Postcolonial Study Reveals Modern Fanfiction Narrative Reproduces American Dominance Discour

Apriyani Multitach Publisher Sabtu, Agustus 22, 2026
FORMOSA NEWS

Representations of modern cultural and institutional dominance in popular fiction continue to perpetuate colonial-era cognitive structures. This finding was revealed by a research team from Universitas Negeri Medan—Raja Sungai Simbolon, Dina Sri Elvina Hutabarat, Azura Hinayah, and Syamsul Bahri—in their study published in 2026 in the International Journal of Advanced Technology and Social Sciences (IJATSS). The study analyzed a fanfiction novel titled Summoning America by DrDoritosMD to examine how fictional narratives transporting a modern nation to a fantasy world reproduce neocolonial discourse. This research carries high urgency because the "isekai" or cross-world transportation genre centered on modern nation-states is growing in popularity across global digital platforms, yet remains rarely examined through a postcolonial lens.

Contextually, colonial discourse operates not only through direct military action but also through knowledge production that positions Western culture as the center of rationality and progress. In the "Summoning Modern Nations" sub-genre, a modern superpower is transported to a pre-modern fantasy world. Unlike traditional isekai stories that focus on individual heroics, this sub-genre emphasizes state institutions, diplomacy, and military strategy. This phenomenon makes it an ideal medium to study how Western rational supremacy is reproduced in popular digital media.

To analyze the text, the research team from Universitas Negeri Medan adopted a qualitative approach using close reading based on Edward Said's postcolonial framework. The researchers selected 30 textual excerpts from Summoning America spanning various narrative phases. Each excerpt was classified and analyzed across four core categories of Said's discourse: Orientalism, Othering, Latent Orientalism, and Manifest Orientalism.

The findings demonstrate that the novel systematically constructs a civilizational hierarchy in which the United States is positioned as inherently superior. Key findings of the study include:

  • Othering (40.00%): Emerged as the primary mechanism with 12 excerpts. The narrative consistently portrays inhabitants of the fantasy world as cognitively limited, such as mistaking fighter jets for "winged creatures" or guided missiles for "homing light arrows," framing them as rationally primitive.
  • Latent Orientalism (23.33%): Identified in 7 excerpts. This category reflects the underlying assumption that American scientific rationality and empirical methods are universal and absolute. Anomaly phenomena in the fantasy world are measured using Western scientific standards without acknowledging indigenous knowledge systems.
  • Orientalism (20.00%): Encompassed 6 excerpts that reinforce binary oppositions between a rational, modern America and an exotic, irrational, and feudal fantasy world.
  • Manifest Orientalism (16.67%): Found in 5 excerpts. This category translates epistemological superiority into explicit institutional action, such as mobilizing government agencies (FEMA, FAA, and the military) to assert control and reorganize the fantasy world under the guise of order and security.

The implications of this research extend to digital literary studies, cultural education, and postcolonial scholarship. For general readers, the study fosters critical awareness that digital entertainment, including fanfiction, is not free from political ideology and neocolonialism. In educational and academic settings, the analytical model developed by the Universitas Negeri Medan researchers offers a framework to evaluate how popular digital media constructs notions of power, civilizational boundaries, and cultural dominance.

The narrative framing of modern rationality in the novel positions Western civilization as the sole benchmark of progress. As concluded by Raja Sungai Simbolon and his team from Universitas Negeri Medan, the novel does not merely offer entertaining fiction, but actively constructs a knowledge hierarchy. "The narrative does not depict a neutral encounter between worlds but constructs a neo-colonial fantasy of civilizational dominance, in which American knowledge defines reality, American technology defines progress, and American institutions define order," stated Raja Sungai Simbolon and the research team in their paper.

Author Profile

Raja Sungai Simbolon, S.S., M.Hum., is an academic and researcher in Literature and Cultural Studies at Universitas Negeri Medan. His expertise includes postcolonial theory, critical discourse analysis, and digital fiction studies. In this research, he collaborated with fellow researchers from Universitas Negeri Medan: Dina Sri Elvina Hutabarat, Azura Hinayah, and Syamsul Bahri.

Research Source

 


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