The Aesthetics of Interactive and Pseudo-Authentic Web Series
Project director: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Markus Kuhn, Universität Hamburg
Research assistance: Andreas Veits
This research project is has two major objectives: First, a theory-based model for the classification of web series in terms of aesthetics and narrative structures will be developed. Second, the appropriation of web series by user communities will be analyzed with a focus on the interrelation of appropriation practices and process of production. The corpus will consist of all German web series published so far, as well as representative examples of US-American web series. The term “web series” as it is used in the research project, refers to audiovisual forms on the Internet, which are characterized by serialism, fictionality and narrativity, and are produced initially for Internet platforms.
Professionally produced web series increasingly employ cinematic conventions and established genre patterns, which are translated into this new medium and adapted to the media frames of the Internet. At the same time, there are many semi-professional and private web series, whose production concepts as well as their local and social environments influence their narrative structures and aesthetics. However, for this type of web series the framing by the Web 2.0 is especially important. Hence, the aesthetics of web series cannot be described without addressing questions of translation and framing, as well as the appropriation by user communities: Aesthetics established in television and film are being translated into a new media environment. The resulting frames are affecting the user’s reception and appropriation of web series.
The research project will mainly draw upon analyses of two types of web series that can be described as ‘pseudo authentic’ and ‘interactive.’ Most of the web series of these types are highly intertwined with the media environment of YouTube, which influences their explicit and implicit interactive potential and structural integration in the social web. Thus, both aspects shape the practices of appropriation, which in return affect the configurations of the web series. Imprints of appropriation by user communities of web series can be found in paratexts on the Internet (comments, response videos, etc.).
Accordingly, besides questions of mediality aspects of situationality need to be taken into account here. Thus, it is crucial to examine how the situational-specific meaning making is determined by technical and social context. In this regard, it will also be elaborated in which way aspects of culturality interact with processes of appropriation: When conventionalized narrative structures of US-American cinema and television are adapted by German web series, cultural models are taken up into different cultural frames, as well.