Narrative Ecosystems

Questo lavoro propone un'analisi di come le evoluzioni istituzionali, economiche e tecnologiche dell'industria televisiva statunitense abbiano influenzato forme e formati delle serie TV dal secondo Dopoguerra a oggi. Data la struttura oligopolistica del settore, quindi l'alto tasso di competizione combinato alla dinamicità dell'ambiente (economico, mediale, socio-culturale) in cui opera, la tesi si concentra sulle reazioni dei leader di settore ai ciclici cambiamenti istituzionali, industriali e tecnologici e su come queste reazioni hanno poi agito sul livello formale e testuale delle serie TV, rinegoziandone i fattori di generazione di valore simbolico e monetario. La tesi si compone di cinque capitoli che delineano un percorso co-evolutivo fra industria e produzioni. Nei primi due, di tipo storico-ricognitivo, si indagano le pratiche competitive dell'industria dall'inizio delle trasmissioni all'affermazione degli OTT. Negli altri tre, ci si concentra sul contemporaneo e sulle pratiche che stanno nuovamente ridefinendo il settore e i prodotti, analizzando gli effetti (economici, culturali, estetici) dell'invasione dei player online nel mercato televisivo, con particolare attenzione alla costruzione di ecosistemi digitali e narrativi. Coniugando teorie di television e media studies a strumenti dell'economia e dell'analisi strategica, il lavoro si serve di un approccio sistemico che evidenzia le proprietà dinamiche del settore e dei suoi prodotti, portando così in primo piano la co-evoluzione fra forze di mercato e proprietà formali delle serie TV.

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This thesis examines how the U.S. television industry's institutional, economic and technological evolutions shaped the styles, aesthetics and formats of scripted TV series, from the mid-Forties to today. Being the U.S. TV industry a highly competitive oligopoly, closely related to the fluctuations of the outer environment (national and global economy, mediascape, society and culture), the thesis focuses on how the market leaders responded to cyclical institutional, technological, and industrial changes, along with how these adaptive reactions shaped the forms and texts of TV series, constantly renegotiating their symbolic and financial values. The thesis is composed of five chapters that trace co-evolutionary paths between TV institutions and TV products. The first two chapters provide an historical account of the main industrial practices of the network era and the multichannel transition, highlighting the competition between broadcast TV and cable and outlining some main product groups sharing some aesthetic and narrative features. It then introduces the post-network era and digitization, along with the entrance of OTT players into the TV market. The following three chapters problematize this entrance and examines the manifold ways broadcasters reacted to the new scenario, focusing on corporate strategies, business strategies, formal strategies and the construction of digital and narrative ecosystems. Bringing together television and media studies and strategy analysis, the work uses a sistemic approach that highlights the dynamic features of the industry and its products, eventually bringing to the fore the co-evolutionary patterns of market forces and formal properties of TV series.

Questo lavoro nasce con l’intento di trovare la soluzione a un problema che normalmente nessuno sembra volersi porre: come si riconoscono i personaggi?
Prima di andare a osservare le possibili vie alla risposta, è opportuno focalizzare l’oggetto d’indagine; il personaggio di cui si tratta qui è quello seriale, che abita universi narrativi che non si limitano a un solo testo, ma che proseguono la propria esistenza in maniera continuata, attraversando il tempo e i media, coprendo diverse generazioni e sopravvivendo addirittura ai propri autori.
In un panorama di continua espansione e riscrittura, il personaggio necessita di strategie che gli permettano di resistere ai cambi di tempo, di contesto e di medium; in sostanza, egli ha bisogno di qualcosa che lo renda sé stesso a prescindere dal testo in cui è inserito.

This chapter seeks to stretch the notion of paratext while dealing with the galaxy of heterogeneous material that constitutes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's world. I will offer an explanation of the role of paratexts in terms of flexibility, fluidity, and complexity. The Genettian notion of paratext will be stretched, according to Jonathan Gray's reading, to include official para-texts, such as DVD covers and bonus material, trailers, and posters, as well as an alternate reality game, and grassroots paratexts, such as web parodies, homages, and fan art. Paratexts, designed to be mobile, short-lived, and spreadable, are spaces in which circulatory instances, characteristic of the current media panorama, are more visible. Instead of being thought of only in terms of ephemeral " thresholds " to textuality, they can be studied as key elements of a complex narrative ecosystem. This is especially the case when they are considered sites of negotiation of meaning and translation across worlds, parts of a semiotic process through which an ecosystem adapts to the environment during its lifetime.

