Watching Game of Thrones

How audiences engage with dark television

Martin Barker, Clarissa Smith, Feona Attwood

• Éditeur: Manchester University Press
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526152169
• Sujet: Media & Performing Arts
• Sous-sujet: Television

Game of Thrones was an international sensation, and has been looked at from many different angles. But to date there has been little research into its audiences: who they were, how they engaged with and responded to it. This book presents the findings of a major international research project that garnered more than 10, 000 responses to an innovative 'qualiquantitative' questionnaire. Among its findings are: a new way of understanding the place and role of favourite characters in audiences' responses; new insights into the role of fantasy in encouraging thinking about our own world; and an account of two combined emotions – relish and anguish – which structure audiences' reactions to controversial elements in the series.

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The remarkable phenomenon that is Game of Thrones
• 2 Generating a ‘richly structured combination of data and discourses’
• 3 Distinguishing different kinds of audience
• 4 Favourite characters, favourite survivors
• 5 The significance of favourite character choices
• 6 Winter is coming …
• 7 Conflicts and controversies
• 8 Making predictions for an unpredictable world
• Postscript: ‘If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention’
• Appendix 1: The questionnaire
• Appendix 2: ‘Mentions’
• Bibliography
• Index