Writing series: The Occupational Culture of Present-Day German Televised Entertainment

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Regina Bendix
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 68338857

Based in cultural anthropology, this subproject researches the professional world of "series writers" in present-day German television. This term refers to a differentiated set of professions which are responsible for a broad set of tasks ranging from the development of narrative arcs to the composition of scripts and dialogues. Actors within these fields belong to the creative industries, a work context marked by the necessities of serial production. This context poses specific challenges to those acting within it: individual flexibility, versatility, and the capacity to perform under pressure. Series writing unfolds in a field of tensions characterized not only by collective creativity and the divided labor of television production, but also by remnants of the aura of individual authorship, and the economic dependencies of wage labor within a globalized market. Drawing from anthropological research on work and professions as well as interdisciplinary research on popular media and literature, the subproject seeks a deeper understanding of serial production, particularly in terms of authorization practices in television. Methodologically, the subproject draws on the empirical methods of cultural anthropology to document both individual/biographical experiences and the more general practices and techniques within the social field of series production. It seeks to understand television series from the perspective of those writing them and pursues this goal in combining interviews on professional biographies and participant observation with the analysis of teaching materials, ego-documents and fictionalized reflections on the nature of series production. The medium of television multiplies authorization practices into interlocking serial components that include narrative, technical, and performative dimensions. Each of these tasks makes demands on creative, artisanal and interpersonal competencies, and for each type of series divergent professional writing profiles may come together. Empirical data regarding actors' entry into the profession and their career trajectories provide insights into how hierarchies emerge, how they are experienced, and what kind of distinctions are drawn between different sub-profiles of series writing. Within the Research Unit, the subproject broadens the empirical focus from the quotidian integration of viewing Tatort (TP7) to the everyday context of series writing for German television. During the first research phase, the Research Unit looked at authorship in German pulp novels (Heftromane, TP6) and American comics (TP4); different authorizing practices, subject to another logic of production, have developed in the medium of television. The subproject cooperates particularly with the following projects of the second funding period: TP-EG3, which examines production aspects of serialized documentary formats; TP-KV3, which is concerned with temporality as an element of serial world building; TP-KV2, which investigates production processes of remakes on the basis of archival records and offers points of contrast and comparison for the analysis of paratexts; and TP-HG1, which addresses the valuation of formats – a matter of concern for the layout of historical periodicals no less than for television schedules and the corresponding authors' fees.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1091: Popular Seriality: Aesthetics and Practice