22
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
transmedia studies to come to terms with those changes laid out above.
The contributions make clear that a project of rethinking adaptation in
a convergent environment means that not only old and new media, but
also old and new questions and research methods need to “collide” and be
brought together in new ways. 32 To come to terms with the rise of digital
media as media with new affordances, the transformation of the dynamics of
contribution, control, and brand management, as well as the transformation
of economic and legal structures of production, profit, and exploitation,
contributions therefore draw on a wide variety of fields and approaches,
and adapt their methodology to the material studied. As the contributions
show, such methods can range from 19th-century theories such as pragmatist
philosophy or the theory of evolution (Schober), via 20th-century narratology
(Heinze), film studies (Goggin), and legal studies (Schäfke), to 21st-century
theories developed in media and fan studies (Poore; Soller; Constandinides).
They can also include re-evaluations of previously marginal concepts from
literary studies such as Gérard Genette’s notion of paratexts, which scholars
such as Jonathan Gray and Dorothee Birke and Birte Christ have in recent
years brought to bear on non-print media (Voigts). 33
As the authors engage with the sometimes new, sometimes seemingly
novel but merely transformed phenomena that emerge in a convergent
environment around adaptive phenomena, they map the challenges of new
media, fan engagement, and content and rights management by franchise
holders, as well as the creation of interconnected transmedial texts and
franchises. In this fashion, they offer remappings of adaptational practices
within new media and the field as a whole.
Regina Schober proposes a model that regards adaptations not as a
unidirectional process from “original” to derivative text, but instead as a
set of dualisms between “source medium” and “adaptation” on one side,
and “producer” and “recipient” on the other. To make her point, Schober
draws on evolutionary theory and pragmatism. She combines this with
recent network theory to develop a model that accounts for the inherently
complex, non-linear, and decentralized dynamics of cultural processes,
including adaptations. Adopting Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, she
highlights shifting connections between human and non-human actors.
Adding biological conceptions of adaptation to this Latourian network
32 Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 2.
33 Jonathan Gray, Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts (New
York: New York University Press, 2010). Dorothee Birke and Birte Christ, “Paratext and Digitized
Narrative: Mapping the Field,” Narrative 21, no. 1 (2013): 65–87.
AdAptAtion in the Age of MediA ConvergenCe
transmedia studies to come to terms with those changes laid out above.
The contributions make clear that a project of rethinking adaptation in
a convergent environment means that not only old and new media, but
also old and new questions and research methods need to “collide” and be
brought together in new ways. 32 To come to terms with the rise of digital
media as media with new affordances, the transformation of the dynamics of
contribution, control, and brand management, as well as the transformation
of economic and legal structures of production, profit, and exploitation,
contributions therefore draw on a wide variety of fields and approaches,
and adapt their methodology to the material studied. As the contributions
show, such methods can range from 19th-century theories such as pragmatist
philosophy or the theory of evolution (Schober), via 20th-century narratology
(Heinze), film studies (Goggin), and legal studies (Schäfke), to 21st-century
theories developed in media and fan studies (Poore; Soller; Constandinides).
They can also include re-evaluations of previously marginal concepts from
literary studies such as Gérard Genette’s notion of paratexts, which scholars
such as Jonathan Gray and Dorothee Birke and Birte Christ have in recent
years brought to bear on non-print media (Voigts). 33
As the authors engage with the sometimes new, sometimes seemingly
novel but merely transformed phenomena that emerge in a convergent
environment around adaptive phenomena, they map the challenges of new
media, fan engagement, and content and rights management by franchise
holders, as well as the creation of interconnected transmedial texts and
franchises. In this fashion, they offer remappings of adaptational practices
within new media and the field as a whole.
Regina Schober proposes a model that regards adaptations not as a
unidirectional process from “original” to derivative text, but instead as a
set of dualisms between “source medium” and “adaptation” on one side,
and “producer” and “recipient” on the other. To make her point, Schober
draws on evolutionary theory and pragmatism. She combines this with
recent network theory to develop a model that accounts for the inherently
complex, non-linear, and decentralized dynamics of cultural processes,
including adaptations. Adopting Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, she
highlights shifting connections between human and non-human actors.
Adding biological conceptions of adaptation to this Latourian network
32 Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 2.
33 Jonathan Gray, Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts (New
York: New York University Press, 2010). Dorothee Birke and Birte Christ, “Paratext and Digitized
Narrative: Mapping the Field,” Narrative 21, no. 1 (2013): 65–87.