Transmedia Terrors in Post-TV Horror: Digital Distribution, Abject Spectrums and Participatory Culture

In the twenty-first century horror television has spread across the digital TV landscape, garnering mainstream appeal. Located within a transmedia matrix, Transmedia Terrors in Post-TV Horror triangulates this boom across screen content, industry practices, and online participatory cultures. Understanding the genre within a post-TV paradigm, the book readdresses what is horror television, analysing not only broadcast TV and streaming platforms but also portals such as YouTube, Twitch.TV, and apps. The book also investigates complex digital media ecologies, blurring distinctions between niche and general audience viewing practices, and fostering new circulation pathways for horror television from around the world. Undertaking netnography, the book further offers an innovative model - abject spectrums - to empirically explore myriad audience responses to TV horror, manifesting in various participatory practices including writing, imagery, and crafts. As such, the book greatly expands what is considered horror television, its formatting and circulation, and the transmedia materiality of audience engagement.

Dr James Rendell is a lecturer in creative industries at the University of South Wales. His research has been published in Transformative Works and Cultures, East Asian Journal of Popular Culture, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, New Review of Film and Television Studies, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, and Global TV Horror.