The Walking Dead: Quality Television, Transmedia Serialization and Zombies

Television is no longer what it was. Changes in American television production and distribution practices have transformed not only the way we watch television, but have also challenged the medium’s very defi nition. Now that audiences access television content via DVD, digital downloads and online streaming via a multitude of devices, what was once television programming has become part of what Henry Jenkins has famously described as a more participatory “convergence culture” (2006). At the same time, the rise of American “Quality TV” has destabilized the traditional system of broadcast programming, drawing in new audiences that do not consider themselves television viewers. Experimentation with transmedia narratives, as popular franchises are increasingly spread across multiple media and platforms, has also made it increasingly diffi cult to isolate what was already a fluid and polysemic group of narrative texts.