Search for ‘transmedia’ on its Google Books page.

47
Definition transmedia intertextuality:
“What I found [from recording Saturday morning children's TV] was a fairly consistent form of transmedia intertextuality, which positions young spectators (1) to recognize, distinguish, and combine different popular genres and their respective iconography that cut across movies, television, comic books, commercials, video games, and toys; (2) to observe the formal differences between television and its prior discourse of cinema, which it absorbs, parodies, and ultimately replaces as the dominant mode of image production; (3) to respond to and distinguish between the two basic modes of subject positioning associated respectively with television and cinema, being hailed in direct address by fictional characters or by offscreen voices, and being sutured into imaginary identification with fictional character and fictional space, frequently through the structure of the gaze and through the classical editing conventions of shot/reverse shot; and (4) to perceive both the dangers of obsolescence (as a potential threat to individuals, programs, genres, and media) and the values of compatibility with a larger system of intertextuality, whithin which formerly conflicting categories can be absorbed and restrictive boundaries erased.”

3
“Entertainment is a concept of great familiarity to anyone capable of smiling. While we may struggle to define it in the abstract, we know it when it happens.”

3f
“we can make a crude division between programming whose primary aim is to entertain, to inform and educate, or to sell, which subsequently divides the television world into: (a) entertainment programming (b) news, documentaries, and educational programming and (c) advertisements. Of course, ads frequently hope to sell precisely by entertaining, and a rare few – such as public service announcements – sell by informing and educating.The news, meanwhile, is increasingly becoming entertainment driven, with stories on Paris Hilton’s or Britney Spears’ meltdowns trumping news of diplomatic missions and policy debates. Some of the best educational programming, too, from Sesame Street to Blue Planet, is wonderfully entertaining, and, as I will argue, entertainment often informs and educates.” -> But really they are inseparable.

4
“Beyond quoting the OED or Zillmann and Bryant, I find it remarkably hard to offer a value-neutral definition of entertainment, since it is one of the most automatically moralized concepts. Entertainment can be a compliment or a profanity, and it can represent transcendence or corruption, salvation or sin, depending upon the speaker. Thus, for instance, even the OED’s first example for the word entertainment – “everyone just sits in front of the television for entertainment” (emphasis added) – offers an implicit evaluation and criticism of entertainment and of the act of watching it.”

6
“Summarizing, entertainment’s critics launch three major attacks. First, we see great fear of the incredible powers of television entertainment. Entertainment is posited either as a great ill in and of itself, as capable of masking comparably great ills, or as so completely devoid of content, meaning, and/or value that our culture’s love affair with it is seen as the ultimate waste of time and human potential. Second, entertainment is placed in stark and clear opposition to information and education. When writers talk of entertainment “creeping” into information, they employ the imagery of invasion, rival armies, and unlawful occupation. Finally, particularly when metaphors of narcosis are used, entertainment’s viewers or “users” are frequently seen as unreliable around such a stimulus, and as slaves to their/our addiction, hence meaning that entertainment plus humans equals a troublesome combination.”

13
“Introductory media textbooks are often divided into sections on the media studies’ holy trinity of texts (by which is meant programs/shows),industry (production), and audiences (viewers).”

vii
Definition-creative-industries:
“The organization of “creative industries,’ in which the product or service contains a substantial element of artistic or creative endeavor, has received surprisingly little attention from economists, with a sole exception: the question whether public subsidy is warranted for the performing arts.”

1
Definition-creative-industries:
“One has been largely missed, however – the “creative” industries supplying goods and services that we broadly associate with cultural, artistic, or simply entertainment value. They include book and magazine publishing, the visual arts (painting, sculpture), the performing arts (theatre, opera, concerts, dance), sound recordings, cinema and TV films, even fashion and toys and games.”

xix
Definition-entertainment:
“the act of diverting, amusing, or causing someone’s time to pass agreeably; something that diverts, amuses, or occupies the attention agreeably.” From Webster’s Third New Unabridged International Dictionary, 1967.

Definition-entertainment:
“Entertainment – the cause – is thus obversely defined through its effect: a satisfied and happy psychological state. Yet, somehow, it matters not whether the effect is achieved through active or passive means. Playing the piano can be just as pleasurable as playing the stereo.”

Definition-entertainment:
“Entertainment indeed means so many different things to so many people that a manageable analysis requires sharper boundaries to be drawn. Such boundaries are here established by classifying entertainment activities into industry segments, that is, enterprises or organizations of significant size that have similar technological structures of production and that produce or supply goods, services, or sources of income that are substitutable.”
He defines entertainment from an industrial perspective.

