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Nicola Maria Dusi

Wednesday 21.4.2021, 18.00-20.00

 

 

Storyworlds, Intersemiotics and Transmedia in “Breaking Bad”

Nowadays, contemporary TV series are studied as “complex tv” or “serial medial ecosystems” (Mittell 2015; Pescatore 2018). We will discuss how these storyworlds become at the same time dynamic “possible worlds” (Eco 1981; Ryan 2014) and the result of many post-media practices of bricolage or remix (Manovich 2013; Dusi, Grignaffini 2020).

We will face some rhetorical and socio-semiotical operations that contribute to create a contemporary narrative ecosystems, focusing on Breaking Bad (ABC 2008-2013), a TV series that has been often defined both “cinematic” and a “postmodern western”, while it opens to intertextual relations with Leone’s, Friedkin’s and Coppola’s movies, and to intermedial relations with music videos, commercials and video games (Dusi 2016).

Through this case study, we will explore items of transmedia storytelling (Jenkins 2006), intertextuality and intermediality (Rajewsky 2005), which work crossing the borders between media and building a larger idea of “transmediality” (Lotman 1992; Saldre, Torop 2012; Dusi 2020).

References

  • Dusi Nicola, 2016, “Intertestuale, intermediale e crossmediale, e il gusto dell’inatteso, in Breaking Bad”, BETWEEN , n. VI, vol. 11, pp. da 1 a 47 (http://ojs.unica.it/index.php/between/article/view/2213).
  • Dusi Nicola, 2020, “The Name of the Rose”: Novel, Film, TV Series between Intermediality and Transmediality, Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics, n. 6: (1), pp. 69-83 (https://punctum.gr/2020-0004/).
  • Dusi Nicola, Grignaffini Giorgio, G. (2020). Capire le serie tv. Generi, stili, pratiche. Roma: Carocci.
  • Eco Umberto, 1981, The Role of the Reader. Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  • Jenkins Henry, 2006, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York, New York University Press.
  • Lotman, Juri M., 2009 [1992], Culture and Explosion. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Manovich Lev, 2013, Software Takes Command. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
  • Mittell Jason, 2015, Complex Tv. The Poetics of Contemporary Television Storytelling, New York - London, New York University Press.
  • Pescatore Guglielmo, a cura di, 2018, Ecosistemi narrativi. Dal fumetto alla serie tv, Roma, Carocci.
  • Rajewsky Irina, 2005, “Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A Literary Perspective on Intermediality.” Intermédialités, n. 6, pp. 49–60.
  • Ryan Marie-Layre, 2014, Story/Worlds/Media: Tuning the Instruments of a Media-Conscious Narratology. In M.L. Ryan & J. Thon (eds.), Storyworlds Across Media: Toward a Media- Conscious Narratology Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 25-49.
  • Saldre Maarja, Torop Peeter, 2012, "Transmedia Space", in Crossmedia Innovations: Texts, Markets, Institutions, edited by Ibrus Indrek and Carlos A. Scolari, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 2012, pp. 25-44.