Anne Ganzert

“Following” greift die Konjunktur des Followingbegriffs in den Diskursen um digitale Medienkulturen und soziale Medien auf. Inwiefern wird Anhängerschaft in und vermittelt durch mediale Vorgänge verfertigt? – so die leitende Fragestellung. Ausgangsüberlegung ist, dass jede mediale Konstellation die sozialen und kulturellen Phänomene, die in und durch sie hervorgebracht und vermittelt werden, auf je unterschiedliche Weise prägt. Aus diesem Grund versammelt der Band Autor*innen mit medien-, kunst-, literatur- und kulturwissenschaftlicher sowie geschichtswissenschaftlicher Expertise, um so Follower, Anhänger*innen und Gefolgschaften facettenreich und analysieren zu können.
Das Layout des Kompendiums soll die vielschichtige, interdisziplinäre und verwobene Architektur dieser Überlegungen sichtbar und lesbar machen. Dabei werden sowohl die Beiträge, als auch ein durchlaufender Kommentar- und Kontextualisierungsstrang der Herausgeber*innen miteinander verwoben. Thematische Auswahlbibliographien sowie ein Glossar machen das Kompendium zusätzlich anschlussfähig. Das Kompendium reflektiert Medien der Gefolgschaft und Prozesse des Folgens sowohl inhaltlich wie auf einer begrifflichen Metaebene und bietet den Leser*innen so einen umfassenden Zugang zu Konfigurationen des “Following”.

This book provides an in-depth study of pinboards in contemporary television series and develops the interdisciplinary and innovative concept of Serial Pinboarding. Pinboards are character attributes; they visualize thought processes; are used for conspiracy theories, as murder walls, or for complex cases in any genre. They significantly condition, and are conditioned by, seriality. This book discusses how the pinboards in Castle, Homeland, Flash Forward, and Heroes connect evidence, knowledge, and seriality and how through transmediality and fan practices an “age of pinboarding” has formed. Serial Pinboarding in Contemporary Television will appeal to TV enthusiasts, professionals and researchers, and students of TV and production studies, fan studies, media studies, and art theory

Is there an option to oppose without automatically participating in the opposed? This volume explores different perspectives on dissent, understanding practices, cultures, and theories of resistance, dispute, and opposition as inherently participative. It discusses aspects of the body as a political instance, the identity and subjectivity building of individuals and groups, (micro-)practices of dissent, and theories of critique from different disciplinary perspectives. This collection thus touches upon contemporary issues, recent protests and movements, artistic subversion and dissent, online activism as well as historic developments and elemental theories of dissent.

Öffentlichkeitswirksames, politisches, queeres ‚miteinander Gehen‘ findet zum Teil in Form von Demonstrationen, Paraden und Märschen statt, die die Anliegen und die Sichtbarkeit von queeren Themen gezielt im urbanen Raum aktualisieren. Fokus dieses Artikels ist aber ein Gehen, das zwar ein dezidiert queeres ist, jedoch abseits dieser LGBTIQA+-inklusiven Schauplätze stattfindet. Dazu wird der Fokus auf einem Format des Reality-TV ("The Prancing Elites Project") gelegt und dessen Fassung und Hervorbringung von Formen des queeren Gehens.

This volume unravels the debates on the »Participation Age«: Instead of perpetuating visions of social »all-inclusion« or the »digital divide«, the collection reclaims collectivity as an effect of technological and historical conditions. Thinking of participation both as promise and duty, the contributions analyse the attractions and impositions connected to the socio-technical formation of collectivities. The constraints of participation are addressed by focusing on the mutual shaping of user practices and technological environments. It is hence a relational thinking that allows specifying the manifold interconnections of technology, practices and discourses.

In this article, the authors carry out conceptual and theoretical reflections on smartphone communities by closely investigating two apps: Ingress (Niantic 2012) and Pokemon Go (Niantic 2016). While the games’ narratives fabricate reasons for the players to move, it is the Smartphone - understood as an open object between technological and cultural processes - that visualizes and tracks players’ movements and that situates and reshapes the devices, the users and their surroundings. A central aspect is that the ‘augmented’ cities that become visible in the apps are based on the traces of others: other processes and technologies, as well as other players. These traces of practices and movements structure the users’ experience and shape spaces. Traces are necessarily subsequent and we therefore develop the concept of a deferred (smartphone) community and analyse its visibility within the apps. By close reading the two case studies, we examine potential “smartphone communities” in their...