4
Definition-entertainment:
“The concept of entertainment is thus subordinate to that of recreation: It is more specifically defined through its direct and primarily psychological and emotional effects.”

13
“As this post-war generation matures past its years of family formation and into years of peak earnings power and then retirement, spending may be naturally expected to collectively shift to areas such as casinos, cultural events, and tourism and travel, and away from areas that are usually of the greatest interest to people in their teens or early twenties.”

494
“[There] are several frequently observed industry characteristics.”

“Many are called, but few are chosen: Perhaps the most noticeable tendency of entertainment businesses is that in the steady-state growth phase (i.e., after a segment has attained a size at which long-run domination by several large companies has been established), profits from a very few highly popular products are generally required to offset losses from many mediocrities.”

“Marketing expenditures per unit are proportionally large: [...]“

“Ancillary markets provide disproportionately large returns: [...]“

494f
“Capital costs are relatively high; oligopolist tendencies are prevalent: As happens in many other industries, once beyond the very early stages of a segment’s development, the cost of capital and the amount of it required for operations becomes a formidable barrier to entry by new competitors. Most entertainment industry segments thus come to be ruled by large companies with relatively easy access to large pools of capital. Such oligopolistic tendencies can, for example, be seen in distribution of recorded music and movies, and in the gaming, theme park, cable, video game, and broadcasting industries.”

495
“Public-good characteristics are often present: With pure public goods, the cost of production is independent of the number of consumers; that is, consumption by one person does not reduce the amount available for consumption by another. Although delivered to consumers in the form of private goods, many entertainment products and services, including movies, records, television programs, and sports contests, have public-good characteristics.”

“Many products and services are not standardized (which is good for entrepreneurs and bad for relative-productivity gains): There are four important consequences of such nonstandardization:

1. Despite the oligopolistic framework, there is considerable freedom for the entrepreneurial spirit to thrive. That is, operas, plays, movies, ballets, songs, and video games are uniquely produced and are normally originated by individuals working alone or in small groups and not by giant corporate committees. One can become rich and famous as a direct result of one’s own creative efforts.
2. The entrepreneurial spirit and thus the importance of the individual to the productive process is accommodated by means of widely varying, and uniquely tailored, financing arrangements. This is especially evident in movies, recorded music, and sports. Option contracts are central.
3. Where the production is the product itself (e.g., live performance of music or dance), it is difficult to enhance productivity. To some extent, this aspect also appears in areas as diverse as filmmaking, sports, and casino gaming.
4. Under the aforementioned conditions, the costs of creating and marketing entertainment products such as movies and television programs tend to rise at above-average rates.

”

“Technological advances provide the saving grace: Fortunately, ongoing technological development makes it ever easier and less expensive to manufacture, distribute, and receive entertainment products and services.”

“New entertainment media tend not to render older ones extinct: New ways to deliver entertainment products and services are constantly evolving. Although introduction of new entertainment media may diminish the importance of existing forms, the older forms are rarely rendered extinct.”
-> Thesis

496
“Entertainment products and services have universal appeal: Demand for entertainment cuts across all cultural and national boundaries”

501
“Yet the industries are already quite mature in the United States, and expansion will increasingly be linked to the rate of growth of middle-class populations outside North America.”

]]> http://www.woitek.org/vogel-h-entertainment-industry-economics/feed 0 http://www.woitek.org/mu%cc%88ller-e-not-only-entertainment http://www.woitek.org/mu%cc%88ller-e-not-only-entertainment#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 04:50:42 +0000 Woitek Konzal http://www.woitek.org/?p=1513 Müller, Eggo
2009?
Not Only Entertainment: Studien zur Pragmatik und Ästhetik der Fernsehunterhaltung

There’s litle doubt about it that entertainment is changing in its nature. A framework like EA can only be of help then!
See also Müller, E ~ Unterhaltung im Zeitalter der Konvergenz.

5f
Wolf, M J ~ The Entertainment Economy (check out) argues that economy and culture are being ‘entertainmentized.’ Müller is sceptical, but gives lots of examples of people who agree and give examples about various areas where this seems to be true (p. 7).

8
“So gehen Diskussionen, wie sie unter anderen über die “Erlebnisgesellschaft” (Schulze 1992) oder über die so ge­ nannte “Erlebnisökonomie” (Pine/Gilmore 1999) geführt worden sind, im Kern um einen kulturellen Wandel, den ich mit Bezug auf Fern­sehen und Medien als die Aufwertung von Unterhaltung gegenüber anderen kulturellen Praktiken beschreibe.”