"In recent years, we have witnessed a breakdown of the media value chain. Given new spaces and ways of production, distribution and consumption, the linear chain seems to have turned into a reticular network of strategic synergies, branching out to multiple channels and incorporating different agents. In turn, audiovisual products have evolved as well. Contemporary American TV series perfeclty exemplify this situation since, more than ever, their contents and aesthetic forms reflect this networked complexity.
In order to examine how the aesthetics of TV programs adapt and modulate themselves according to the needs of contemporary media-scape, I will focus on the case of MTV series "Teen Wolf", a show designed as a pervasive architecture for users rather than as a traditional text for viewers. Through the analysis of its branding strategies, engaging online campaigns and transmedia storytelling practices, we will see how the pervasive architecture of "Teen Wolf" sets itself as a middle-ground between industry and consumers, apparently breaking down the traditional and linear media value chain. But, at the same time, we will also see how all of these ramifications, expansions and bottom/up participation incentives ultimately lead back to the industry itself, which “domesticates” the participation practices it fosters, setting the boundaries for audience engagement and thus mantaining its central role of policy-maker.
On a broader frame, just like the television industry preserves its centrality over its transmedia extensions, the media value chain keeps on being the “backbone” of its wide array of ramifications."

Nel mio precedente lavoro legato all’ipotesi di una Semiotica Identitaria del personaggio seriale si è volutamente evitato di analizzare le componenti semiche legate al carattere del personaggio (semi nucleari caratterizzanti) e le componenti classemiche della sua messa in discorso, in quanto si è voluto analizzare il personaggio distaccandolo dal contesto e dalle sue funzioni all’interno della narrazione. Qui invece si andrà ad analizzare un prodotto seriale character-based in cui il protagonista risulta fortemente differente rispetto a qualsiasi sua altra versione proprio per via delle componenti caratteriali e si cercherà di vedere come questo possa essere ricollegabile alle differenze contestuali in cui è inserito, in termini di isotopia classemica del Valore che permane il senso della narrazione intera.

In the last twenty years, television has become the center of a wider reflection on serial narratives (Mittell, Weissmann, etc.). Within the framework of narrative complexity, cross-media and convergence culture, we suggest to consider most stories as self-sufficient ecosystems expanded on different platforms. Many narratives articulate themselves far beyond the limits of a single text, and they multiply the storylines, finding a particularly effective form in serial television. Each narrative segment, each platform, each device, becomes an interface for the relation between the ecosystem and its users; the serial narrative is hence produced according to principles of modularity, interoperability, scalarity, expandability, resilience. This model asks for a remapping of the methodologies and theoretical approaches for the interpretation of audiovisual productions: the role of such complex and vast narratives in the global scenario cannot be read only through economy, narratology, phenomenology, and so on. Quite the opposite, the interconnected ecology of such universes need a strong interdisciplinary and comparative approach, in order to delve into the various positions they assume in the production of images and imaginaries.
In such a narrative environment, the aim of this panel is to identify the most effective theories and methodologies in order to remap various aspects of the ecosystem and of its networks, from the use of scientific metaphors to the crossmedia practices and technologies, from the narrative itself to the new global economies flourishing around it. In particular, we would like to test these theories and methodologies by means of specific case studies, locating them in their distinct geocultural scenario of production and reception (e.g., considering each ecosystem’s specific aesthetics and interpretations in its wider cultural context).
In particular, each paper will focus on one case study, chosen for its pertinence with the methodological frame of reference. In the global media panorama, it is a necessity to consider the context producing each narrative; participants have therefore privileged instances close to their cultural background, to multiply their insight of the phenomena and highlight at the same time the global effectiveness of the ecosystemic approach. Crossmedia series will be hence considered rooted in Italy and the US, all present on the global market as well.

Title of the Paper: Serial Narratives as Ecosystems in Contemporary Television

Contemporary television series propose vast narratives, whose construction converges with a complex articulation of the production strategies and multiple forms of fruition. The paper will hence depict the theoretical framework and the methodologies needed to consider such narratives as ecosystems. Their stories are built by the proliferation of various networks, creating an open, interconnected system, struggling for balance. They cross the media and produce proper environments – wide, resilient, interactive: alive.
The paper will then focus on the modular composition of these networks, and on their specific architecture confronted with their entropic growth. The biotic (narrative) components of the ecosystem interact with the abiotic (media) ones, and proliferate in a constant ramification. The ecosystems are transformative structure, whose population (e.g., the characters) is always changing; our research addresses such evolution and the configuration of the world it transmits.
Thinking to contemporary television series as ecosystems does determine a new way to approach all the practices of their production and fruition: each aspect (technologic innovation, economic strategies, narrative choices, etc.) has to be considered in its interactions with the others. Only a holistic perspective would be able to consider the complexity of its ongoing transformations. To better address all these aspects, the paper will focus on one case study, expression of the “average” production in the global panorama of television
series and at the same time an outstanding instance, if considered in its local context.
It will hence refer to the Italian Gomorra as an environment made by the book (Saviano 2006), the film (Garrone 2008), the performance (Gelardi 2009), the television series (Sky Italia 2014-), and the wider discourses about all of them. The interest for this ecosystem comes from the representation of an actual ecosystem (the camorra) as a narrative one (the serialization of the storytelling, its cross-media spread, the creation of a complex fictional universe); the intertwining of extremely local issues (the camorra and its network) with global narrative formats (the investigative book, the feature film, the television series); and, with the exception of the book, the development of objects destined to compete on the global market (unusual for Italian contemporary companies), with specific strategies of narration, production, branding, and so on.