This article proposes the thesis that in the television series FlashForward time is being spatialized through the various elements on a corkboard and thus is being visualized. The artifacts of an FBI investigation which are gradually put up on the so-called Mosaic Investigation wall by the characters of the show stand in topological and chronological relations to each other. Their epistemic potential is revealed with the help of visual culture studies and diagrammatic approaches, as well as contextualized by theories on television and series from the field of media studies.

Mit ihrer Monografie Street Art und neue Medien. Akteure – Praktiken – Asthetiken schliest die Autorin Katja Glaser eine methodologische und theoretische Lucke, die sich durch mediale Entwicklungen im akademischen Umgang mit Street Art ergeben hat. Indem sie auf medien- und kunstwissenschaftliche Ansatze zuruckgreift, gleichzeitig aber durch medienethnografische Beobachtung nicht nur nah am, sondern geradezu im, Forschungsfeld agiert, gelingt ihr eine ganzheitliche Perspektive auf den Konnex der Street Art mit den sogenannten 'Neuen Medien'. In der Tradition der Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie versteht Glaser dabei mobile Medien nicht als unveranderlich beschreibbare Gerate, sondern als dezidiert prozessuale, im-Werden-begriffene Interfaces, die in erster Linie durch ihre Medienpraktiken beschreibbar werden. Ganz ahnlich steht es um die im Titel aufgerufenen Asthetiken, die Glaser nicht bei den RezipientInnen verortet, sondern stattdessen als situative, eingebettete und erscheinende...

Serial pinboarding can be continued in remakes and remodels, by the original creators, by commercial extensions, or in fandoms. Serial pinboarding spins offs into other areas of contemporary pop culture and media consumption, and facilitates a thorough debate of pinboarding beyond an immediate TV show. In this chapter, Ganzert gives instances of “re-mediations” special attention, because they significantly contribute to the understanding of pinboarding as inherently serial. The author discusses the end of pinboarding shows and the ends of their pinboarding in close connection to each other. The chapter then examines transmedia storytelling and fan engagement with the pinboards, focusing on the extension of practices and aesthetics through continued pinboarding. Additionally, pinboarding has become a trope within TV series and film, allowing for parodist installations with pinboarding characters and the short-hand attributions of character traits, such as mania or genius, a few of wh...

The issue “Media Practices Commoning” contains a selection of contributions that critically discusses current concepts like commons and conviviality by situating them within the contemporary framework of digital media technologies. We thus contribute to the ongoing debate on media practices of commoning as well as a media ontological understanding of commoning processes. These are pressing issues in times of ubiquitous computing and platform capitalism, where an ever-increasing number of devices, technologies and complex infrastructures are interwoven with human and other organic agencies. Daily practices are increasingly framed by digital technologies and thus rendered as productive sources for data production. Thereby, the media ontological question is raised how practices, technologies and data might be conceptualised as commons without being commodified and functionally operationalised (Deuber-Mankowsky). Yet these seemingly antagonistic strategies are intertwined, indicating th...

Second screen strategies are quite common in today’s television industry. Television viewers are used to hashtag suggestions appearing on their screens while watching their shows; networks commonly use second screen options and apps to enhance the audience’s engagement with programming. NBC’s Heroes (2006–2010) was »arguably, the largest and most complex transmedia network […] conceived« (RUPPEL 2012: 224) at the time; the series tested many strategies of media convergence in distributing elements of its fictional world through multiple media platforms. This article focuses on the show’s strategies enticing viewers to engage with its websites, print media extensions, accompanying games, and tie-over webisodes. There have been studies focusing on the series’ branding (cf. GIANNINI 2014) or on the links connecting Heroes’ different elements (cf. RUPPEL 2012: 61), yet there is a tangible lack of attention to what Jason Mittell has termed »forensic fandom« (MITTELL 2015: n.pag.). This a...

Place and time, central categories to any storytelling, are also crucial to serial pinboarding. In this chapter Ganzert therefore turns to maps, blueprints, calendar sheets, and timelines, and unfolds how pinboards create and visualize temporal succession or chaos, as well as spatial relations. The representation of space and time, their connection, and the practices they entail are the chapter’s focal point. The analogies between singular elements and larger structures on the pinboards and within the TV series are exemplified with the book’s case studies. The way in which the serial pinboarding in FlashForward, Homeland, Castle, and Heroes pins the past, the present, the future, or even multiple futures then allows the abstraction of a first set of transferable analytic tools.

