Working title – Constructing Canon: Authorship and Authority in Transmedia Universes

My thesis investigates the discursive authorial practices that shape narratives set in fictional transmedia universes. It proposes a theoretical model of transmedia authorship that accounts for individual authorship, collaborative authorship and author collectives, distributed and franchised authorial authority, as well as the continuous transitions in between these authorial systems. To this purpose, the thesis addresses the following questions:

• What are the salient aspects of transmedia authorship and how does it differ from models of individual and collaborative authorship?
• How do authors and author collectives construct their authorial authority in relation to each other, and how does that impact both the author brands and the franchise?
• What elements contribute to the construction of different authorial systems and what causes a franchise to switch from one system to the other?
• What impact do authorial systems have on the narrative make of the transmedia universe?

The research project introduces a conceptualisation of transmedia authorship not as a static set of circumstances, but as in constant flux, like the texts it relates to. The model exemplifies the ways in which authorial authority changes hands and shape through three authorial systems which the case studies have embodied at different stages of their expansion and which, the thesis argues, have had a direct impact on the franchises’ narrative continuities. The case studies in question are the Wizarding World, the universe of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, and the Star Wars franchise.