scholarly journals Authorship and Authenticity in the Transmedia Brand: The Case of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Author(s):  
Leora Hadas

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the first filmmaking endeavour of its kind: multiple separate superhero films taking place within a single diegetic world, united in a single sequel, The Avengers (2012). The third highest-grossing film in history, The Avengers drew not only on the success of its prequels, its established characters and its stars, but perhaps most of all on its writer-director, cult favourite television auteur Joss Whedon. Having delivered on the film, and with considerable experience in creating quirky, character-based telefantasy, Whedon was a natural choice for Marvel for creating the MCU's first expansion into television, ABC’s Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.LD (ABC Studios/Marvel Television/Mutant Enemy, 2013- ). This article examines the use of Whedon's name and his presence in the promotional discourse of Agents of S.H.I.E.LD as a case study of the role of the media creator in extending the transmedia brand. With the names of creators becoming increasingly visible in association with many texts where they were previously absent, such as television series and blockbuster Hollywood cinema, the use of the author name as a brand name sees growing prevalence across the screen industries. In theorizing transmedia storytelling, Elizabeth Evans (2010) has, accordingly, named authorship as one of the key dimensions in which cohesion is established. In this context, I examine the use of Whedon's involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where the discourse of authorship operates as a guarantor of consistency and authenticity. Looking at the promotional surround of the series in the form of trailers, interviews and convention panels, I track the writer-director's function in validating the brand extension, acting as the glue that holds the transmedia universe together. I examine Whedon's place within the matrix of the franchise, as his authorship is incorporated into and potentially competes with Marvel Studios' own brand.

Studies of animal locomotion are grounded in an understanding of the physical principles that govern how animals move and properties of the media through which they move. These studies, in turn, explain why certain biological devices, such as a wing or a fin, share features that have evolved for movement within their particular fluid environments. In this chapter, we examine the role of the environment and the fundamentals of loading and forces in animal mechanics. We offer a quick review of scaling analyses as well as the key dimensions and units used in this book to assist with your appreciation of the information.


Lumina ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-96
Author(s):  
Svetlana Simakova

The goal of the present study is to demonstrate the media-aesthetic potential of infographic messages on particular cases. This can be done due to an integrated approach to the analysis of the visual content of media content. That indicates the case study method implementation as well as description and generalization. The theoretical basis of the research is represented by scientific studies of various directions. That includes the history of media and visual media culture; features of the concepts of media culture and media language, media aesthetics; infographics as a tool of media language. The empirical basis of the study is journalistic materials containing infographic content of such publications as by RIA Novosti (ria.ru), TASS (tass.ru). The examples of visual image implementation in the transmission of information — media content containing infographics — are given and analyzed. Considering media aesthetics as the formation of a sensory perception of the proposed media content, the author turns to the philosophical and aesthetic foundations of visual practices in the media and post-humanistic trends in journalism. As a result of the analysis of the theoretical and practical basis of the research, the author comes to the conclusion that today the role of the media aesthetic component of messages is most relevant. And infographics, as the connecting link of language and consciousness, is its most striking tool.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-85
Author(s):  
Suada A. Dzogovic ◽  
◽  
Vehbi Miftari ◽  

The topic of this article presents communication challenges and the role of the media in constructing an image of migrants and refugees as “the others” in our societies today. The article analyses the migrant situation in South-Eastern Europe, specifically in migration crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina that has been going on since 2018. The aim is to present the basic aspects of this issue and offer answers to key questions - who are migrants and refugees, what’s their own identity, from which countries do they come, how do they cross the border, where do they go, what is the state’s attitude towards them, what forms and channels of communication the state and other stakeholders use toward them, who cares for them, what do they preserve from their national, cultural and/or language identities and how do they construct self-identity and confront with the “hosting identities”, who donates funds for migration management and how they are managed? Also, a special focus of the research will be on the human rights of migrants and refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is the subject of various discussions - both within the country itself and among various humanitarian, governmental and non-governmental international organizations in the EU and beyond.


2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie Rutherford ◽  
Dean Biron ◽  
Helen Skouteris

Some 30 years ago, Australia introduced the Children's Television Standards (CTS) with the twin goals of providing children with high-quality local programs and offering some protection from the perceived harms of television. The most recent review of the CTS occurred in the context of a decade of increasing international concern at rising levels of overweight and obesity, especially in very young children. Overlapping regulatory jurisdictions and co-regulatory frameworks complicate the process of addressing pressing issues of child health, while rapid changes to the media ecology have both extended the amount of programming for children and increased the economic challenges for producers. Our article begins with an overview of the conceptual shifts in priorities articulated in the CTS over time. Using the 2007–09 Review of the CTS as a case study, it then examines the role of research and stakeholder discourses in the CTS review process and critiques the effectiveness of existing regulatory regimes, both in providing access to dedicated children's content and in addressing the problem of escalating obesity levels in the population.


