• "FlashForward": an experiment in Collective Memory Studies

    Author(s):
    Tobias Steiner (see profile)
    Date:
    2011
    Group(s):
    Speculative and Science Fiction, Television Studies
    Subject(s):
    Mass media--Study and teaching, Television
    Item Type:
    Thesis
    Institution:
    Universität Hamburg
    Tag(s):
    Collective memory, Television Studies, Series, Media studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6PB49
    Abstract:
    "The thesis investigates the case of the modern Television drama series FlashForward and sets out to chart the employment of concepts of Collective Memory Studies in the narrative in order to reflect upon the ways of how social perceptions of the past and Collective Memory are remediated in the course of the narrative. To achieve that goal, the thesis provides a selection of concepts and theories concerned with Collective Memory and its medial presentation. Then the series is set into context of a classification of ‘megamovies’ in order to identify characteristics inherent in complex narratives of series such as ‘Battlestar Galactica’, ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘Lost’,’ Fringe’,’ V’ and ‘FlashForward’. As a means of illustrating the complexity of the series’narration, an appendix provides additional information such as the first episode’s mise-en-scène, a chronological sequencing of this episode and an overview of the social relations evolving during the whole season of the show. Subsequently, the characteristics are compared to the discourse of Collective Memory and relations such as the series as ‘fiction of memory’ and ‘fiction of meta-memory’, the presence of intra- and extradiegetic remediations, and the specific role of the narrator in such a fiction of memory are revealed. Finally, the thesis concludes that this television series plays with multiple concepts of Media of Collective Memory and adds a new dimension to the larger discussion about individual and collective memories. What is found in particular is a narration that adds a twist to the definition of memory, because it turns the temporal directionality of memories around."
    Metadata:
    xml
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-ShareAlike
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