volume 03 issue 06/2014 ‘ THE SCHNEIDERVERSE’ NICKELODEON, CONVERGENT TELEVISION AND TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING Helena Louise Dare-Edwards Art, Media & American Studies Faculty of Arts and Humanities University of East Anglia Norwich Research Park Norwich NR4 7TJ United Kingdom
[email protected] Abstract: This article will analyse the textual features of two recent and successful American-based Nickelodeon shows, both of which incorporate digital and social technologies into their sitcom-style format. Aimed at a tween-girl1 audience, these ‘convergence comedies’2 complicate traditional notions of media spectatorship and the distinctions between media producers and consumers as audiences are invited to participate in the processes of production. While media convergence is built into the visual style of both shows, the shows themselves converge to create a shared fictional world, dubbed the ‘Schneiderverse,’ which traverses the boundary between the real and the fictional. It will be considered how the audience’s media experience3 could be enriched through immersion in the online spaces associated with the texts. Keywords: convergence, transmedia storytelling, multiplatforming, Nickelodeon, performative participation, media experience Since its inception Nickelodeon developed a strong relationship with their audience, particularly encouraging and accommodating children’s involvement in programming and fostering a spirit of participation, long before the participatory and social media landscape of the 2010s. Many of Nickelodeon’s earliest and most successful shows involved children as co-producers be it in front or behind the camera, thus offering them the chance to shape the kind 1 Tweens are approximately eight to twelve years old and as an age category it is highly gendered, usually referring to girls.