In the article the authors carry out conceptual and theoretical reflections on smartphone communities by closely investigating two apps: Ingress (Niantic 2012) and Pokémon Go (Niantic 2016). While the games’ narratives fabricate reasons for the players to move, it is the Smartphone – understood as an open object between technological and cultural processes – that visualizes and tracks players’ movements and that situates and reshapes the devices, the users and their surroundings. A central aspect is that the ‘augmented’ cities that become visible in the apps are based on the traces of others: other processes and technologies, as well as other players. These traces of practices and movements structure the users’ experience and shape spaces. As traces are necessarily subsequent we develop the concept of a deferred (smartphone) community and analyze its visibility within the apps. By close reading the two case studies, we analyse the medial dimension of potential “Smartphone-Communities” as well as their demands and promises of participation.
In order to gain a perspective that is neither adverse to new media nor celebratory of assumed participatory community phenomena, the article aims to interrogate the examples regarding their potential for individuation/dividuation and community building/dissolution. In doing so, the games’ conditions and the impositions posed to the players are central and include notions of consent and dissent.
Drawing upon approaches from community philosophy and media theory we concentrate on the visible, audible or tangible of smartphone-interfaces. The traces left by the various processes that were at work become momentarily actualized on the display, where they manifest not as a fixed community but as a sense of communality.

Anne Ganzert: „Die Mosaic Investigation Wall. 22 Episoden auf 3 Korkplatten [the Mosaic Investigation Wall. 22 episodes on 3 cork sheets]“, in: Augenblick. Konstanzer Hefte zur Medienwissenschaft. (Nr. 68) edited by Lorenz Engell, Dominik Maeder, Jens Schröter, Daniela Wentz, Schüren publishing 2017, pp. 45-56.

Second screen strategies are quite common in today’s television industry. Television viewers are used to hashtag suggestions appearing on their screens while watching their shows; networks commonly use second screen options and apps to enhance the audience’s engagement with programming. NBC’s Heroes (2006–2010) was »arguably, the largest and most complex transmedia network […] conceived« (RUPPEL 2012: 224) at the time; the series tested many strategies of media convergence in distributing elements of its fictional world through multiple media platforms.
This article focuses on the show’s strategies enticing viewers to engage with its websites, print media extensions, accompanying games, and tie-over webisodes. There have been studies focusing on the series’ branding (cf. GIANNINI 2014) or on the links connecting Heroes’ different elements (cf. RUPPEL 2012: 61), yet there is a tangible lack of attention to what Jason Mittell has termed »forensic fandom« (MITTELL 2015: n.pag.).
This article examines the narrative gaps and story arc stops created by the fantasy series. The following discusses how these gaps allowed some viewers to evolve from their assumed passiveness in the general audience to instead become part of the fast growing fan base. Depending on varying levels of involvement, this fandom generated a number of Heroes ›experts‹, creating a tiered hierarchy. Those experts sought to answer questions about mystified symbols, underdeveloped characters, open-ended storylines and potential references provided by the series. This article argues that the NBC strategy ensured the growth of a willing fandom and growing expert base without relying on overt prompts.

Mit ihrer Monografie Street Art und neue Medien. Akteure – Praktiken – Ästhetiken schließt die Autorin Katja Glaser eine methodologische und theoretische Lücke, die sich durch mediale Entwicklungen im akademischen Umgang mit Street Art ergeben hat. Indem sie auf medien- und kunstwissenschaftliche Ansätze zurückgreift, gleichzeitig aber durch medienethnografische Beobachtung nicht nur nah am, sondern geradezu im, Forschungsfeld agiert, gelingt ihr eine ganzheitliche Perspektive auf den Konnex der Street Art mit den sogenannten 'Neuen Medien'.

