Television Storyworlds as Virtual Space

(Hardback)

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Description

Television Storyworlds as Virtual Space examines television as a series of virtual realities viewers enter and explore one episode at a time. Drawing on specific examples, from Westworld to Green Acres, Twin Peaks to Fargo, it illustrates how each of these worlds invites us in, encourages us to move about within it, and constantly pushes against its own boundaries so that its universe continually expands and develops. Specific chapters consider the importance of title sequences in helping us enter these storyworlds, how childrens television educates us in using virtual reality, and the centrality of the post-apocalyptic series to the TV landscape. Ultimately, the book situates television as part of an artistic continuum, one that stretches back as far as cave paintings, but that also anticipates the digitally-based virtual reality that lies just on the horizon.

Reviews

Building on recent work on media narration and digital immersion, M. King Adkinss book is a timely exploration of just what makes television a unique storytelling medium. Television, Adkins demonstrates, is a teleportation devicea narrative technology that tells stories through constructing on-going, immersive storyworlds. We dont just watch TV, we visit, inhabit, return. Further, as Adkins deftly demonstrates, television often tells stories about itself, thus thinking through television stories helps us think through all storytelling technologies and their futures. With this, Adkins offers a particularly useful path to evaluating the now-routine claims about the coming of VR and TVs final defeasance. Absorbing, accessible and filled with evocative examples, Television Storyworlds as Virtual Space is an insightful examination of contemporary television narration, how storyspaces are constructed, and why television endures. -- Tasha Oren, Tufts University

Author Bio

M. King Adkins is associate professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.