From the books to the screens, to the memes and beyond: Fans' notions of Game of Thrones as an adaptation (original) (raw)
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Case study of French and Spanish fan reception of Game of Thrones
The reception of the American TV show Game of Thrones (2011–) by French and Spanish fans and nonfans is addressed via a qualitative methodology, the goal of which is to understand how European viewers perceive themselves as fans and what it means for them to be fans. Analysis of characteristics of a specifically European reception helps us learn what fan studies tell us about fans and what fans really think about fandoms.
PARTICIPATIONS: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 2016
In the current multi-modal environment rich in on-demand content, audiences operate as active users of media content by exercising control over their viewing schedules, and by integrating media texts into their lives according to new patterns of consumption. My analysis focuses on the relationship between Italian fans and the transmedia structure of the popular television series Game of Thrones. The show's imaginary universe has been conceived in a way that allows complex and diverse forms of audience engagement. Indeed, Game of Thrones' transmedia narratives constitute a 'world-building experience, unfolding content and generating the possibilities for the story to evolve with new and pertinent content' (Gambarato 2012, p.4). The complexity of the experience(s) is determined by the existence of sub-worlds within the Game of Thrones' universe: the literary one, the one recreated on screen and one that is built on the media extensions that enrich and deepen the storylines and the characters' profiles. This multi-level architecture offers audience members different venues of consumption as well as the possibility to appropriate original media content in order to produce and distribute new content as a result of individuals' free labor; this means that convergence (Jenkins, 2006) can become a 'field of struggle' between media conglomerates and empowered consumers. The investigation of Italian fans' immersion into Game of Thrones' transmedia framework, therefore, aims at identifying the concrete practices that fans engage in as determined by their exploitation of the universe of the text and their ability to re-work/re-use original material from that universe in alternative ways, outside of the established paths provided by traditional media producers in the first place.
2019
This article is made publicly available in the institutional repository of Wageningen University and Research, under the terms of article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, also known as the Amendment Taverne. This has been done with explicit consent by the author. Article 25fa states that the author of a short scientific work funded either wholly or partially by Dutch public funds is entitled to make that work publicly available for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work. This publication is distributed under The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) 'Article 25fa implementation' project. In this project research outputs of researchers employed by Dutch Universities that comply with the legal requirements of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act are distributed online and free of cost or other barriers in institutional repositories. Research outputs are distributed six months after their first online publication in the original published version and with proper attribution to the source of the original publication.
Resisting to Game of Thrones: a fannish agonism
2021
PurposeFans have been characterized as specialized consumers who often express disagreements with the entertainment industry's decisions, especially when it comes to the original content of the works that serve as the basis for the development of media products, evidencing a kind of consumer resistance. Under a Foucauldian perspective aligned with the consumer culture theory (CCT), power relations are established in a dynamic of power exercise and resistance to power. Based on this, the authors pose the following research question: how do fans of media products resist the changes made by the entertainment industry in relation to their canons?Design/methodology/approachThe authors adopted the Foucault's genealogy of power as a method, analyzing the comments posted on the Westeros.Org website, the main discussion forum of fans of A Song of Ice and Fire (ASoIaF) book series and Game of Thrones (GoT) TV series.FindingsThe findings reveal ways of resistance in relation to the ada...
Essais, 2017
Television has been changing for a number of years due to the growing proliferation of platforms and the interconnection of multiple media forms. These changes have reshaped the relation between the idea of text(s) (i.e., TV series) and context(s) (i.e., fan practices) in the process of media consumption. This paper aims to clarify how, in the case of the TV series Game of Thrones (HBO) and with reference to an empirical research carried out by the authors, the interlacement of textual and contextual elements can determine different forms of experience and different levels of intersubjectivity in fans' practices.
Participations, 2012
This article aims to analyze the transmedia narratives and the levels of involvement with their audience of two different television series. In the Spanish and British markets, TV shows like El Barco (2011, present) or Skins (2007-2011) show a particular transmedia narrative and audience interaction with the fictional plot. Following the contributions to the field of three authors (Beeson, 2005; Davidson 2008; Scolari, 2009), this paper proposes a methodology for analysing these two transmedia narratives and audience involvement with them along four vectors: 1) The relationship between story and medium, 2) Narrative aspects (setting, characters, theme and plot), 3) Intertextuality, and 4) Distribution and accessibility to the audience. Using this methodology, this article gives an overview of two of the most popular television fictions with transmedia narratives in the British and Spanish markets. The analysis of these two markets shows the encouraging future for transmedia narratives in the current television industry, while concluding that the effectiveness of the expansion of these fictional universes appears when finding and fulfilling their audiences’ hopes of engagement.
