Disillusionment in “Game of Thrones”: Logic of TV Series, Transmedia Storytelling and Platform Capitalism
pdf (Русский)

Keywords

TV series, quality television, transmedia storytelling, new media, digital capitalism, leisure, Game of Thrones, critical theory, popular culture, social philosophy

How to Cite

Afanasov, N. (2019). Disillusionment in “Game of Thrones”: Logic of TV Series, Transmedia Storytelling and Platform Capitalism. Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies, 1(2), 120-141. https://doi.org/10.24411/2658-7734-2019-10016

Abstract

TV series have become one of the main types of modern leisure. However, "quality television" modifies the very form of the series. Expensive serial production to justify the costs of creators and maintain interest of audience with the need becomes included in functioning patterns of new media. The article shows that in the world of cultural overproduction successful TV series must be transformed into transmedia phenomena in order to exist. Their traditional form, which is usually compared with the classic bourgeois novels of the XIX century, is uncompetitive outside the inclusion of content consumers in advertising production. Thus, the modern TV series market becomes a part of digital capitalism. If the classical critical theory raised the question of the possibility of autonomy of a work of art, then in the critical theory of the Internet this problem should be clarified. The author on the material of the series "Game of Thrones" demonstrates what features have determined the possibility of involvement in the advertising campaign of consumers, and how the capitalist logic of digital capitalism has changed the artistic content of the work. The final season of the series demonstrates the loss of autonomy of the creators over their work due to external capitalist reasons. However, the consumer himself, involved in the production of not only the accompanying content for the series, but, ultimately, increasingly forming the demand for plot twists, changes the final product in such a way that it cannot match the originally set standards of quality and innovation.

https://doi.org/10.24411/2658-7734-2019-10016
pdf (Русский)

References

Broe, D. (2019). Birth of the Binge: Serial TV and the End of Leisure. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.

Eco, U., Giesbert, F.-O., Toranian, V. (2015). “La France a subi un choc qu’elle n’a pas encore digéré”. Revue des Deux Mondes, November, 8-23.

Fathallah, J.M. (2017). Fanfiction and the Author. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Gartenberg, C. (2019). The Next Star Wars Movie Hitting Theaters in 2022 will be from Game of Thrones’ Benioff and Weiss. The Verge. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/14/18623128/star-wars-movie-2022-game-of-thrones-benioff-weiss-bob-iger-rian-johnson-disney

Jenkins, H. (2010). Transmedia Storytelling and Entertainment: An Annotated Syllabus. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 6(24), 943-958.

Koblin, J. (2019). “Game of Thrones” Returns to Record Ratings in Season 8 Premiere. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/business/media/game-of-thrones-ratings.html

Laugier, S. (2018). Spoilers, Twists and Dragons. In I. Christie & A.Van den Oever (eds.), Stories. Screen Narrative in the Digital Age (pp. 143-152). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Lauretis, T. (2007). Figures of Resistance: Essays in Feminist Theory. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

Schiller, M. (2018). Transmedia Storytelling. . In I. Christie & A.Van den Oever (eds.), Stories. Screen Narrative in the Digital Age (pp. 97-108). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Stableford, B. (2009). The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Lanham: Scarecrow Press.

Suárez-Vázquez, A. (2011). Critic Power or Star Power? The Influence of Hallmarks of Quality Motion Pictures: An Experimental Approach. Journal of Cultural Economics, (2), pp. 119-135.

Aronson, O. (2005). Missing Work or the Beginning of Modern art. In O. Krivtsun (eds.), Metamorphoses of the Creative Self of the Artist (p. 142-155). Moscow: Monuments of historical thought.

Aronson, O. (2013). Cinema Now is a Kind of Icon of a Secularized World. Theory & Practice. Retrieved from https://theoryandpractice.ru/posts/6766-aronson

Berkhin, V., Efimov, A. & Steinman, M. (2019). Game of Thrones. Reading the meanings. Moscow: AST.

Gorbachev, A. (2014). The Winter is Coming. What the Game of Thrones Universe is Made of: from the Rose War to Stephen King. Poster. Retrieved from https://daily.afisha.ru/archive/vozduh/cinema/game_of_thrones_sources/

Jamison, F. (2019). Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Moscow: Publishing House of the Gaidar Institute.

Irwin, W., & Jacobi, G. (2015). Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Sharper than the Sword. Moscow: AST.

Kushnaryova, I. (2013). How We Were Accustomed to the Series. Philosophical and Literary Journal Logos, (3), 9-20.

Littman, G. (2015). Meister Hobbes Travels to the Royal Harbor. In I. William & G. Jacoby, Game of Thrones and Philosophy (pp. 21-36). Moscow: AST.

Lovink, G. (2019a). The Internet Beyond Illusions is the Design Principles of Memes. In G. Lovink, A Critical Theory of the Internet (pp. 59-78). Moscow: Hell Margin Press, Garage Museum of Modern Art.

Lovink, G. (2019b). What is Social in Social Media? In G. Lovink, A Critical Theory of the Internet (pp. 21-42). Moscow: Hell Margin Press, Garage Museum of Modern Art.

Langley, T. (2019). "Game of Thrones" and Psychology. The Soul is Dark and Full of Horrors. Moscow: Alpina Publisher.

Pavlov, A. (2014). Shameful Pleasure. Philosophical and Socio-Political Interpretations of Mass Cinema. Moscow: Publishing House House of the Higher School of Economics.

Pavlov, A. (2019a). Images of the Present in the 21st century: post-Postmodernism. Personality. The culture. Society, (101-102), 53-62.

Pavlov, A. (2019b). Postmodern Philosophy and Popular Culture. Questions of Philosophy, (3), 206-214.

Panfilov, F. (2014). Telemedievalism: “Medieval” Series of the late XX - early XXI century. Philosophical and Literary Journal Logos, (6), 193-208.

Rapoport, E. (2013). The Logic of the Series. Philosophical and Literary Journal Logos, (3), 21-36.

Srnichek, N. (2019). Platform Capitalism. Moscow: Publishing House House of the Higher School of Economics.

Tallman, C. (2015). Denis Among the Barbarians: Cultural Relativism in the Game of Thrones. In W. Irwin & G. Jacoby, Game of Thrones and Philosophy (pp. 218-229). Moscow: AST.

Foley, M. (2011). A century of absurdity. Why in modern life it is difficult to be happy. Moscow: United Press.

Schulze, M. (2015). Rules of the Game of Thrones: Machiavelli's Lessons. In W. Irwin & G. Jacoby, Game of Thrones and Philosophy (pp. 52-68). Moscow: AST.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.