Electronic Screens in Film Diegesis: Modality Modes and Qualifying Aspects of a Formation Enhanced by the Post-digital Era

Abstract

The proliferation of television screens, video monitors and computer or mobile screens in film diegetic worlds is an apparently simple numeric increase of certain objects within the filmed space, conditioned by, and thus mirroring, contemporary technological changes. However, one should consider this intermediary screenic formation as a complex and versatile audiovisual and narrative method that could have emerged in this frequency only in our current post-digital era. This chapter argues that fine-tuning the model of media functioning presented in Elleström’s “The Modalities of Media” for this specific phenomenon enables a more precise description of the process along which the three presemiotic media modalities morph into the semiotic one. By presenting a systematic description of electronic screens in film diegetic worlds, and a general assessment of the intermedial processes at work, the chapter examines Euro-American films influenced by the video, respectively, the digital era and technology.