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- Fast, Karin, 1979-
(författare)
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'In the end they do what they want - so why even ask us?' : Perspectives on the production and consumption of transmedia entertainment
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today’s converging entertainment industries create transmedial brand worlds in which consumers are expected to become deeply immersed. Integrated marketing campaigns connected to these worlds invite consumers to act as ‘co-producers’. While such an altered consumer identity has been taken as evidence of enhanced consumer agency, it has also been recognized as a source of consumer exploitation.The conference presentation was based on findings from the author's thesis, More than meets the eye: Transmedial entertainment as a site of pleasure resistance and exploitation (2012), which analyzes the increasingly ambivalent power relationships that exist between agents in the contemporary entertainment industry and their most dedicated customers – the fans. The study employs a multiperspectival theoretical framework, in that cultural studies theory is combined with perspectives from political economy. Existing theory on transmedial textuality, branding, and fandom is applied to one particular franchise, Hasbro’s Transformers. This world, home of both industrial and fan-based creativity, is studied through analyses of official and unofficial content as well as through interviews with professionals and fans.The case study shows that companies and fans contribute to the building and promotion of the Transformers brand world – in collaboration and in conflict. While fan productivity occasionally takes place without direct encouragement from the companies involved, it is also largely anticipated and desired by marketers. The findings suggest that consumer enjoyment potentially translates into industrial benefits, including free brand promotion. Ultimately, the study acknowledges transmedial brand worlds as, simultaneously, sites of pleasure, resistance, and exploitation.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Fast, Karin, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Mediatization of culture and everyday life
- 2014
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The report Mediatization of Culture and Everyday Life commissioned by the sector committee Mediatization of culture and everyday life of the Riksbanken Jubileumsfond provides a comprehensive overview of current Swedish mediatization research focusing on culture and everyday life in and beyond the field of media and communication studies. Based on a broad mapping of research projects financed in Sweden that are tackling questions of media-related change, the report provides insight into a still evolving area of investigation. The two parts of the report firstly provide a discussion of the state of the art of mediatization research and a review of relevant Swedish research projects to secondly present a number of outstanding research environments engaging in research of mediatization of culture and everyday life. The report concludes with outlining topics that have been overlooked in the area so far. Especially the discussion of temporal aspects of media-related change is pointed out as a gap in current research efforts.
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| 4. |
- Fast, Karin, 1979-
(författare)
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More than Meets the Eye : Transmedial entertainment as a site of pleasure, resistance and exploitation
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today’s converging entertainment industry creates ‘transmedial’ brand worlds in which consumers are expected to become immersed. Integrated marketing campaigns connected to these worlds encourage various kinds of consumer productivity and invite consumers to partake in brand-building processes. Consumers, thus, are increasingly counted on to act as co-producers of contemporary entertainment. While such an altered consumer identity has been taken as evidence of enhanced consumer agency, it has also been recognized as a source of consumer exploitation. This thesis aims to further our understanding of the increasingly ambivalent power-relationship that exists between agents in the entertainment industry and their most dedicated customers – the fans. The study employs a multiperspectival theoretical framework, in that cultural studies theory is enriched with perspectives from political economy. This integrated approach to the object of study yields a better understanding of the values of consumer activity, and fan productivity in particular, to industry and consumers respectively.The study applies existing theory on transmedial textuality, branding, and fandom to one particular franchise, Hasbro’s Transformers. This brand world, home of both industrial and fan-based creativity, is studied through analyses of official and unofficial contents, and through interviews with professionals and fans. The focus is on the brand environment established around the first live action film ever made within the franchise. Special attention is given to the all-encompassing film marketing campaign that contributed to forming this environment and to fan productivity taking place in relation to it. The case study shows that companies and fans contribute to the building and promotion of the Transformers brand world – in collaboration and in conflict. While fan productivity occasionally takes place without direct encouragement from the companies involved, it is also largely anticipated and desired by marketing campaigns. The findings suggest that consumer enjoyment potentially translates into industrial benefits, including free brand promotion. Ultimately, the thesis acknowledges transmedial worlds of entertainment as concurrent sites of pleasure, resistance, and exploitation.
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| 5. |
- Fast, Karin, 1979-
(författare)
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Play Labour and the Search for Mass Fandom : A Transformers Brand Experience
- 2013
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Ingår i: Digital Games and Playful Media (TWG).
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Today’s entertainment industries encourage consumer activity as a way to gain brand loyalty. Participatory marketing campaigns are calculated to promote such activity, especially when designed as transmedia entertainment and require various types of play labor. This paper seeks to add to our mounting yet still limited understanding of industry branding practices in an era of media convergence and against the background of recent theoretizations on the ‘new’ active consumer. Ultimately, awareness of such practices will help us understand the increasingly complicated relationship between producers and consumers of mediated entertainment. The paper is based on empirical data that were generated by the author in relation to her PhD thesis. Focusing on a specific marketing campaign that was launched in support of Michael Bay’s and Steven Spielberg’s 2007 Transformers film, the paper argues for the need to make manifest the interplay between the pleasurable and, at the same time, potentially exploitive traits of consumer activity in general and of fan productivity in particular.
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