Benjamin W. L. Derhy Kurtz
While finishing my PhD at the faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of East Anglia, I am co-editing a collective book entitled The Rise of Transtexts: Challenge and Opportunity. By focusing at once on the industrial, artistic, social and marketing perspectives, as well as on audience participation, this work aims at discussing our understanding of Transmedia texts from a variety of viewpoints, offering a more holistic approach than otherwise possible.
I have also guest-edited a special-themed edition entitled ‘Branding TV: Transmedia to the Rescue’ for Networking Knowledge. Rather than ‘reducing’ Transmedia storytelling to the augmenting effect it has had on the concept of narrative as a result of its ability to create an immersive environment, this special issue seeks to discuss the wide range of economic perspectives available to a Film/Television brand due to this very same immersive environment. Providing insight on this topic through contributions from researchers in media, communications and cultural studies, but also in marketing, would enrich our collective understanding of Transmedia.
Concurrently, I am associate professor at ESG Management School and invited researcher at the ESG Research Lab (after having been for three part-time Lecturer at Université Paris-Ouest (previously Paris X Nanterre), in UFR LLPhi and UFR Sitec, where I also conducted a distance learning project supervised by the head of Faculty). My teaching currently focuses on Marketing, Management and Communication, but also on new media, Film & Television and Cultural Studies.
My research interests include transmedia, cultural studies, audience research, fandom, industrial sociology, international distribution, interpretive methodology, organizational research, production research and qualitative interviewing.
In addition to this, I also do independant historical research. Finally, I am a Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society since 2007.
Supervisors: Keith Johnston and Su Holmes
Address: University of East Anglia
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
FTM R PG
Norwich, NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
-----
ESG Management School
59 rue Nationale
75013 Paris
France
I have also guest-edited a special-themed edition entitled ‘Branding TV: Transmedia to the Rescue’ for Networking Knowledge. Rather than ‘reducing’ Transmedia storytelling to the augmenting effect it has had on the concept of narrative as a result of its ability to create an immersive environment, this special issue seeks to discuss the wide range of economic perspectives available to a Film/Television brand due to this very same immersive environment. Providing insight on this topic through contributions from researchers in media, communications and cultural studies, but also in marketing, would enrich our collective understanding of Transmedia.
Concurrently, I am associate professor at ESG Management School and invited researcher at the ESG Research Lab (after having been for three part-time Lecturer at Université Paris-Ouest (previously Paris X Nanterre), in UFR LLPhi and UFR Sitec, where I also conducted a distance learning project supervised by the head of Faculty). My teaching currently focuses on Marketing, Management and Communication, but also on new media, Film & Television and Cultural Studies.
My research interests include transmedia, cultural studies, audience research, fandom, industrial sociology, international distribution, interpretive methodology, organizational research, production research and qualitative interviewing.
In addition to this, I also do independant historical research. Finally, I am a Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society since 2007.
Supervisors: Keith Johnston and Su Holmes
Address: University of East Anglia
Faculty of Arts and Humanities
FTM R PG
Norwich, NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
-----
ESG Management School
59 rue Nationale
75013 Paris
France
less
InterestsView All (26)
Uploads
However, not much critical attention has so far been paid to how these developments in textual sensibility in contemporary US sitcom may be influenced by, and influencing, the use of transmedia storytelling practices, an increasingly significant industrial concern and rising scholarly field of enquiry (e.g. Jenkins 2006; Mittell 2015; Richards 2010; Scott 2010; Jenkins, Ford and Green 2013). This chapter investigates this mutual influence between sitcom and transmedia by taking as its case studies two network shows that encourage invested viewership through their use of transtexts, namely How I Met Your Mother (hereafter HIMHM) and New Girl (hereafter NG). As such, it will pay particular attention to the most transtextually visible character/actor from each show: HIMYM’s Barney Stinson, played by Neil Patrick Harris, and NG’s Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield.
