Star Wars has reached more than three generations of casual and hardcore fans alike, and as a result many of the producers of franchised Star Wars texts (films, television, comics, novels, games, and more) over the past four decades have been fans-turned-creators. Yet despite its dominant cultural and industrial positions, Star Wars has rarely been the topic of sustained critical work. Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling offers a corrective to this oversight by curating essays from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars in order to bring Star Wars and its transmedia narratives more fully into the fold of media and cultural studies. The collection places Star Wars at the center of those studies’ projects by examining video games, novels and novelizations, comics, advertising practices, television shows, franchising models, aesthetic and economic decisions, fandom and cultural responses, and other aspects of Star Wars and its world-building in their multiple contexts of production, distribution, and reception. In emphasizing that Star Wars is both a media franchise and a transmedia storyworld, Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling demonstrates the ways in which transmedia storytelling and the industrial logic of media franchising have developed in concert over the past four decades, as multinational corporations have become the central means for subsidizing, profiting from, and selling modes of immersive storyworlds to global audiences. By taking this dual approach, the book focuses on the interconnected nature of corporate production, fan consumption, and transmedia world-building. As such, this collection grapples with the historical, cultural, aesthetic, and political-economic implications of the relationship between media franchising and transmedia storytelling as they are seen at work in the world’s most profitable transmedia franchise.
I argue that Calvin Schrag's performative notion of the "self after postmodernity" provides an innovative, multidisciplinary approach to the investigation of the rhetorical functions of spectacular subcultures. Focusing my discussion on the discourse, fashion, and demeanor of goth subculturalists, I argue that active human agents through their choices, decisions, and actions, rhetorically coauthor a degree of self-constancy. The rhetorical nature of self-identity, group identity, and subcultural ideology is the focal point of my work.It [appearance] matters to me. I like for people to know that I'm different in some way at first glance. I like to be able to recognize other goths at first glance … When I see someone in punky/gothy/industrial garb, I automatically assume that we have things in common. Kali, personal communication, July 5, 2002 Kali's articulation of a desire to be stylistically "different" than cultural others is a frequently observed phenomenon among members of spectacular subcultures. In fact, Hebdige (1979) posited the expression of difference as the primary communicative function of spectacular subcultures. He stated the following: "The communication of a significant difference, then (and the parallel communication of a group identity), is the 'point' behind the style of all spectacular subcultures" (Hebdige, 1979, p. 102). Kali's assumption that similarly dressed individuals are likely to share "commonalities," a group identity, and corresponding ideology, is also much-discussed by subcultural scholars. The significance of Kali's message, however, wasn't the actual content, but the way in which I positioned her missive as part of an ongoing narrative regarding self, subcultural identity, and ideology.
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