12
“der Wandel der Bewertung von Unterhaltungskommunikation, wie er sich in den vergangenen Jahren im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs vollzogen hat, [kann] wohl als das deutlichste Indiz einer Aufwertung der Unterhaltung gelten.”

14
“Diese Traditionen der Beschäftigung mit Medienunterhaltung hat Richard Dyer in seiner richtungsweisenden Essaysammlung Only Entertainment (1992) dahingehend kritisiert, dass sie, statt die spezifi­sche Qualität von Unterhaltung zu benennen und zu erforschen, Un­terhaltung als minderwertige Formen der Kunst oder der Information mit Blick auf ihre unterstelltermaßen ideologische oder manipulative Wirkung kritisieren. Selbst wenn Unterhaltung, wie auch Dyer (1992, 2) realistischer Weise unterstellt, ideologische Implikationen hat, so darf sie begrifflich doch nicht auf “Ideologie” reduziert werden. Zudem kann ihre spezifische Qualität nicht begriffen werden, wenn sie – wie Hügel (1993a, 125) dies in seiner Charakterisierung des Problems der Dichotomisierung von U- und E-Kultur formuliert­ – bloß als “‘missratene Ausgabe’ von Kunst” beschrieben wird.”

“Dyers Versuch, die Qualität von Unterhaltung als solcher zu be­ stimmen, ist Teil eines Umbruchs in der wissenschaftlichen Ausein­ andersetzung mit Unterhaltung, der sich seit Anfang der neunziger Jahre im Windschatten der internationalen Rezeption der British Cultural Studies und ihrer Theorien zur populären Kultur vollzogen hat. Dieser Umbruch lässt sich als “Umwertung der Unterhaltung” be­schreiben, nicht nur, weil nun die eigenständige Qualität von Unter­haltung zum Gegenstand der wissenschaftlichen Forschung wurde, sondern vor allem, weil die Bewertung von Phänomenen und Wirkun­gen der Unterhaltung vom Negativen ins Positive gewendet wurde.”

14-16
The academic understanding of ‘entertainment’ has changed in the wake of “British Cultural Studies.” He illustrates that by comparing the different editions of JH’s Key Concepts in Communication.

23 (he explains the concepts until p. 26)
“So richtet sich medienpsychologische und kommunikationswissenschaftliche Forschung vor allem auf das empirisch mess- oder er­ fragbare Unterhaltungserleben von Rezipienten, ohne dass die Qualität des ‘Stimulusmaterials’ näher in den Blick käme.”
He disagrees.
-> rezeptionsorientierte Perspektive

24
“Vielmehr lasse sich Unterhaltung, so wendet Vorderer gegen produktzentrierte Ansätze ein, allein aus Zuschauersicht fassen, als ein “Rezeptionsphänomen” (ebd., 548).” (Vorderer, 2004)

26
“Im Gegensatz zu den rezeptionsorientierten Ansätzen ist für kul­turwissenschaftliche Studien kennzeichnend, dass sie den Kern des Begriffs der Unterhaltung im historischen Charakter ihrer gesell­schaftlichen Institutionalisierung sehen.”
-> gegenstandsorientierte Perspektive

27
Definition-entertainment:
“entertainment is a type of performance pro­duced for profit , performed before a generalized audience (the public), by a trained, paid group who do nothing else but produce performances which have the sole (conscious) aim of providing pleasure. (1992, 17)” (Dyer, 1992)

“Diese historische Institutionalisierung der Unterhaltung hat Hans­ Otto Hügel (1987; 1993a; 2003b) in seinen Schriften als ihre “Eman­zipation” beschrieben und damit untermauert, dass Unterhaltung im modernen Sinne nicht nur eine unterhaltsame kulturelle Praktik ist, sondern dass diese sich im Laufe des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts als eigenständige Institution und kulturelle Praktik etabliert hat. Sie zeich­net sich deshalb durch spezifische soziale und mediale Kontexte, Pro­duktionsweisen, Gattungen und Genres aus ebenso wie durch spezif­ische Rezeptionserwartungen und -gewohnheiten.”
=> Entertainment is not JUST entertaining. It means something that we understand because we grew up using the word to describe something specific.
=> This understanding is changing. See Müller, E ~ Unterhaltung im Zeitalter der Konvergenz.