Geht es um Zugänge zu zeitgenössischen Serien, kann der Pilot einer Serie als Zugang zum Narrativ verstanden werden. Zugang zur jeweiligen Episode wären dann Vorspann und previously on. Paratextuell können zudem Trailer oder Marketingbemühungen als „Schwelle“ (Böhnke 2007) zur Serie als Text gelesen werden. Möchte man jedoch den Zugang der ZuschauerInnen zur Diegese/Storyworld einer Serie, oder gar zu einem ganzen „Transmedialen Universum“, beschreiben, kommt man nicht umhin, auch die eigens produzierten Apps als Zugangsmöglichkeiten in den Blick zu nehmen.
Der Vortrag beleuchtet daher unterschiedliche Relationen von Serie und App anhand mehrerer Beispiele und geht dabei der Frage nach, welche Funktion die App in Bezug auf die Narration/Vermarktung/Erweiterung der jeweiligen Serie einnimmt und welche Bedingungen mit ihrer Nutzung einhergehen.
Dabei ist ein erstes signifikantes Merkmal der intendierte Zeitpunkt der App-Nutzung. Denn die Apps sind darauf angelegt entweder vor der Premiere, zwischen Episoden, zwischen Staffeln oder während einer Episode genutzt zu werden. Hierzu werden z.B. HEROES REBORN: DARK MATTER, CITIZENS OF FLORENCE oder IN THERAPIE herangezogen.
Ein zweites Untersuchungsmerkmal ist das (räumliche) Dispositiv der App-Nutzung. Dabei ist dieses entweder dezidiert unbestimmt und wirbt mit Mobilität oder die Apps nutzen die Möglichkeiten des „location based gaming“. Interessant sind hier z.B. Unterschiede zwischen HOMELAND: SURVEILLANCE MISSION (New York City) und SHERLOCK: THE NETWORK (London). Ob und wie die ZuschauerInnen durch die Apps als NutzerInnen mobilisiert werden (können) bleibt eine zu beantwortende Frage.
Drittes und letztes Analysemerkmal sind zudem die Zugangsbedingungen, welche die Apps an ihre NutzerInnen richten. Als „formatted spaces of participation“ (Müller 2009) strukturieren die Anwendungen den Zugang zu ihren Inhalten, und somit auch Zugänge zu den Narrativen, Diegesen oder Fandoms der Serien, zu denen sie gehören.

Die Produktion und Distribution von Heroes erfolg(t)e derartig fragmentarisch, sodass die Serie und ihre Fortsetzung Heroes:Reborn selbst als Fragmente eines Gesamtnarrativs lesbar sind. Durch die implementierten Transmedia-Strategien wird den Fans eine Vollständigkeit des nur durch Fragmente zugänglichen Heroes-Narrativs versprochen. Diese kann und will die Serie allerdings nicht liefern. Jedoch können und sollen sich die Rezipient_innen dieser vermeintlichen Vollständigkeit durch den Konsum der (medial anders verfassten) Fragmente annähern oder zumindest im Austausch mit anderen miterleben – oder nacherleben. Der Vortrag wendet sich dem vielfach als fragmentarisch beschreibbaren Universum von Heroes als Objekt eines Fandoms und schließlich dessen Post-Object-Fandoms zu, und fragt, wie sich hier Fan-Gemeinschaft und Objekt reziprok beeinflussen oder gar bedingen.

„Our Society has been hacked”[1] — Spätestens mit dem ‚Personal Computer’ hielten Figurationen von Hackern Einzug in Film und Fernsehen (Weird Science, Hackers, War Games uvm.) und mit den ‚mobile media’ passten sich diese Erzählungen an. Der Vortrag stellt ein Projekt vor, das ermitteln will, wie die Bewegung peripher Hacking-Phänomene in Kontexte der Popkultur vonstatten geht und welche Widerständigkeiten und Kongruenzen dabei entstehen oder beobachtbar werden. So finden sich unzählige Beispiele aus Büchern, Filmen, Serien und Games, in welchen verschiedene Figurationen des Hackers in den Vordergrund treten.[2]

Dabei werden zum Beispiel die in politischen Protestkulturen deklarierten flachen Hierarchien durch die Präsentation von fiktiven Anführern in Frage gestellt (Alias). Gleichzeitig referiert z.B. die Maske von Anonymous auf den Film V wie Vendetta. Die Serie Homeland wiederum zeigt maskierte Proteste, die von Anonymous inspiriert sind. Manche Fiktionen werfen Fragen nach einer (moralischen) Berechtigung von Hacking auf (Who am I), hinterfragen kriminelle Motivation (Blackhat) oder „leaking“ (Underground). In anderen verdichten sich Utopien und Dystopien, z.B. hinsichtlich der Überwachung des öffentlichen Raumes (Person of Interest, Watch Dogs). Zudem parodieren sich mache Hackerfigurationen selbst, z.B. das ‚Nerd’-Dasein oder Fanpraktiken (The IT Crowd, Sherlock). Interessant sind auch Figuren, bei denen Gerät und Figur identisch werden (Heroes).

Der Vortrag wird Figurationen des Hackers in fiktionalen Kontexten aufzeigen und den Versuch einer Kategorienbildung unternehmen. Interessant sind dabei Verschiebungen von Peripherie zu Zentrum oder Subversion zu Mainstream. Dabei wird der Schwerpunkt auf Inszenierungen der Gemeinschaftsbildung gelegt, so dass Figurationen des Hackers zu Figurationen der online community werden. Eine Diskursanalyse ihres popkulturellen Erscheinens ermöglicht so die medienwissenschaftliche Reflektion.

