Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence

This collection considers new phenomena emerging in a convergence environment from the perspective of adaptation studies. The contributions take the most prominent methods within the field to offer reconsiderations of theoretical concepts and practices in participatory culture, transmedia franchises, and new media adaptations. The authors discuss phenomena ranging from mash-ups of novels and YouTube cover songs to negotiations of authorial control and interpretative authority between media producers and fan communities to perspectives on the fictional and legal framework of brands and franchises. In this fashion, the collection expands the horizons of both adaptation and transmedia studies and provides reassessments of frequently discussed (BBC’s Sherlock or the LEGO franchise) and previously largely ignored phenomena (self-censorship in transnational franchises, mash-up novels, or YouTube cover videos)

Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence

This collection considers new phenomena emerging in a convergence environment from the perspective of adaptation studies. The contributions take the most prominent methods within the field to offer reconsiderations of theoretical concepts and practices in participatory culture, transmedia franchises, and new media adaptations. The authors discuss phenomena ranging from mash-ups of novels and YouTube cover songs to negotiations of authorial control and interpretative authority between media producers and fan communities to perspectives on the fictional and legal framework of brands and franchises. In this fashion, the collection expands the horizons of both adaptation and transmedia studies and provides reassessments of frequently discussed (BBC’s Sherlock or the LEGO franchise) and previously largely ignored phenomena (self-censorship in transnational franchises, mash-up novels, or YouTube cover videos)

Karakteritega suhestumine ja digikogukondlik praktika: “Halvale teele” multidistsiplinaarne uurimus

Kuidas suhestab vaataja end narratiivse karakteriga? Kirjandusteadus, folkloristika, narratoloogia, psühholoogia, ja meediauuringud laiemaltki on antud seoses rakendanud käsitlusi samastumisest, empatiseerimisest ja (väljamõeldud maailma) sukeldumisest. Kuna väljamõeldud inimesed, kas kirja- või pildisõnas, polevat rohkemat autori(te) ettekujutuse viljast, siis püüdvat vaataja/lugejagi neis kas ära tunda iseend või siis teisalduda jälgitavasse situatsiooni, end vaadeldava tegelaskujuga samastades. Kui karakteriga suhestumise analüüsis lähtuda aga igapäevasuhtlustasandist, näib olevat ebapiisav eelistada üksnes taaskujutavat ja sissepoole pööratud vaadet inimteadvusele, kuna ideedel inimesest kui „sotsiaalsest olevusest“ ja tähenduse „sotsiaalsest karakterist“ (Võgotskii) on oht jääda tahaplaanile ja „karakteriga suhestumine“ taandub omamoodi sisedialoogiks: vaataja mõistab teist inimest iseenda põhjal kohandatud mudeli kaudu. Ehkki teatud olukordades on see vajalik mõistmis- ja tähendustamisstrateegia, ei saa eirata, et suhestumine kui selline on ometi suunatud. Haaratud ollakse kellestki, „sukeldutakse“ maailma, mida keegi omas-maailmas-iseseisvalt-eksisteerivana asustab. Käesoleva doktoriväitekirja avapeatükk sünteesib väga mitmekesist teaduskirjandust ja töötab välja kohase teoreetilise mõisteraamistiku, mis käsitleb suhestumist teleseriaali tegelaskujudega argiteadvuslikust sotsiaalsest kogemusest lähtuvalt. Keskne on siin käsitlus pärisustamisest: kogukondliku arutelu kontekstis lihtsalt lähenetaksegi tegelaskujudele kui päris inimestele. Narratiivsest tegelaskujust saab persoon. Internetiarutelud opereerivad kolmandas isikus (mina/tema) ja narratiiv-ajalooliselt (väljamõeldud süžee kui narratiivse persooni elu lugu). Individuaalsed kommentaaritekstid on siinjuures mõistetavad kui narrtseptid, s.o. narratiivse teis(t)e-taju tähendusloomelised saadused. Narrtseptid toovad esile narratiivsetele persoonidele suunatud tõlgenduste kogukondlikult jagatud, mitmehäälset mõõdet. Väitekirja teine peatükk tutvustatab originaalmõistet majakas. Majakal on internetikommunikatsiooni analüüsis struktureeriv roll. “Heites valgust“ kommunikatsiooni erinevatele külgedele, majakas kas liigendab narrtseptiivseid looilmu (retseptiivne, „populaarne“ dimensioon) või komponeerib neid reaalajaliselt avalduvateks ’lahtiste otstega’ diskursuseilmadeks (analüütilis-metodoloogiline, „akadeemiline“ dimensioon). Siinkohal pakubki antud peatükk ühtlasi ka kriitilisi kohandusi juba käibelolevatele mõistetele võimalike maailmade ja narratiiviteooriast ning diskursuseanalüüsist, s.o., looilm, kavatsemis-ilm, tekstiloojate-ilm ja diskursuse-ilm. Doktoriväitekirja kolmas peatükk keskendub ameerika teleseriaali “Halvale teele“ (Breaking Bad) internetikommentaaride illustratiivsele lähianalüüsile. Eelkirjeldatud teoreetilisel mõisteaparatuuril on analüüsis keskne roll.How does the viewer engage herself with narrative characters? Literary theory, folkloristics, narratology, psychology, and media studies more widely have generally found guidance in the treatments of identification, empathy, and immersion. For if fictional people, be it by the written or audiovisual depiction, are nothing but the fruits of authors’ imagination, then the viewer or the reader similarly attempts to recognize herself in, immerse herself into the world of, and identify herself with the observed character. While analyzing character engagement from the perspective of everyday communication, however, the exclusively representational and inward approach to the human mind can prove an inadequate preference. For the respective ideas of human as a „social being“ and the „social character of meaning“ (Vygotsky) hazard to become backgrounded due to „character engagement“ becoming proportionate to a kind of inner dialogue: viewer makes sense of the other through the model she has adapted about herself. Although it can be, at times, a necessary strategy for comprehension and sense-making, one cannot disregard the engagement being—even toward “fictional” people—always directed. You are absorbed by someone, you become “immersed” in a world that is inhabitated by someone autonomously-existing-with-their-world. In synthesizing diverse literature, Chapter One of the present dissertation develops appropriate theoretical framework that approaches engagement with the characters of television serials from the stance of common sense social experience. Of focal significance here is the notion of realitization: in the context of communal discussion, characters just are approached as if real people. Accordingly, a narrative character becomes a person. For Internet discussions operate in third person (me/her) and historio-narratively (“fictive” plot as narrative person’s life story). Individual commentary texts become hereby considered as narrcepts; that is, they are the sense-making products of the narrative perception of the other (narrative+precept). Through narrcepts, the distributed and polyphonic dimension of the construals directed toward narrative persons becomes acknowledged. Chapter Two of the dissertation introduces a succeeding original notion: beacon. Beacon enacts a structuring role in the analysis of online communication. Beacon „throws light“ onto the different aspects of Internet discourse, decomposing narrceptive storyworlds (reciprocal, „popular“ dimension) and composing the latter into „open ended“ discourse worlds emerging in real time (analytical-methodological, „academical“ dimension). Consequently, critical adaptations of current terminology in possible worlds theory, narrative theory, and discourse analysis are presented; that is, storyworld, intend-world, text makers’ world and discourse world. Chapter three of the dissertation concentrates on the illustrative close analysis of the online commentaries with regard to the American television serial Breaking Bad. The previously established theoretical apparatus serves a central role in the analysis

