World Building
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TRANSMEDIA Boni (ed.) Transmedia, Fans, Industries Fans, Transmedia, World Building World Edited by Marta Boni World Building Transmedia, Fans, Industries World Building Transmedia: Participatory Culture and Media Convergence The book series Transmedia: Participatory Culture and Media Convergence provides a platform for cutting-edge research in the field of media studies, with a strong focus on the impact of digitization, globalization, and fan culture. The series is dedicated to publishing the highest-quality monographs (and exceptional edited collections) on the developing social, cultural, and economic practices surrounding media convergence and audience participation. The term ‘media convergence’ relates to the complex ways in which the production, distribution, and consumption of contemporary media are affected by digitization, while ‘participatory culture’ refers to the changing relationship between media producers and their audiences. Interdisciplinary by its very definition, the series will provide a publishing platform for international scholars doing new and critical research in relevant fields. While the main focus will be on contemporary media culture, the series is also open to research that focuses on the historical forebears of digital convergence culture, including histories of fandom, cross- and transmedia franchises, reception studies and audience ethnographies, and critical approaches to the culture industry and commodity culture. Series editors Dan Hassler-Forest, Utrecht University, the Netherlands Matt Hills, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom Editorial Board – Mark Bould, University of West of England, United Kingdom – Timothy Corrigan, University of Pennsylvania, United States – Henry Jenkins, University of Southern California, United States – Julia Knight, University of Sunderland, United Kingdom – Simone Murray, Monash University, Australia – Roberta Pearson, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom – John Storey, University of Sunderland, United Kingdom – William Uricchio, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States – Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside, United States – Eckart Voigts, Braunschweig Institute of Technology, Germany World Building Transmedia, Fans, Industries Edited by Marta Boni Amsterdam University Press The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC) Cover illustration: Camille Chameau Martinez, from The Ambassadors, by Hans Holbein the Younger. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8964 756 6 e-isbn 978 90 4852 531 7 doi 10.5117/9789089647566 nur 670 © M. Boni / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2017 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Table of Contents Introduction 9 Worlds, Today Marta Boni Section 1 Theories of World Building 1. The Aesthetics of Proliferation 31 Marie-Laure Ryan 2. Building Science-Fiction Worlds 47 Paolo Bertetti 3. “He Doesn’t Look Like Sherlock Holmes” 62 The Truth Value and Existential Status of Fictional Worlds and their Characters Julien Lapointe 4. “Visible World” 77 The Atlas as a Visual Form of Knowledge and Narrative Paradigm in Contemporary Art Cristina Baldacci Section 2 Economies of World Building 5. A World of Disney 93 Building a Transmedia Storyworld for Mickey and his Friends Matthew Freeman 6. World-Building Logics and Copyright 109 The Dark Knight and the Great Detective Roberta Pearson 7. Battleworlds 129 The Management of Multiplicity in the Media Industries Derek Johnson 8. Platform Producer Meets Game Master 143 On the Conditions for the Media Mix Marc Steinberg 9. Narrative Ecosystems 164 A Multidisciplinary Approach to Media Worlds Veronica Innocenti and Guglielmo Pescatore Section 3 Immersion 10. The Building and Blurring of Worlds 187 Sound, Space, and Complex Narrative Cinema Justin Horton 11. Beyond Immersion 204 Absorption, Saturation, and Overflow in the Building of Imaginary Worlds Mark J.P. Wolf 12. Zombie Escape and Survival Plans 215 Mapping the Transmedial World of the Dead Bernard Perron 13. MMORPG as Locally Realized Worlds of Action 231 Laurent Di Filippo Section 4 Media as World-Building Devices 14. The Worries of the World(s) 253 Cartoons and Cinema Karen Redrobe (formerly Beckman) 15. Linguistic Terrain and World Time 272 Chinese Media Theories and Their World Imaginations Victor Fan 16. The Worlds Align 287 Media Convergence and Complementary Storyworlds in Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World Dru Jeffries 17. World Building and Metafiction in Contemporary Comic Books 304 Metalepsis and Figurative Process of Graphic Fiction Denis Mellier Section 5 Appropriations and Fan Practices 18. The Monster at the End of This Book 321 Metalepsis, Fandom, and World Making in Contemporary TV Series Valentina Re 19. Traversing the “Whoniverse” 343 Doctor Who’s Hyperdiegesis and Transmedia Discontinuity/ Diachrony Matt Hills 20. Transmediaphilia , World Building, and the Pleasures of the Personal Digital Archive 362 Jim Collins 21. The Politics of World Building 377 Heteroglossia in Janelle Monáe’s Afrofuturist WondaLand Dan Hassler-Forest Index 393 Introduction Worlds, Today Marta Boni Boni, Marta (ed.), World Building. Transmedia, Fans, Industries. Amster- dam University Press, 2017 doi: 10.5117/9789089647566/intro As the camera rotates, the rings of an astrolabe bearing a sun at its cen- tre appear on the screen. In a brief glimpse, the rings display detailed engravings: scenes of war, dragons defeating an army, the symbols of the Great Houses of Westeros and their animal sigils—a wolf, a stag, a lion, a bear. Then, following the oscillatory movement of the astrolabe, the camera descends onto a map, disclosing castles and temples within cities, towering statues and mountains, and the Wall: all progressively pop up three-dimensionally, bringing into view natural features of earth and ice, and the exquisitely crafted materials of wood, copper, iron, and stone. The opening credits of the adventure-fantasy saga Game of Thrones (HBO 2011–) are a moveable map, covering the territories in which the series’ events take place. Such a map orients the viewer to the changing trajectories of the various characters, evoking the spaces central to the constantly evolving war for the Iron Throne. It visually gathers a complex multitude of dispersed elements. Also, it is a serial map—it changes according to the transformations the fictional world has undergone throughout each season. Its seriality echoes the proliferation of fan-made maps that fill the Internet, which, at times, offer even greater detail and insight than the original. Mapping practices, and, more specifically, the use of a map as an official paratext—title credits—underline the relevance of space for media content producers and users today. Worlds—as imaginary territories and perennial, collectively built, semiotic realms—are necessary for the understanding of media creation and for the interpretive processes it stimulates. In fact, the tendency to read the contemporary media landscape in terms of fluidity or fragmentation is, by all means, balanced by the growing relevance of aggregation, serialization, and franchising phenomena. 10 WORLD BUILDING On the one hand, sprawling narratives, maximized customizability, and the increased visibility of sharing practices, including remixes and mash-ups, have come to play a crucial role in media studies. Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green researched the spread of media content as it travels across digital networks, where it finds a new home in a multiplicity of sites, often unforeseen by the original creators (Jenkins et al. 2013). Francesco Casetti describes how film and television leave their original media to find new screens, new devices, and new uses (2015). However, within this process of expansion, it is still important to draw attention to the horizons of the concept of medium: for example, for Casetti, film as a medium seems to keep its identity in spite of frag- mentation, because of its high perceptive intensity or the high cognitive involvement it requires. On the other hand, this fragmentation is complemented by a ubiquitous tendency toward the gathering of dispersed parts. This is where imaginary worlds stand as a mainstay of media creation. Worlds as artificial con- structions are also dependent upon their explorers who, in turn, become world-builders. Today, the creation of official guides, viewers’ reactions on Twitter or Facebook, extended critiques on blogs or discussion boards, user-generated topographic maps and infographics all highlight the need to make sense of complex narratives by interacting with them. Tran- scending individual perspectives and localized exploration possibilities, a world is built by networks of speculations, interpretations, and social uses, thus becoming a shared worldview. Along these lines,