Wired TV

About this book

Overview: This collection looks at the post-network television industry's heady experiments with new forms of interactive storytelling-or wired TV-that took place from 2005 to 2010 as the networks responded to the introduction of broadband into the majority of homes and the proliferation of popular, participatory Web 2_0 companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Contributors address a wide range of issues, from the networks' sporadic efforts to engage fans using transmedia storytelling to the production inefficiencies that continue to dog network television to the impact of multimedia convergence and multinational, corporate conglomeration on entrepreneurial creativity. With essays from such top scholars as Henry Jenkins, John T. Caldwell, and Jonathan Gray and from new and exciting voices emerging in this field, Wired TV elucidates the myriad new digital threats and the equal number of digital opportunities that have become part and parcel of today' post-network era. Readers will quickly recognize the familiar television franchises on which the contributors focus-including Lost, The Office, Entourage, Battlestar Gallactica, The L Word, and Heroes-in order to reveal their impact on an industry in transition. While it is not easy for vast bureaucracies to change course, executives from key network divisions engaged in an unprecedented period of innovation and collaboration with four important groups: members of the Hollywood creative community who wanted to expand television's storytelling worlds and marketing capabilities by incorporating social media; members of the …

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