Storytelling Industries

Narrative Production in the 21st Century

verfasst von: Dr. Anthony N. Smith

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

This book shows how the unique characteristics of traditionally differentiated media continue to determine narrative despite the recent digital convergence of media technologies. The author argues that media are now each largely defined by distinctive industrial practices that continue to preserve their identities and condition narrative production. Furthermore, the book demonstrates how a given medium’s variability in institutional and technological contexts influences diverse approaches to storytelling. By connecting US film, television, comic book and video game industries to their popular fictional characters and universes; including Star Wars, Batman, Game of Thrones and Grand Theft Auto; the book identifies how differences in industrial practice between media inform narrative production. This book is a must read for students and scholars interested in transmedia storytelling.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

This introduction outlines the book’s overarching aim to map connections between narratives and a given medium’s fluid production conditions, contextualising this objective within the fields of narrative theory and media industry studies. It furthermore summarises the approach of each of the book’s main case study chapters.

Anthony N. Smith

Chapter 2. Narratives in the Media Convergence Era: The Industrial Dimensions of Medium Specificity

Abstract

This chapter establishes the book’s unique theoretical positioning concerning the relationship between narrative and media. The first section confirms the significance of medium specificity to the production of narrative within our era of media conglomeration and technological convergence. Situating its study within debates around medium specificity, it explores how a given medium’s distinct range of industry practices uniquely influences narrative creation, thereby preserving that medium’s identity. Using the Star Wars franchise as a case study, it demonstrates how a given medium’s distinctive modes of production, distribution and consumption help to inform medium-specific features within Star Wars narratives. The second section accounts for the high variability of industrial conditions—across time, and within a given moment—that characterises a given medium. It argues, via the introduction of its dimensions of specificity model, that narrative production within a given medium is contingent upon the specificities of a range of variable industrial factors including institutional aims and economic structures, as well as national and technological contexts.

Anthony N. Smith

Chapter 3. Economic Specificity in Narrative Design: The Business of Television Drama Storytelling

Abstract

This chapter analyses the dimension of economic specificity within the context of US television. It distinguishes between the contrasting economic models of: (1) broadcast networks (primarily funded by advertisers); (2) basic cable channels (primarily funded by a combination of advertising revenue and carriage fees); and (3) premium cable and on demand streaming services (primarily funded by subscribers). Relying on six institutions from across these three different revenue-model categories as case studies—the NBC and ABC networks, the FX and AMC basic cable channels and the HBO premium cable service and the Netflix on demand streaming service, the chapter seeks to ascertain the conditions of narrative production that each of these institutional types imposes upon the construction of twenty-first century US serialised drama. It explores, over the course of three main case-study sections, how the specificities of each of these respective economic categories inform plot structure, visual style and storyworld elements within drama narratives.

Anthony N. Smith

Chapter 4. Audience Specificity in Narrative Design: Comic-Book Storytelling in the Inclusivity Era

Abstract

This chapter considers the dimension of audience specificity within the context of the twenty-first century US comic-book industry, examining the degree to which narrative production processes are linked to the specificities of the particular audience groups for which a given narrative is conceived. It shows how transitions in the industry’s audience-targeting priorities in the early 2000s, whereby publishers increasingly widened their attention from a narrow yet highly dedicated consumer base of male adults to a broader mix of readers have since impacted upon narrative techniques implemented in the creation of superhero comic books. The chapter, which concentrates on the industry’s two dominant publishers—DC and Marvel, first outlines how key shifts in industrial practices have enabled this change in audience focus; such shifts have included publishers’ increased reliance on graphic novel and digital formats. It then goes on to detail how these shifted contexts have influenced changed approaches to the plot, style and storyworlds of superhero narratives.

Anthony N. Smith

Chapter 5. Technological Specificity in Narrative Design: Story-Driven Videogame Series in an Upgrade Culture

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the dimension of technological specificity within the console videogame industry, analysing the ways in which the sector’s technological ‘upgrade culture’, whereby the capacities of home and portable console platforms continually transform, frequently enables new approaches to videogame narrative. The chapter concentrates in particular on the ways in which the developers of three particular US-published large-budget story-driven videogame series—namely Halo, Red Faction and Grand Theft Auto—have altered narrative practices in response to transitions in console hardware—such as increased graphical processing power and the integration of touch-screen user input—during the course of these series’ respective runs. By establishing the complex relationship between technology and narrative, the chapter challenges a pervasive mindset within games studies whereby changing technological conditions of videogame development are disassociated from, or regarded as an impediment to, narrative innovation.

Anthony N. Smith

Chapter 6. Conclusion

Abstract

The conclusion takes a wide perspective on the book’s testing of its dimensions of specificity model, scrutinising the key theoretical issues that the combination of case studies raise. It also considers the further study that is required to fully trace the intricacies of connections that link a given narrative to its medium.

Anthony N. Smith

Backmatter

Titel: Storytelling Industries
verfasst von: Dr. Anthony N. Smith
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-70597-2
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70596-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70597-2