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2023 | Book

Introduction or: Why We Still Need Genre Read chapter Read first chapter

Transmedia/Genre

Rethinking Genre in a Multiplatform Culture

Authors: Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

This book brings genre back to the forefront of the current transmedia trend. Genres are perhaps the most innately transmedial of media constructs, formed as they are from all kinds of industrial, technological and discursive phenomena. Yet, few have considered how genre works in a multiplatform context. This book does precisely that, making a uniquely transmedial contribution to the study of genre in the age of media convergence. The book interrogates how industrial, technological and participatory transformations of digital platforms and emerging technologies reshape workings of genre. The authors consider franchises such as Star Wars, streaming platforms such as Netflix, catch-up services such as ITV Hub, creative technologies such as virtual reality, and beyond. In setting the stage for the revival of genre theory in contemporary transmedia scholarship, this book pushes forward understandings of multiplatform media and the emerging form and function of genre across contemporary culture.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction or: Why We Still Need Genre
Abstract
Genres are perhaps the most innately transmedial of media constructs, formed as they are from all kinds of industrial, cultural, technological, textual and discursive phenomena. Yet very few have attempted to analyse explicitly how genre works in a transmedia context. This introduction sets out the book’s aims to do precisely that, to make a deliberately transmedial contribution to the study of genre in the age of media convergence. The chapter introduces the central premise of the book, that is, by examining how industrial, technological and participatory practices emerging from the likes of social media platforms, streaming services, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other contemporary digital media; we can rethink our understanding of the changing role and relevance of genre across today’s multiplatform culture. The chapter then gives a brief history of genre studies, introduces the beginnings of our multiplatform approach to analysing genre and sets out the structure of the book.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith

Media Conglomerates

Frontmatter
Chapter 2. Transmedia Superhero: Marvel, Genre Divergence and Captain America
Abstract
This chapter examines the Marvel franchise, using the character of Captain America to examine how today’s conglomerate media culture interacts with the cross-platform construction of the superhero genre. It reveals how, at Marvel, industrial conditions motivate instances of what we term genre divergence, leading to genre contrasts and discrepancies within the Marvel franchise. It also shows how industry discourses and marketing techniques combine to manage and smooth out these genre inconsistencies. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates how the activities of journalistic and participatory cultures contribute to the process of minimising genre divergence in the Marvel franchise. The chapter ultimately shows how the conglomerate-owned transmedia entertainment franchise, a dominant industrial model of fictional content creation within our media convergence culture, can give rise to a fluid, complex and sometimes contradictory set of genre formations.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Chapter 3. Transmedia Western: Lucasfilm, Genre Linking and The Mandalorian
Abstract
This chapter, which looks at another of Hollywood’s leading entertainment franchises, Star Wars, explores how Disney-owned Lucasfilm has formed franchise connections between Disney-produced content and the Star Wars of old, primarily through genre intertexts and the practice of what we term genre linking. Via an analysis that takes both a textual and cultural approach to the Western genre in relation to the Disney+ series The Mandalorian (2019–), this chapter identifies how genre is used to develop associations between this series and with what is culturally perceived to be the core of the Star Wars franchise: the original Star Wars film trilogy (1977–1983).
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith

Digital Platforms

Frontmatter
Chapter 4. Transmedia Horror: Netflix, Genre Empowerment and Stranger Things
Abstract
This chapter—the first of four chapters that explore genre activation practices in relation to particular digital platforms—charts how the global streaming service Netflix has built its flagship series Stranger Things (2016–) into a series of referential, intertextual portals that channel how audiences respond to and participate with the genre of horror. By conceiving of transmedia genre as emotional empowerment for the multiplatform audience, this chapter examines how a streaming service such as Netflix orchestrates not so much a horror entertainment across its digital platforms, but rather its reactional, emotional fallout.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Chapter 5. Transmedia Docudrama: ITV Hub, Genre Democratisation and Quiz
Abstract
This chapter continues to explore the impact of digital platforms on twenty-first-century manifestations of genre, but this time examines how the UK broadcaster ITV’s streaming platform, ITV Hub—along with its online marketing strategies and its digital spread across social media channels—transforms the genre of docudrama into a mode of engagement specific to today’s multiplatform culture. Looking at ITV’s high-end docudrama Quiz (2020), this chapter argues that the docudrama genre has evolved into an aesthetic, discursive and interactive engagement strategy that works to scaffold today’s digital infrastructures of catch-up TV, namely heightened customisation and democratic voice.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Chapter 6. Transmedia Comedy: BBC Three, Genre Distribution and Pls Like
Abstract
This chapter looks at BBC Three sitcom Pls Like (2017–) and considers how its dissemination across multiple online platforms including YouTube relates to the widespread contemporary practice of transmedia distribution. This chapter demonstrates how emergent transmedia distribution practices can inform new approaches to the comedy genre. In particular, we consider how uses of genre can, in the creation of online programming, suit the cultural specificities of multiple digital platforms as part of a transmedia distribution rollout.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Chapter 7. Transmedia Fantasy-JRPG: Kickstarter, Genre Leveraging and Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes
Abstract
This chapter explores the world of digital crowdfunding, analysing how genre is constructed on the online platform Kickstarter as part of campaigns designed to secure media project financing. Using the Kickstarter campaign content for the Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes video game project as a case study, this chapter examines how this paratextual material establishes the fantasy Japanese role-playing game (or JRPG) genre in line with the affordances and conventions of the Kickstarter platform.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith

Emerging Technologies

Frontmatter
Chapter 8. Transmedia War: Virtual Reality, Genre Embodiment and The Day the World Changed
Abstract
This chapter—the first of two chapters that aim to consider the impact of emerging technologies on transmedia genre practice—examines virtual reality (VR) and explores how this emerging medium shapes (and reshapes) the war genre. We use this chapter to analyse how an innovative VR experience produced about the bombing of Hiroshima, The Day the World Changed (2018), evolves the war genre into an altogether more panoramic experience, lending a liminal, God-like perspective over the otherwise grounded stories of war.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Chapter 9. Transmedia Science Fiction: Deepfake Technology, Genre Fictioning and Reminiscence
Abstract
This chapter analyses the emerging trend of using deepfake apps as part of transmedia marketing, which we contextualise via research into artificial intelligence. Using the film Reminiscence (2021) and its accompanying deepfake app as a case study, this chapter considers what deepfake technology means to our understanding of science fiction. We argue that the emergence of deepfakes—and AI more generally—has obliterated the former divide between ‘science’ and ‘fiction’, fully amalgamating the tensions at the heart of this genre.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Chapter 10. Conclusion: Towards a Conceptual Framework of Transmedia Genre
Abstract
This conclusion chapter summarises the book’s main contribution to the fields of both transmedia studies and genre studies—that is, the factoring in of digital platforms and participatory practices on the continued mutation of genre, and how a triangulated analysis of industry, platform and audience allows us to make sense of emerging transmedia genre practices in the age of media convergence. Each of the book’s previous chapters exemplified different ways through which genre works transmedially—identifying new conceptions specific to a given genre that provide rich additions to the field’s understanding of genre studies; this conclusion chapter returns to these conceptions, where we will use them to lay out a new conceptual framework for analysing genre in the contemporary transmedia age.
Matthew Freeman, Anthony N. Smith
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Transmedia/Genre
Authors
Matthew Freeman
Anthony N. Smith
Copyright Year
2023
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-15583-3
Print ISBN
978-3-031-15582-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15583-3