Reflective of the broader logics of media convergence, media franchises spread their commercial interests and imaginary worlds across many multiple media. For media industries, franchises maximize profits by linking together movies, TV series, books, comics, games, toys, merchandise, and promotional paratexts to encourage consumption. At the same time, they are a platform for new forms of serial narrative, world-building, and transmedia storytelling, and generate vibrant, diverse fan cultures that are sometimes at odds with franchise producers. Drawing on a wide range of scholarly and critical work, this course examines popular media franchises from historical, economic/industrial, formal/aesthetic, and sociocultural perspectives.
Reflective of the broader logics of media convergence, media franchises spread their commercial interests and imaginary worlds across many multiple media. For media industries, franchises maximize profits by linking together movies, TV series, books, comics, games, toys, merchandise, and promotional paratexts to encourage consumption. At the same time, they are a platform for new forms of serial narrative, world-building, and transmedia storytelling, and generate vibrant, diverse fan cultures that are sometimes at odds with franchise producers. Drawing on a wide range of scholarly and critical work, this course examines popular media franchises from historical, economic/industrial, formal/aesthetic, and sociocultural perspectives.
