Convergent Wrestling: Participatory Culture, Transmedia Storytelling, and Intertextuality in the Squared Circle

This book examines how the current era of ＂convergence＂ has affected, and is reflected in, the world of professional wrestling, which combines several different genres, including drama, action, comedy, horror, science fiction, and even romance. Professional wrestling’s business practices exist at the intersection of bottom-up fan-centric strategies and strict top-down corporate control. Meanwhile, the wrestlers themselves combine aspects of carnival hucksters, actors/actresses, comedians, superheroes, martial artists, or stuntmen, and the narratives consist of everything from social critique to geopolitical allegories, and from soap opera melodramas to stereotyped exploitation. Bringing together the latest scholarship in the field, Convergent Wrestling analyzes various texts, business practices, and fan activities to explore the commonalities that define professional wrestling and consider how it exists in today’s new media ecology. In addition, the book considers the professional wrestling industry from several different angles, from massive multinational conglomerate World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to local indie federations. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in popular culture, media and cultural studies, and fan practices.

CarrieLynn D. Reinhard is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Dominican University, USA. She is the author of Fractured Fandoms: Contentious Communication in Fan Communities, the co-author of Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema, and the co-editor of Making Sense of Cinema: Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship and Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children’s Entertainment Media.

Christopher John Olson is a Ph.D. student in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, USA, where he studies media, cinema, and digital studies. He is the author of 100 Greatest Cult Movies, co-author of Possessed Women, Haunted States: Cultural Tensions in Exorcism Cinema, and the co-editor of Making Sense of Cinema: Empirical Studies into Film Spectators and Spectatorship and Heroes, Heroines, and Everything in Between: Challenging Gender and Sexuality Stereotypes in Children’s Entertainment Media.