Conferenties << terug
14 - 16 januari 2010
Call for Papers:
Contemporary Serial Culture: Quality TV Series in a New Media
Environment, Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany.
The first decade of the 21st century saw an increasing popularity of serial forms in television.
Series like Alias, CSI, Fringe, Grey’s Anatomy, Six Feet Under, Heroes, Lost, Private
Practice, The Shield, The Sopranos, Dexter, True Blood, 24, Ugly Betty, The Wire and several
others gain a certain success with audiences all over the world. They are very often
characterised as ‘Quality TV’ because its narrative structure, representation of characters and
aesthetic form shall be more complex and sophisticated than older series.
Reasonable they are
not only successful because they appear on TV screens, but also because they are available on
DVD, they generate spin-offs for mobile advices, and they can rely on an active fan
community in the internet and on the convergence of different media.
Unfortunately during the past ten years scholars in media studies, cultural studies and
television studies have given more attention to TV forms like reality TV, docudramas and
documentaries. TV fiction was not a hot spot, except some popular book series like“Philosophy and….” and “Reading...” which focus on popular TV series like CSI, Lost,
Sopranos or 24. These books highlight accidentally several aspects of the series. They lack of
a systematic approach, analyzing the series in the context of TV theories, narration theories,
theories of media economics, theories of global media communication, and audience studies.
The aim of the conference is to take a closer look at the series in question from a variety of
perspectives. Therefore we are looking for papers dealing with the following issues:
• Series in the context of economy, the global media market and production
• Narrative innovation and narrative complexity of quality series
• Audience studies of series (series, identity, internet and everyday life)
• Comparative studies of international series adaptations
• Studies of convergence culture (TV, Internet, digital games)
• Serial storytelling in new media environments (i.e. Web-Series, Series for mobile
devices etc.)
• Patterns of violence, pornography and new serial aesthetics
• Series and the contemporary culture and society
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