VR Video Storytelling for Intangible Cultural Heritage Preservation.

Interactive digital storytelling has become a popular method for virtual cultural heritage presentations. Combinations of stories and 3D virtual reconstructions are attractive for the audience and have high edutainment values. In this paper we investigate if 360◦ VR videos further contribute to user immersion in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. It describes a case study of the Mostar bridge diving project, aimed to present and preserve the bridge diving tradition from the Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a virtual reality application which enables the user to virtually jump off the bridge after watching 360◦ video stories about its history and the bridge diving tradition and upon successfully completing the quiz evaluation of the knowledge gained from the stories. The user experience evaluation study shows that our method was successful in preserving a form of intangible heritage and posits suggestions that can be used in developing an intangible heritage preservation framework

Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling

The collection places Star Wars at the center of those studies’ projects by examining video games, novels and novelizations, comics, advertising practices, television shows, franchising models, aesthetic and economic decisions, fandom and cultural responses, and other aspects of Star Wars and its world-building in their multiple contexts of production, distribution, and reception. In emphasizing that Star Wars is both a media franchise and a transmedia storyworld, Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling demonstrates the ways in which transmedia storytelling and the industrial logic of media franchising have developed in concert over the past four decades, as multinational corporations have become the central means for subsidizing, profiting from, and selling modes of immersive storyworlds to global audiences. By taking this dual approach, the book focuses on the interconnected nature of corporate production, fan consumption, and transmedia world-building. As such, this collection grapples with the historical, cultural, aesthetic, and political-economic implications of the relationship between media franchising and transmedia storytelling as they are seen at work in the world’s most profitable transmedia franchise

Narrative Space and Serialized Forms: Story-Spaces for the Mass Market in Victorian Print and Contemporary Television

