Wired TV: Laboring Over an Interactive Future

306 Pages·2014·2.434 MB·English

by  Denise Mann (ed.)

Wired TV

Wired TV
Laboring Over an Interactive Future
EDITED BY DENISE MANN
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wired TV : laboring over an interactive future / edited by Denise Mann.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8135-6454-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8135-6453-1 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-0-8135-6455-5 (e-book)
1. Television broadcasting — United States. 2. Interactive television — United States.
3. Social media — United States. 4. Mass media — United States. I. Mann, Denise,
editor of compilation.
HE8700.8.W57 2013
384.3'1 — dc23 2013013408
A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Vincent Brook, “Convergent Ethn icity and the Neo-Platoon Show: Recombining Diff erence
in the Postnetwork Era” originally appeared in Television & New Media 10, 4 (July 2009):
331 – 3 53.
Derek Johnson, “Authorship Up for Grabs: Decentralized Labor, Licensing, and the Manage-
ment of Collaborative Creativity” is adapted from material in Derek Johnson, Media Fran-
chising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries (New York: New York
University Press, 2013). Th anks and acknowledgment go to NYU Press for the kindness in
allowing this material to be repurposed here.
Th is collection copyright © 2014 by Rutgers, Th e State University
Individual chapters copyright © 2014 in the names of their authors
All rights reserved
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or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permis-
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Brunswick, NJ 08901. Th e only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defi ned by U.S.
copyright law.
Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
Manufactured in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: When Television and New Media Work
Worlds Collide 1
DENISE MANN
1 Authorship Up for Grabs: Decentralized Labor, Licensing,
and the Management of Collaborative Creativity 32
DEREK JOHNSON
2 In the Game: Th e Creative and Textual Constraints of
Licensed Video Games 53
JONATHAN GRAY
3 Going Pro: Gendered Responses to the Incorporation of
Fan Labor as User-Generated Content 72
WILL BROOKER
4 Labor of Love: Charting Th e L Word 98
JULIE LEVIN RUSSO
5 Th e Labor Behind the Lost ARG: WGA’s Tentative Foothold
in the Digital Age 118
DENISE MANN
6 Post-Network Refl exivity: Viral Marketing and
Labor Management 140
JOHN T. CALDWELL
7 Fan Creep: Why Brands Suddenly Need “Fans” 161
ROBERT V. KOZINETS
v
vi • Contents
8 Outsourcing Th e Offi ce 176
M. J. CLARKE
9 Convergent Ethnicity and the Neo-Platoon Show:
Recombining Diff erence in the Post-Network Era 197
VINCENT BROOK
10 Translating Telenovelas in a Neo-Network Era: Finding an
Online Home for MyNetwork Soaps 223
KATYNKA Z. MARTÍNEZ
11 Th e Reign of the “Mothership”: Transmedia’s Past, Present,
and Possible Futures 244
HENRY JENKINS
Notes on Contributors 269
Index 273
Acknowledgments
I undertook this collection thinking it would be a quick and easy endeavor — a
cleansing of the palate, if you will — a ft er the long and arduous task of com-
pleting a single-author book. Aft er putting this project aside multiple times
to attend to various pressing demands, I looked up and realized that nearly a
dozen scholarly books had been published on the topic of television in the dig-
ital age. Th e presence of such strong and compelling works — all from unique
and valuable perspectives — made the task of compiling this collection that
much more daunting. Th erefore, I’d like to thank the fi rst-rate editorial team
at Rutgers University Press and give a special acknowledgment to editor Leslie
Mitchner for her early support of the project in its proposal stage and for her
helpful comments, encouragement, and provocative suggestions on the manu-
script when I fi nally delivered it.
Situating this project in such a cluttered research space was made easier
because of the original and insightful work of my contributors. In particular,
I’d like to single out Henry Jenkins, who added yet another responsibility to
his already overfl owing “to do” box by agreeing to co-chair our annual Trans-
media Hollywood conference. Th is forum provided the perfect backdrop
for researching this book’s themes by bringing together cutting-edge media
makers and thought leaders from diverse corners of the entertainment indus-
try and academia to debate issues attending the future of entertainment. Th e
fi rst conference year was the most daunting. We had timed our launch in Los
Angeles to coincide with the arrival of hundreds of media scholars in March
2010 to attend the annual Society of Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) con-
ference. Given our zealous desire to share the riches of our proximity to Hol-
lywood, we also assembled a SCMS workshop at the Bonaventura Hotel and
dubbed it “Th e Geek Elite Debates the Future of Entertainment.” Th e work-
shop convened a truly elite group of television writer-producers — C arlton
vii
viii • Acknowledgments
Cuse and Damon Lindelof (Lost), Tim Kring (Heroes), Kim Moses (Th e Ghost
Whisperer), Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Th e Middleman), and Mark Warshaw
(Smallville, Heroes). All of them were laboring over the central questions that
inform this collection: how to challenge themselves and their creative teams
to embrace the transformative implications of the Internet and Web 2.0 in the
context of an oft en rigid, opaque, and risk-adverse bureaucratic system like the
network television industry. I remain indebted to each of these prominent cre-
ators for their ongoing support as I continued to ply them with questions and
requests for follow-up interviews while assembling this collection.
Next, I’d like to thank my UCLA colleagues: Teri Schwartz, dean of the
School of Th eater, Film, and Television, and William McDonald, chair of the
Department of Film, TV, and Digital Media; my immediate workplace family,
UCLA Producers Program faculty members Barbara Boyle, Ben Harris, and
Myrl Schreibman, as well as my extended workplace family of over thirty busy,
top-tier industry professionals, who agree to teach classes on behalf of our
next-generation producers. I’d like to thank my adopted workplace family, the
Cinema and Media Studies faculty members Janet Bergstrom, John Caldwell,
Allyson Fields, Stephen Mamber, and Chon Noriega. In addition, I’d like to
thank all the MA, MFA, and PhD students at UCLA for their direct and indi-
rect contributions to this project through their insightful works and original
ideas delivered during my seminars. In particular, I’d like to thank my research
assistant and doctoral student Jessica Fowler for her careful copyediting and
helpful suggestions. In addition, I’d like to thank several current and recent
UCLA doctoral students — M. J. Clarke, Lindsay Giggey, Felicia Henderson,
Drew Morton, Jennifer Porst, and Ben Sampson — whose exacting research
and writing on the contemporary entertainment industry make teaching such
a continued source of pleasure.
Wired TV