Social Issues and TV Scripted Fiction: An Exploration of Fans' Feedback in Spain
International Journal of Communication, 2018
Within the ongoing theorization of active audiences, this article analyzes the concept of a new Internet-based social audience for TV and online scripted fiction through the social media buzz generated by 72 Spanish scripted fiction programs. The investigation is focused on the comments posted by fans and, partly, community managers after the release of the programs’ finales. Because of the wide range of themes present in the sample (8,103 posts), we focus on those messages that reflect Internet users’ interpretations of historical and social issues broached by the programs. Results suggest that period programs invite a larger number of comments related to social issues than do programs about the present. Moreover, support for TV fiction’s fidelity to historical events is observed to be contingent on the happiness factor of those events; tragedy seems to be unpopular with viewers wanting to disconnect from their concerns. Finally, viewers enjoy programs critical of current social issues (e.g., political corruption).
Game of Thrones (GoT) has become the most popular way of referring to a universe that was previously known under the title A Song of Ice and Fire by fans of fantasy novels. Indeed, thanks to its huge success, the TV series is now the most common entry into what is today a complex narrative constellation. Due to its configuration, and the wide spectrum of users’ different levels of involvement, the GoT constellation offers an occasion to confront two audiences and their practices. GoT transmedia clearly targets both fiction lovers and gamers. The success of the franchise has led to heavy consumption of transmedia elements, even by fans who had never approached transmedia before, and may allow us to move beyond the classical analysis. That’s why, in that preliminary research, by comparing TV series viewers in general with a quite specific part of them, ordinary gamers of the videogame GOT Ascent, we aim to evaluate transmedia use in the GOT community. After that, we focused our analysis on one specific community, a subset of the GOT’s universe’s users, that is, players of the GoT Ascent videogame (we use “gamers” as synonym for “players” and “users”). Through this online participative observation, we try to analyse the players’ attitudes, and evaluate the nature of their involvement from a user perspective (Servais). Focusing on one specific medium in the GOT constellation should allow us to further flesh out the general panorama on transmedia, by exploring involvement in one particular device more deeply. Our purpose in that is to identify whether the players are transmedia users, and so GoT fans, or if they are firstly players. During a three month in-game ethnography, in June-August 2013, we played Aren Gorn, affiliated to House Tyrell, level 91, and member of “The Winter is Dark and Full of Terrors” Alliance (2500 members). Following an in-game ethnography (Boellstorff 123-134), we explored gamers’ playing attitudes inside the interface.
Game of Spoilers: Adapted Works and Fan Consumption Disputes in Brazil
A spoiler is defined as a piece of relevant information about a narrative which is revealed prematurely. This paper offers a Brazilian case study of the repercussion of ‘spoilery’ tweets concerning a specific episode of the television series Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011- ). To this end, we implemented a case study of 207 tweets generated by conversations on Twitter on 14 June 2015. We argue that a key variable in conditioning fans’ reactions to spoilers lies in the difference between original screenplays and adapted works from other media narratives. The results of the analysis showed the existence of two major conflicts in the series’ fandom: the first is the clash between two different perspectives on the production and circulation of spoilers. The second concerns the fact that the show is a literary adaptation and thus provokes a clash between two distinct types of fans: those who read the book, and therefore possess prior knowledge of what will happen in the television series, and those who only watch the show. We discuss the results bearing in mind the unique place spoilers possess in the media and questioning the relationship fans have with this kind of paratext on social media. We suggest that future studies on spoiler practices should consider the distinction between adapted works and original screenplays.
A Good-Enough Fan Within an Online Fan Community of Game of Thrones: An An E-Ethnographic Enquiry
This paper focuses on the emergence of normativity for fan-being representation within an online fan community of Game of Thrones, a fantasy television series based on the A Song of Ice and Fire books from George R.R. Martin. The main goal of this paper is to show how enoughness (Blommaert & Varis, 2011, 2012 and spreadabilty (Jenkins, Ford & Green, 2013) work together when dealing with fan activities and with how do fans perceive themselves and their fellows. Enoughness (Blommaert & Varis, 2011, 2012) is a notion that describes the features of a cultural object for it to be authentic, and the determination of the idea of good-enough collection of such features that are contained in that cultural object. Spreadability (Jenkins et al., 2013) describes the way (online) content circulates among websites, its users and fans. In so doing, this paper analyzes the normativity emerging from within the fan community of Game of Thrones on the social media platform Tumblr. The findings point toward how fans and their behavioral as well as semiotic experiences construct fan typologies that culminate in the super-fan.