This thesis deals with the convergence and distribution of emotional capital and power in interactive media, particularly in the framework of transmedia storytelling. Power refers to the intersecting and, at times, overlapping dynamics for control between fans, content creators, corporate ownership, and the networked technologies that bring and bind these parties together. Through the method of content discourse analysis, this work uses the transmedia web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as a case study in order to analyze how fan movement across digital platforms, as well as user labor, contribute to this thesis’s appropriation of emotional capital. The subsequent research uncovers a multitude of fluxing yet symbiotic relationships that value acts of vulnerability as power, while revealing an awareness of and desire for self-exploitation in the interactive digital space.

Key words: emotional capital; immaterial labor; exploitation; transmedia storytelling; The Lizzie Bennet Diaries