28
“Dieses Forschungsprogramm, das sich durch seine Akzentuierung der ästhetischen Qualität von Unterhaltung auch von Cultural Studies und ihrer Theorien der populären Kultur unterscheidet, stellt gleich­ sam den Gegenpol zu medienpsychologischen und kommunikations­wissenschaftlichen Ansätzen in der Unterhaltungsforschung dar.”
-> He argues that the historico-cultural approach cannot be unified with the medienpsychologisch and kommunikationswissenschaftlich approaches: “Unterhalt­samkeit hier, Unterhaltung da.”

29
Pragmatisch-ästhetischer Unterhaltungsbegriff: “Dabei rücke ich im Sinne der kultur­wissenschaftlichen Tradition Dyers und Hügels, jedoch im Gegensatz zu Früh und anderen kommunikationswissenschaftlichen oder medien­psychologischen Begriffen der Unterhaltung, die gesellschaftliche Institutionalisierung von Unterhaltung ins Zentrum. Nur so lässt sich vermeiden, dass alle mehr oder weniger als angenehm erfahrenen For­men des Zeitvertreibs mit Unterhaltung verwechselt werden, und nur so kann die historische Spezifik von Unterhaltung im Unterschied zu anderen kulturellen Praktiken gefasst werden.”
-> Entertainment is something specific and we know what it is. Not everything entertaining is entertainment, i.e. sex. And entertainment is entertainment, whether somebody is entertained by it or not. Even if somebody is not entertained by stand up comedy shows, the shows are still considered entertainment.

32f
Definition-entertainment:
“Unterhaltung wird in den hier versammelten Texten als kulturelle Praktik gefasst, die institutionell produziert und reproduziert wird und sich im Zusammenspiel von institutioneller Produktion, textueller Qualität und rezeptiver Situation aktualisiert. Für das konkrete Unterhaltungserleben ist kennzeichnend [,...] dass es von ästhetischer Art ist.”

37
Entertainment is “Not Only Entertainment,” because it is much more than that: it is cultural practice anchored in history. Did I get that right?

]]> http://www.woitek.org/mu%cc%88ller-e-not-only-entertainment/feed 0 http://www.woitek.org/australian-government-australian-broadcasting-corporation-act http://www.woitek.org/australian-government-australian-broadcasting-corporation-act#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:30:39 +0000 Woitek Konzal http://www.woitek.org/?p=1464 Australian Government
2008
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 (20.12.2010)

Section 6(1)
“The functions of the Corporation are:
(a) to provide within Australia innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard as part of the Australian broadcasting system consisting of national, commercial and community sectors and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, to provide:

(i) broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community; and
(ii) broadcasting programs of an educational nature”
]]> http://www.woitek.org/australian-government-australian-broadcasting-corporation-act/feed 0 http://www.woitek.org/abc-about-bluebird-ar http://www.woitek.org/abc-about-bluebird-ar#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:03:26 +0000 Woitek Konzal http://www.woitek.org/?p=1462 ABC
2010
About Bluebird AR (20.12.2010)

“Just as Literature, Radio, Television and Cinema offer well established mediums for drama, Online is reaching a level of maturity as a medium to offer its own compelling stories. But with a new language that involves interaction, reactivity and scenario-game play, alongside the more traditional languages of storytelling.
In addition, Bluebird AR offered a compelling way to educate and engage audiences in a very current and contentious real world issue that was on the fringe of entering mainstream debate, i.e. geoengineering. The blurring of real and virtual worlds around an issue on the verge of changing the world forever as it edges closer and closer to becoming a reality would offer an immersive and powerful experience.”

]]> http://www.woitek.org/abc-about-bluebird-ar/feed 0 http://www.woitek.org/ruggill-je-convergence-always-already-already http://www.woitek.org/ruggill-je-convergence-always-already-already#comments Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:18:34 +0000 Woitek Konzal http://www.woitek.org/?p=1304 Ruggill, Judd Ethan
2009
In Focus: Moving Between Platforms: Film, Television, Gaming, and Convergence: Convergence: Always Already, Already

Explains that convergence is nothing new.

107
“Convergence of the film and television industries began in the early 1920s before television was even invented, let alone industrialized.”
“[...] by the time commercial television appeared in the 1940s as an outgrowth of radio, Hollywood and broadcasters had been sharing talent, technology, aesthetics, and business practices for decades.”

“The history of television and computer game convergence has a similarly preordained yet strangely irregular terrain, with the game medium materializing in the late 1940s as a byproduct of commercial television research and then mostly lying dormant until the 1970s.”

