cinta. Depok: Best Media. Wattpad: _rahmaa. (2016). Jatuh Hati. https://www.wattpad.com/story/34179360-jatuh-hati-sudahdibukukan Aulialvn. (2016). Bad Girl. https://www.wattpad.com/story/56493633-bad-girl Erisca Febriani. (2015). Dear, Nathan. https://www.wattpad.com/story/38127123-dearnathan Itsfiyawn. (2016). The Coldest Boyfriend. https://www.wattpad.com/story/41566594-thecoldest-boyfriend-nasional-best-seller Lexa_Ndra. (2016). Bad Girl and Cool Ketos. https://www.wattpad.com/story/81423661bad-girl-and-cool-ketos Rrkimly. (2016). My High School Bride. https://www.wattpad.com/story/52102070-myhigh-school-bride Srizqya. (2013). Vanilla. https://www.wattpad.com/story/5881575-vanilla-completed Wulanfadi. (2015). TRS (6) –A. https://www.wattpad.com/story/25664886-trs-6-a
Interviews: Budhi Prianto- Best Media (5 Februari 2018)
Conference: Language in The Online and Offline World (LOOW) 6, 08-09 Mei 2018. Universitas Petra Christian Surabaya.