"What we knew so far is that ‚television' is benefiting from the advantages provided by the Internet, incorporating online services and using the web as a new channel to enhance viewers' participation. " 1 This statements is representative of the often times euphoric descriptions of television's participatory potential and especially TV series have become the main products to promise viewers participation through consuming their transmedia storytelling. Consequentially, in recent years, television audiences have been described as a coproducing, involved group of recipients, very different to the passive ‚couch-potato' idea that was prevalent before. Today viewers and especially fans inhabit and form " spaces of participation ". 2 One of these spaces was the iPad app that accompanied the BBC Series " DaVinci's Demons " 3 which will be the focus of the proposed paper. Additionally to analyzing the practices of " transmedia storytelling " 4 used by and for " DaVinci's Demons " , I also aim to focus on instances of inclusion and exclusion that constitute participative, transmedial storytelling in order to carve out what participation could or should mean regarding television series. The feature that makes this app especially interesting is its function to synchronize with the currently broadcasted episode's sound, and then matching its contents to the current progression of storytelling and knowledge a viewer can have at that point in the series. For example: Users can explore an interactive map of Florence. Depending on the episode they are watching, different areas are unlocked or different objects can be found. With the progression of the storytelling different 3-D models of DaVinci's inventions become available, but they are only renderings, that do not allow any virtual game play or experimentation. By asking viewers to " Sync Now " at the beginning of each episode, the transmedia storytelling includes those who have both an iPad and the show's app, and turns them into users. But instead of offering a real space of participation, the app strictly regulates its content and restricts the interaction with other fans for users. It is hence neither a way for fans to become " Citizens of Florence " as it promised, nor does it really allow participation. It does not allow for fans to participate in a community of like-minded people nor doesn't allow them to participate with the show. What might appear to be a " new dimension " of second screen apps, turns outs to merely offer additional content in a attractive form. The proposed paper will analyze " DaVinci's App " as an example for promissory transmedial storytelling and for the contemporary marketing of participation.

In 2013, CULT started with an interview with cult-leader Billy Grimm. After short opening 2 credits, the action jumped to a female police investigator, a former cult member herself, searching for her kidnapped sister and nephew. The crime sequence is then revealed to be part of the fictional CW series called " Cult " , embedded in the actual CW series called CULT. Over the course of the season, a journalist investigates the production and the fans of " Cult ". The so called 'True Believers' are shaping up to be a dangerous and fanatic group of fans, willing to kill for their guru-figure, show-runner Stephen Rae. While the 3 show-within-the-show is about a 'classic' cult, its charismatic leader, his implementations of persuasion and fear and a drama-crime plot around that; CULT turns its attention towards the fandom of television shows in general, and is hence an interesting case study for self-reflective views on television fans, TV celebrities and the changing understanding of the term ‚followers'. Politics and Instagram, cults and twitter have drawn nearer — but do they perpetuate the same mechanisms regarding their celebrity figures? The proposed paper will draw upon CULT's and other recently televised cult leaders, like Joe Carroll in FOX's THE FOLLOWING, and question their celebrity qualities by comparing aspects of image, press coverage, self marketing, expectation and promised gratification, hierarchic fandom and following — while focussing on their necessity for authenticity, or rather believability and the interpellation of TV audiences and ‚cult' followers as such.