This chapter argues that these sitcoms do not simply have their particular textual sensibility and also (happen to) engage with transmedia practices, but that the two are mutually informing and defining. This chapter explores the relationships and interplay between sitcom aesthetics, narratives and transmedia storytelling (or industrial transtexts), focusing on the use of multiple delivery channels in order to disperse “integral elements of a fiction” (Jenkins, 2006 95-6), by official entities such as the broadcasting channels. The chapter pays due attention to the specific production contexts of both shows and how these inform their approaches to transtexts.
This chapter’s conceptual framework will be particularly concerned with how issues of texture, the reality envelope and accepted imaginative realism, as well as performance and the actor’s input inform and illuminate contemporary sitcoms and transtexts, and will be the first scholarly research to do so. It will seek out points of connections between two (thus far) separate strands of scholarship and will move discussions on transtexts beyond the usual genre studied (i.e. science-fiction and fantasy), as well as make a contribution to the growing scholarship on contemporary sitcom by approaching it from a new critical angle.
On the basis that transmedia scholarship stands to benefit from widening its customary genre choice (i.e. telefantasy) for its case studies and from making more use of in-depth close analysis in its engagement with transtexts, the chapter argues that notions of texture, accepted imaginative realism and the reality envelope, as well as performance and the actor’s input deserve to be paid more attention to within transtext-related scholarship.
Well aware of that fact, the BBC, upon resurrecting the show in 2005, was not willing to let that happen again. If the Doctor was coming back, it was to conquer the Earth. A lotl of attention was thus paid to the way some of the characteristics of American programmes could be utilised in the show’s revival version.
However, not much critical attention has so far been paid to how these developments in textual sensibility in contemporary US sitcom may be influenced by, and influencing, the use of transmedia storytelling practices, an increasingly significant industrial concern and rising scholarly field of enquiry (e.g. Jenkins 2006; Mittell 2015; Richards 2010; Scott 2010; Jenkins, Ford and Green 2013). This chapter investigates this mutual influence between sitcom and transmedia by taking as its case studies two network shows that encourage invested viewership through their use of transtexts, namely How I Met Your Mother (hereafter HIMHM) and New Girl (hereafter NG). As such, it will pay particular attention to the most transtextually visible character/actor from each show: HIMYM’s Barney Stinson, played by Neil Patrick Harris, and NG’s Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield.
This chapter argues that these sitcoms do not simply have their particular textual sensibility and also (happen to) engage with transmedia practices, but that the two are mutually informing and defining. This chapter explores the relationships and interplay between sitcom aesthetics, narratives and transmedia storytelling (or industrial transtexts), focusing on the use of multiple delivery channels in order to disperse “integral elements of a fiction” (Jenkins, 2006 95-6), by official entities such as the broadcasting channels. The chapter pays due attention to the specific production contexts of both shows and how these inform their approaches to transtexts.
This chapter’s conceptual framework will be particularly concerned with how issues of texture, the reality envelope and accepted imaginative realism, as well as performance and the actor’s input inform and illuminate contemporary sitcoms and transtexts, and will be the first scholarly research to do so. It will seek out points of connections between two (thus far) separate strands of scholarship and will move discussions on transtexts beyond the usual genre studied (i.e. science-fiction and fantasy), as well as make a contribution to the growing scholarship on contemporary sitcom by approaching it from a new critical angle.
On the basis that transmedia scholarship stands to benefit from widening its customary genre choice (i.e. telefantasy) for its case studies and from making more use of in-depth close analysis in its engagement with transtexts, the chapter argues that notions of texture, accepted imaginative realism and the reality envelope, as well as performance and the actor’s input deserve to be paid more attention to within transtext-related scholarship.
Well aware of that fact, the BBC, upon resurrecting the show in 2005, was not willing to let that happen again. If the Doctor was coming back, it was to conquer the Earth. A lotl of attention was thus paid to the way some of the characteristics of American programmes could be utilised in the show’s revival version.