BMS391H1: The Media Franchise

24L

Reflective of the broader logics of media convergence, media franchises spread their commercial interests and imaginary worlds across many multiple media. For media industries, franchises maximize profits by linking together movies, TV series, books, comics, games, toys, merchandise, and promotional paratexts to encourage consumption. At the same time, they are a platform for new forms of serial narrative, world-building, and transmedia storytelling, and generate vibrant, diverse fan cultures that are sometimes at odds with franchise producers. Drawing on a wide range of scholarly and critical work, this course examines popular media franchises from historical, economic/industrial, formal/aesthetic, and sociocultural perspectives.

SMC301H1 ("The Media Franchise", offered in Winter 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021), BMS303H1 ("The Media Franchise", offered in Fall 2022)
Humanities
Creative and Cultural Representations (1)