Marketing
Vanessa Woffenden
How Does Public Relations Shape the Reception of Book-to-Screen Adaptations?
Vanessa Woffenden is a fourth-year Professional Communication student at Toronto Metropolitan University, minoring in Public Relations. She is drawn to the intersection of storytelling, media, and audience perception, especially in film, publishing, and sports. Her work explores how communication shapes trust, influence, and the way stories are received in a highly participatory digital landscape. She is particularly interested in how strong communication can not only tell stories, but also shape how they are understood, shared, and remembered.
With experience in digital content, strategic communication, and fast-paced, people-facing environments, Vanessa brings both analytical thinking and creative instinct to her work. She is interested in pursuing a career in public relations, while still holding onto a long-standing goal of working in publishing as a book editor, an interest that directly informs her capstone research. Outside of her work, she’s usually reading, at the gym or in a Pilates class, keeping up with sports, or staying on top of the latest social media trends.
Book-to-screen adaptations are highly anticipated cultural moments, but audience reactions often begin long before a film or series is released. This research examines how public relations strategies shape the reception of book-to-screen adaptations. As fandoms increasingly function as active and visible publics, their responses to institutional communication play an important role in shaping how adaptations are received. Rather than responding only to the final film or series, audiences engage with key communicative moments, such as casting announcements, trailers, promotional messaging, and interviews, that shape how adaptations are understood.
Drawing on case studies such as It Ends With Us (Baldoni, 2024) and Dune (Villeneuve, 2021), this project analyzes social media discourse to examine how audiences interpret these moments as signals of authenticity, legitimacy, and respect for the source material. Supporting examples such as the Disney+ series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Steinberg & Shotz, 2023), and Wuthering Heights (Fennell, 2026) further highlight broader patterns in adaptation discourse.
By examining discourse surrounding adaptation announcements, promotional messaging, and audience reactions, this study explores how trust, expectations, and emotional investment influence adaptation reception. Ultimately, the goal of this research is to better understand how public relations mediates relationships between institutions and audiences within contemporary participatory media environments, where reception is actively shaped through ongoing communication and engagement.