The Quest (USA, ABC, 2014) ist eine Spielshow mit Reality Faktor und wöchentlichen Verbannungen, gedreht in einem Fantasy-Set mit kostümierten Komparsen, gescripteten Rollen und Spezialeffekten. In meinem Vortrag werde ich mehrere Aspekte des Utopischen bei The Quest betrachten: die topologische Utopie „Everrealm“, die Utopie eines magischen Mittelalters und das utopische Versprechen der Immersion.
12 KanditatInnen, die Paladine, betreten durch einen Tunnel einen Nicht-Ort oder outopos, die Welt von „Everrealm“ – dem „ewigen Reich“ samt Drachen, Magie und Schicksalsgöttinnen. Everrealm hat keinen Ort, der Drehort der Sendung natürlich schon. Die zwölf Länder der Diegese sind Monarchien, samt Ständegesellschaft. Die privilegierten Paladine sind zwar „outlanders“, speisen aber mit der Königin und werden von den Bediensteten des „castle Sanctum“ – erneut ein sprechender Name – umsorgt. Everrealm wird von den Paladinen als guter Ort (entopos) beschrieben, obwohl es keine Welt von Gewaltlosigkeit, Gerechtigkeit oder politischer oder sozialer Utopien ist. Diverse Prüfungen sollen zeigen, wer „the one true hero“ wird. Dieser soll eine wachsende Bedrohung von Dystopie – personifiziert durch den Antagonisten Verlox – abwenden und den Idealzustand des Friedens zwischen den Völkern wiederherstellen. Die von Verlox angestrebte Allmacht ist dabei klar das Schreckgespenst, das es abzuwenden gilt. Die Grundidee, dass Schicksal, Talent und Mut zu Erfolg führen, wird dabei mit den Lebensläufen des Casts kontrastiert: sie werden als ‚nerds’ charakterisiert, deren Flucht in die Welt der phantastischen Erzählungen nun endlich ‚wahr’ wird.
Zu Beginn jeder Episode kommen die ProduzentInnen zu Wort und beschreiben ihre Idee zur Show: „what if we took real people and put them into a fantasy world?“ Ihr Versprechen von Immersion und Historizität wird durch Strategien aus Brett- und Kartenspielen, Pen-&-Paper- und Online-Rollenspielen, sowie Cosplay oder LARPing umgesetzt und durch CGI angereichert, um schließlich im Idealfall „the feel and the grit and the authenticity of a fantasy movie, like things that we worked on, like Lord of the Rings“ (Mark Ordesky, Exec. Prod.) zu erreichen. Auch wenn Everrealm keine politische oder ideologische Utopie ist, erfüllt die Sendung The Quest dennoch die Prämisse: „Utopias are public fantasies“ (vgl. Rabkin/Simon, Fantasy and Utopia, 2002).

There have always been remakes done of old movies, foreign movies, game show concepts and the like. But in recent years there has been a new development in television, to not just synchronize or to remake for language purposes, but to remake “English to English”. I aim to analyse reasons for such remakes, particularly culturally motivated remakes which aim at “localizing” a TV show for a country’s audience and to point out how these remakes are supposed to encapsulate a cultural identity.

Countless British shows have been remade for the US market, infusing something like an “American spirit” into the plot, the aesthetics etc. Of course there are also vice versa remakes, even though British networks tend to adapt certain reality or game show formats, rather than remaking a fictional series. In the first part of my analysis I want to focus on UK|USA TV remakes, while the second part will focus on other English to English remakes, that try to avoid the “west-to-the-rest” dynamics that come with the global practice of the cinema and television industries worldwide of buying screen products „made in Hollywood”.

A contemporary example for that is the remake of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES by the Nigerian TV network “EbonyLife TV”. While there are DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES remakes in Turkish, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, the African adaptation „is the only other one, that will be also done in English.“ Mo Abudu, the CEO of the network, plans to „put an African spin on it.“ by currently casting „pan-African“ talent, using African designers and musicians and by shaping the plot of the original to fit her audiences expectations. Abudu states: „There are some cultural issues, that you wouldn’t put in the Turkish version and there are some cultural issues you wouldn’t put in the African version.“

How and why these “issues” are chosen and changed is not explained in the interview, but is precisely the interest of the paper I want to propose. By close reading some of the originals and remakes I aim to point out reasons and manifestations of this trend back to national television, referring theoretic approaches from TV studies, cultural studies and globalization theories.

Kandi Burruss is a former Xscape member, a reality TV star, a double threat in the music industry, an entrepreneur - she is a brand. And she is a brand, cleverly using several interlinked shows on air and online to tell her story: starting the second season of the The Real Housewives of Atlanta Burruss got her casting-makeover-music-production-spin-off The Kandi Factory on BRAVO in April 2013, successfully utilizing her studio (and even her sex toy line Bedroom Kandi, which developed from her sex-talkshow Kandi Koated Nights, available for the online audience on ,ustream.tv‘). Her blog, myspace, twitter etc. are of course online, but fans can also go visit her clothing boutiques TAGS & TAGS II in Atlanta, Georgia, and hope to meet her offline, while the store also serves as the studio/backdrop for her talkshow. All her different enterprises interlink in her personal story portrayed on reality TV, serving as driving forces for the storyline and sometimes as source for conflict with the other Housewives. I will analyze the utilisation of the different platforms and their specific properties, while always reconnecting them to the narrative concept created around/by Burruss.