ABSTRACT
A discipline of Transmedia Character Studies does not exist to date. Yet, contemporary media cultures around the globe are saturated with popular characters who cut across all boundaries of different media forms. In many ways, characters do not even seem restricted to narrative media but are found everywhere around us on material objects, in bodily performances, or in digital interface design. Analyzing characters – and comparing the various media-specific means of their construction, reception, and circulation – can be an ideal starting point to reflect on the material-technological, semiotic-generic, and social-institutional affordances, as well as on the representational strategies used in different popular media forms and media texts to tell stories or comment upon real or imaginary events. This introduction traces foundational research traditions for a potential Transmedia Character Studies. It asks fundamentally in what sense mediated and mediating characters can be said to “actually” exist, interrelating several comprehensive models of character ontology. Subsequently, it addresses significant methodological issues related to the intersubjective and epistemically incomplete constitution of transmedia characters, discussing how different dimensions of a given character can become the subject(s) of analysis.