108
“In contrast to the coming together of film and television, which despite its ebbs and flows was always in process to some extent, television and computer game convergence was more inertial.”

109
“Film and computer game convergence has a genesis similar to television and computer game convergence, beginning with clear promise then lapsing into dormancy.”

110
Since convergence is nothing new, (uncritical) enthusiasm towards new convergences may have to be tempered.

]]> http://www.woitek.org/ruggill-je-convergence-always-already-already/feed 0 http://www.woitek.org/cunningham-s-rates-of-change http://www.woitek.org/cunningham-s-rates-of-change#comments Wed, 13 Oct 2010 06:27:20 +0000 Woitek Konzal http://www.woitek.org/?p=1283 Cunningham, Stuart
Silver, Jon
McDonnell, John
2010
Rates of Change: Online Distribution as Disruptive Technology in the Film Industry

126f
4 generic business models + mix of them exist:

• Advertiser-supported
• Sales / micro-charges / rent
• Sales / micro-charges / buy
• Subscription
]]> http://www.woitek.org/cunningham-s-rates-of-change/feed 0 http://www.woitek.org/wasko-j-hollywood-in-the-information-age http://www.woitek.org/wasko-j-hollywood-in-the-information-age#comments Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:27:02 +0000 Woitek Konzal http://www.woitek.org/?p=1279 Wasko, Janet
1994
Hollywood in the Information Age: Beyond the Silver Screen

Describes the history of change in Hollywood?

2
“the business of entertainment is often not considered serious business by economists and other proponents of an information age.”
“On the other hand, technological components or economic characteristics of entertainment are less important to many media scholars or cultural analysts, who are more interested in studying entertainment products as texts or measuring audiences or the effects of entertainment messages, thus missing the possible connections to fundamental components of this (supposedly) new technological era.”

4
Hollywood has a reputation of being technologically backward.

6
“this book will present a political economic analysis of Hollywood and the latest technologies.”
“Chapter 2 will consider historical treatments of Hollywood and technology, with a brief discussion of specific periods of technological development in film history.
Chapter 3 presents an overview of some of the technological developments in the production of motion pictures, while
chapter 4 details the activities of the dominant Hollywood corporations that link film production with distribution.
Major outlets for the distribution of Hollywood products are considered in the following chapters:
cable (chapter 5),
home video (chapter 6),
and theatrical exhibition (chapter 7).
Hollywood’s marketing and merchandising strategies are detailed in chapter 8,
while global activities are outlined in chapter 9.
Based on these discussions, conclusions will be offered in chapter 10.”

18
“Studying film for film’s sake – A good portion of the academic study of film typically has been insular and self-contained, with little regard to interrelationships between media or media and social context.” She references Thomas H. Guback, 1978, Are we looking at the right things in films?; paper from society for cinema studies conference, philadelpia, penn.

245
“the potential of video, cable and satellite technologies have been developed with profit, rather than expanded communication and/or enlightenment, in mind. In other words, the film industry’s primary motivation has to do with profits, not necessarily with film.”

246
“the dominant use of these new media forms [the ones she talks about throughout the book: VHS, cable, satellite, laser disc, etc.] is entertainment. No, nothing against a good laugh, a good cry, a mindless romp through outer space. The point, again, is that we were promised so much more.”

249-252
3 myths were introduced in chapter 1: the information age (as any other new technology/age before it) promises to bring along

1. more competition -> indies will get their chance
2. industrial conflict -> there is still such a thing as a ‘film industry’
3. more diversity -> more kinds of content will be created

This book showed that all 3 myths are untrue. Hollywood is as dominant es ever. Hollywood is an integrated business, they are not ‘just’ filmmakers. We experience ‘recycled culture’; more outlets simply reair the same existing content.

250f
“Indeed, there are differences in the essences of these various media, as Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis showed us in their work.
Yet these differences are breaking down and it might behoove us to think in terms of transindustrial activities, emphasizing the overlapping strategies of a relatively few corporations producing and distributing entertainment and cultural products. Again, we might also revisit the notion of a culture industry, as depicted by the Frankfurt School theorists in the 1930s.”
=> chapter transmedia lit review, from an industrial (not content) perspective.

254
“It remains to be seen if the public will ever be offered anything really new or challenging from future technological developments or other industrial changes. But it also remains to be seen how the public ultimately will respond.” => new things HAVE come (The Beast), the public IS responding, EA hopes to unify these two.

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