Transmedia and Diversity

Course goals

At the end of the course the students are able to

• recognize, theorize, and analyze distinct forms of transmedia storytelling;
• understand and apply intersectional social theory;
• develop a practical understanding of the media-industrial considerations concerning multi-platform media production;
• understand the dynamic between fan culture, fan activism, and the media industries;
• write an academically grounded practical proposal for a transmedia project;
• improve their creative academic writing skills.

Content

In the 21st century, digitization has eroded the boundaries that used to exist between media industries. The world of media convergence and participatory culture is one where elaborate storyworlds are developed across film, TV and streaming series, videogames, and comic books. At the same time, participatory fan cultures have established an increasingly dialogic role with transnational media industries. Our shared digital landscape, in short, has become increasingly transmedial, as powerful media conglomerates increasingly focus on robust branded storyworlds like Marvel, Star Wars, and Harry Potter’s Wizarding World, while active audiences on social media platforms at the same time are more forceful voices in this process.

In this course, students learn to recognize, understand, and interpret these contradictory cultural and media-industrial changes, as older hierarchies are undermined while new ones are at the same time being constructed. We will look in particular at how transmedia creates new opportunities for diversity, inclusion, and activism for oppressed and marginalized groups, and how contemporary social movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have shifted debates about power and representation in our collective narrative landscapes. The course focuses particularly on the diverse ways in which racial concepts of whiteness juxtaposed with blackness have historically shaped our storyworlds, and how transmedial cultural production offers new opportunities for an inclusive and diverse social and cultural imagination.

After successfully completing this course, students have a deep understanding of transmedia phenomena and of appropriate concepts and methods for studying, describing, and analyzing them, operating in dialogue with theoretical and empirical studies of race, representation, and inclusion. They are able to apply their knowledge of theories and practices in order to analyze transmedia phenomena and write an academically grounded practical proposal in which they pitch either an original idea or a possible transmedia extension of existing IP that includes a focus on questions of inclusivity and diversity.

Additional information

Only open to students enrolled in the MA program Film and Television Cultures or the MA programme New Media and Digital Culture.