The idea of metatextuality is frequently framed as a recent television development and often paired with the idea that it represents genre exhaustion. US television, however, with its early “live” performances and set-bound sitcoms, always suggested an element of self-awareness that easily shaded into metatextuality even in its earliest days. Meta Television thus traces the general history of US television’s metatextuality throughout television’s history, arguing that TV’s self-awareness is nothing new—and certainly not evidence of a period of aesthetic exhaustion—but instead is woven into both its past and present practice, elucidated through case studies featuring series from the 1970s to the present day—many of which have not been critically analyzed before—and the various ways they deploy metatext to both construct and deconstruct their narratives. Further, Meta Television asserts that this re- and de-construction of narrative and production isn’t just a reward to the savvy and/or knowledgeable viewer (or consumer), but seeks to make broader points about the media we consume—and how we consume it. This book explores the ways in which the current metatextual turn, in both the usual genres in which it appears (horror and sci-fi/fantasy) and its movement into drama and sitcom, represents the next turn in television’s inherent self-awareness. It traces this element throughout television’s history, growing from the more modest reflexivity of programs’ awareness of themselves, as created objects in a particular medium, to the more significant breaking of the fictive illusion and therefore the perceived distance between the audience and the series. Erin Giannini shows how the increased currency of metatextual television in the contemporary era can be tied to a viewership well-versed in its stories and production as well as able and willing to “talk back” via social media. If television reflects culture to a certain extent, this increased reflexivity mirrors that “responsive” audience as a consequence of the lack of distance that metafiction embraces. As Robert Stam traced the use—and implications—of reflexivity in film and literature, this book does the same for television, further problematizing John Ellis’s glance theory in terms of both production and spectatorship.

The first book-length study of meta-phenomena in film and television series.

Publisher Description

One possible description of the contemporary medial landscape in Western culture is that it has gone ‘meta’ to an unprecedented extent, so that a remarkable ‘meta-culture’ has emerged. Indeed, ‘metareference’, i.e. self-reflexive comments on, or references to, various kinds of media-related aspects of a given medial artefact or performance, specific media and arts or the media in general is omnipresent and can, nowadays, be encountered in ‘high’ art and literature as frequently as in their popular counterparts, in the traditional media as well as in new media. From the Simpsons, pop music, children’s literature, computer games and pornography to the contemporary visual arts, feature film, postmodern fiction, drama and even architecture – everywhere one can find metareferential explorations, comments on or criticism of representation, medial conventions or modes of production and reception, and related issues. Within individual media and genres, notably in research on postmodernist metafiction, this outspoken tendency towards ‘metaization’ is known well enough, and various reasons have been given for it. Yet never has there been an attempt to account for what one may aptly term the current ‘metareferential turn’ on a larger, transmedial scale. This is what The Metareferential Turn in Contemporary Arts and Media: Forms, Functions, Attempts at Explanation undertakes to do as a sequel to its predecessor, the volume Metareference across Media (vol. 4 in the series ‘Studies in Intermediality’), which was dedicated to theoretical issues and transhistorical case studies. Coming from diverse disciplinary and methodological backgrounds, the contributors to the present volume propose explanations of impressive subtlety, breadth and depth for the current situation in addition to exploring individual forms and functions of metareference which may be linked with particular explanations. As expected, there is no monocausal reason to be found for the situation under scrutiny, yet the proposals made have in their compination a remarkable explanatory power which contributes to a better understanding of an important facet of current media production and reception. The essays assembled in the volume, which also contains an introduction with a detailed survey over the possibilities of accounting for the metareferential turn, will be relevant to students and scholars from a wide variety of fields: cultural history at large, intermediality and media studies as well as, more particularly, literary studies, music, film and art history.

The 2022 International Conference on Art Design and Digital Technology (ADDT 2022) was successfully held on September 16-18, 2022 in Nanjing, China (virtual conference). ADDT 2022 created a forum for idea sharing and research exchange, opened up new perspectives in related fields and broadened the horizons of all participants. In the conference, 150 individuals around the world took part in the conference. Divided into three parts, the conference agenda covered keynote speeches, oral presentations and online Q&A discussion. Firstly, the keynote speakers were each allocated 30-45 minutes to address their speeches. Then in the oral presentations, the excellent papers we had selected were presented by their authors one by one. We are glad to share with you that we’ve selected a bunch of high-quality papers from the submissions and compiled them into the proceedings after rigorously reviewing them. These papers feature but are not limited to the following topics: Computer Art, Visual Design, Digital Media, Innovative Technology, etc. All the papers have been checked through rigorous review and processes to meet the requirements of publication. We would like to acknowledge all of those who supported ADDT 2022 and made it a great success. In particular, we would like to thank the European Alliance for Innovation (EAI), for the hard work of all its colleagues in publishing this paper volume. We sincerely hope that the ADDT 2022 turned out to be a forum for excellent discussions that enable new ideas to come about, promoting collaborative research.