Despite Bakhtin\u27s notion of the chronotope and recent advancements in spatial theory by David Herman, Marie-Laure Ryan and Susan Friedman, narrative space is arguably still one of the most under-researched elements in narrative theory, taking a back seat to its corollary of narrative time and plot. This oversight can be largely attributed to the structuralist separation of text types exemplified by Genette\u27s assertions that description and narrative were distinctly different forms. Recent approaches such as David Herman\u27s rejection of such a separation in Story Logic, however, argue that spatial reference plays a crucial, not optional or derivative role in stories (264), and that spatial reference is, rather, a core property that helps \u27constitute\u27 narrative domains (296). In response to this gap, this dissertation examines the relationship between textual constructions of narrative space and the material forms of serialized narratives across specific medias. By looking at the intersection of the textual construction of storyworld space, the serialized form, and the materiality of media, this project argues that in both literary and televised contexts, the serialized form plays a key role in shaping the configurations of narrative space in these storyworlds and in constructing their rhetorical and ideological effects. Specifically, the project explores how the textual aspects of serial narratives affect the structure of storyworld spaces and how this affect is crucially tied to rhetorical and interpretive implications in final configurations of the narrative audience. As a result, this project makes connections between the serialized literature produced between 1830-1860 in Victorian England and that of televised narratives produced during the last decade in both Britain and the United States. Each case study is carefully historicized and examines the intersection between the materiality of the texts, their status as mediated objects, and the spatial structure of the narrative they construct

Exploring effective storytelling guidelines for cinematic virtual reality

Content creators have been exploring ways to use virtual reality (VR) as an effective storytelling tool. The term cinematic virtual reality (CVR) was then created to describe the kind of VR experience that is produced using pre-rendered content with lengthier and complete story structures, with the interaction design that enables viewers to actively choose where to look. Initially, creators of CVR content began by transferring storytelling grammars and techniques from mature media, such as cinema and theater. However, specific challenges for CVR followed, including the narrative paradox (NP) (which is the conflict and tension arising between authorial control and viewer agency), the fear of missing out (FOMO), and the discrepancy between viewer expectations on agency and the system’s interactive capacity. Because CVR is a type of immersive experience, viewers are also inclined to interact with the story world freely. To achieve a final product that is a successful and engrossing storytelling experience, creators must address the NP and FOMO issues and establish a design balance between authorial control and viewer participation in terms of narrative progression. To investigate the issues raised above and assess potential solutions, several user studies were undertaken in this thesis. A human body-language-based attention guidance cue set called Action Units (AUs) was created to address the FOMO issue. It was then compared with two other commonly used synthetic cues for user experiences. According to the findings, the use of AUs in CVR content can boost viewer enjoyment and engagement with the story. The AUs were also favored by viewers for their diegetic qualities and by creators for the simplicity of use. Moving on to the NP issue, the second user study sought to identify the upper limit of a viewer’s desire to actively interact and participate in the narration. Results indicated that viewer control is advised for CVR projects. To handle viewer curiosity and motivate them to interact freely, creators must carefully set up the interactors. Based on the findings, a coherent framework was researched and developed by tying together previously acquired knowledge and rules that were dispersed to various components of producing CVR with the workflow that a creator uses to build the experience. The procedure resulted in a formalized framework called the Adaptive Playback Control (APC) for CVR. The APC starts by guiding content preparation by highlighting the need for applying diegetic attention guidance cues. It also includes guidelines for interactive design by emphasizing the need for design considerations regarding the harmony between viewer and creator roles in directing the narrative development, and raising the visibility of interaction affordances in the immersive storytelling experience. Then, a real-world case study of applying the APC to an immersive Māori (New Zealand indigenous people) storytelling experience was presented. The case study examined whether viewer-participatory design, including profiling viewers and the strategies to introduce narrative variations, was culturally appropriate. In this case study, personalized variations were added to CVR by taking into account both the unique demands of each viewer and their participation in the storytelling process. Insights from the case study showed that for creators to safely guarantee that experiences will live up to viewer expectations and be entertaining and diverse, individual users must also be taken into account from the very beginning of content design. Finally, this thesis offers the Adaptive Playback Control (APC), a novel frame- work for those who create CVR experiences. They can follow the framework’s instructions to create materials specifically designed for an immersive experience utilizing pre-rendered content, such as 360-degree videos. It intends to address the FOMO issue and help creators produce CVR experiences with correct viewer interaction and integrated viewer personalization, resolving the problem of NP and improving the overall experience. This thesis also employed a case study to show how adaptable the framework is and how it may be used in a larger context, in and beyond the cultural heritage sector