2001 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Boden

This paper examines the role of the media in articulating and sustaining the tension between romance, fantasy and reason as key dimensions of wedding consumption. Two types of media are analysed as evidence of the development of a popular wedding consumer culture in Britain. First, I cite examples of the coverage of celebrity and unconventional weddings in the popular presses to highlight the current media emphasis upon the wedding as a spectacular, within-reach consumer fantasy. I then provide a more sustained analysis of six British bridal magazines, part of the ideological output of the contemporary wedding industry, which do not exist in a vacuum from those other media sites transmitting wedding imagery. In doing so, I deconstruct the recently formed consumer identity of the ‘superbride’ to reveal two underpinning aspects of her personality: the rational ‘project manager’ existing alongside the emotional ‘childish fantasiser’. This leads me later in this paper into a more general discussion about the roles of reason and emotion, rationality and romance in wedding consumption.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Frédéric Dubois

This scholarly essay discusses one particular form of documentary production: interactive documentary. It does so in the larger context of media innovation research. Its main aim is to shed light on how those thinking and creating living documentaries define and frame social impact. The thesis behind this essay is, that contrary to media innovation happening within the paradigm of what scholars and practitioners call the ‘media industries’ - which are largely tributary to capitalist impact criteria, living documentary producers are mainly driven by the potential social impact that their work might have. By presenting and analysing the living documentary Field Trip (2019), a project in which I assumed a combined role of practitioner-researcher, I offer a case study that illustrates and tests my assumptions. I complement my observations within the case study with interviews and other practices. My findings indicate that from a media production perspective, the impact expectations of those making living documentaries can loosely be as associated with a commons-based production paradigm. Yet, producers of these documentaries constantly need to renegotiate and compromise on their social impact expectations because of internal production affordances and the (external) dominance of the ‘media industries’ paradigm.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xenia Negrea ◽  

In this study we propose an analysis of the media discourse on education. This paper is based on questions such as: in what manner is the media an echo for the public policy authors, for the dominant ideology, and what are the stories featuring the school topic. Using the content analysis, we aimed to find the narrative frames, and a map of the most cited journalistic sources. We found that the media is a very important source for public agenda. In fact, the media is one of the most powerful public and social policy agents. Our analysis covers the journalistic discourse in Romania for a period of one year, from the moment of declaring the state of emergency. One of the hypotheses was that the type of journalistic discourse under analysis is specific to crisis communication. Regarding the corpus of texts, we selected a publication where there are published only features on education, edupedu.ro, a quality publication with stories from different fields, including education, libertatea.ro, and a soft publication, kanald.ro. The texts were analysed from a multidisciplinary perspective, in order to define and describe a narrative pattern. One of our main findings is this fear of contaminating the quality press with false information. And, as a consequence, we have found a journalistic conformism and a lake of creativity and new approaches, respectively assuming a role of facilitating the information, of carrier, rather than of a watchdog.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 531-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter E. Mulherin ◽  
Benjamin Isakhan

This article assesses the link between the state and the media in their coverage of foreign policy decisions. It holds up to empirical scrutiny the claim that genuine press criticism can only occur within the bounds of political-elite debate. Taking the Australian government’s 2014 decision to fight the Islamic State as its case study, it explores areas of consensus and dissensus between political discourse and the media. Conducting a qualitative analysis of three media frames used by major newspapers, it tests the “indexing hypothesis” and concludes that some press coverage went beyond the parameters of political-elite debate. This finding of independent criticism has implications beyond the present case study, as it helps us better understand the role of the media in democracies—specifically, holding governments to account when sending their nations to war.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 233-251
Author(s):  
Joe TOMLINSON ◽  
Liza LOVDAHL GORMSEN

AbstractWhile there has been much talk of the role of parliaments and courts in the Brexit process, far less—indeed very little—has been said about the challenges facing the largest part of the UK government: the administrative branch. Whatever results from the UK’s negotiations with the EU, Brexit will likely necessitate wide-ranging and fast-paced administrative reform in the UK. In this article, we use a detailed case study of a particular part of administration—the Competition and Markets Authority (‘CMA’)—to highlight the nature and extent of the challenges facing administrative agencies. This case study is demonstrative as, while there is an extant UK competition administration structure, competition law and its enforcement are highly Europeanised. We propose that the challenges facing administrative bodies in the UK—including the CMA—can be understood as possessing three key dimensions: internal organisation issues; external coordination issues; and substantive legal issues. We argue that, in many instances, these three dimensions will be in tension which each other. That is to say, the reality of reforming administration post-Brexit will involve trade-offs between questions of internal organisation, external coordination, and substantive law.


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