Jacqueline Burgess

Whether novelists publish traditionally or independently, marketing is a crucial element of their work if they are to earn a sustainable living from their creative practice. Increasingly, traditional publishing houses require novelists to undertake marketing activities, while self-published (independent) novelists have little choice other than to do their own marketing; however, research into the labour practices of novelists, including their marketing activities and knowledge, is still an emerging field. This research has been conducted using semi-structured interviews with seventeen emerging novelists in order to explore their marketing knowledge and activities and address this knowledge gap. The interviews were recorded with permission, transcribed, and analysed using thematic analysis. The results indicated a significant gap in their knowledge of this vital aspect of their vocation. Novelists interviewed had very mixed marketing skills ranging from sophisticated to limited. Most of the novelists wanted to improve their marketing knowledge and acknowledged marketing as important, but they lacked the time and resources to undertake this improvement. 

After unprecedented events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations reflect on their responses. In this research, we explore how regional creative industries responded to the pandemic to inform future strategies, government and council policies, and crisis responses. This article explores how community and fringe theatres, known for their community connections, responded to the pandemic in several high-growth regions in Queensland, Australia. Much like the general community, these theatres responded and were impacted differently; some felt little impact, while others were severely financially and creatively impacted. While they all had to adapt, the fringe theatres were more likely to further innovate.

This research sought to discover how readers of crime fiction novels interact with these texts utilizing a co-creative lens. A qualitative online survey was conducted on three popular crime fiction websites and the responses were analyzed using thematic analysis. It was found that, in contrast to prior research, crime fiction novel readers do not simply view crime fiction as a puzzle to be solved. Instead, they place a high degree of importance on the substantive elements of the fiction such as the quality and details of the plot, setting, and the characters constructed by the author. These findings indicate that crime fiction novel authors should note that their readers desire a more general and pleasurable reading experience than was previously thought.

Purpose: This article investigates consumer perceptions of inauthenticity due to adulteration of a narrative brand ending utilising the research context of the final season and ending of the television series, Game of Thrones.

Design/methodology/approach: Two datasets totalling 2032 online comments detailing consumer reactions to the final season of Game of Thrones were analysed utilising thematic analysis and human interpretive analysis. The coding was an iterative and continuous process, and posts were returned to and re-examined to refine codes and groupings as the analysis progressed.

Findings: The results indicate consumers perceived the ending of the eighth and final season of the television series, Game of Thrones, did not meet their expectations and was not authentic due to rushed writing and illogical character and plot developments. Consumers judged this adulteration was so great that it was a moral violation and transgression. Consumers also sought to assign blame for the inauthenticity, which they attributed to the writers and showrunners, who became the subject of revenge behaviours.

Originality: This study indicates consumers of narrative brands, due to their strong emotional attachments to their characters and storyworlds, may perceive unexpected and extensive changes to them as moral violations and transgressions and thus inauthentic. Consumers establish the authenticity of a narrative brand by regularly scrutinising narrative and character development against their expectations as shaped by prior narrative content. Due to their emotional attachment, consumers may attempt to attribute blame for the inauthenticity. The findings have not been established in prior research, and inauthenticity in a narrative brand context is also explored for the first time.

Sports podcasting has spread rapidly over the past decade and reflects how sports media have been quick to embrace new technologies. Despite being a relatively recent medium, podcasts have expanded the sports field with their format and content. The rise in podcast shows and episodes has been noticeable, but less is known, particularly in an academic context, about the audience's desire for sports news and information. Utilising the audience of The Final Word, a global podcast focusing on cricket, this study will examine perceptions of media engagement and news consumption through a survey of 333 listeners. The Final Word is a popular podcast that has gained critical acclaim for its content and format, and is hosted by two cricket writers, who are based in Australia and the United Kingdom. The findings provide important global insights and descriptive results of the habits and perceptions of listeners in relation to media engagement and news consumption of a journalistic podcast.

Video games such as the successful Assassin’s Creed series allow consumers to engage with various historical contexts and to explore them in engaging and influential ways. However, it is unclear what consumers understand as the difference between the historical authenticity and historical accuracy used by developers in these games. Therefore, this research explored players of Assassin’s Creed games’ understanding of these two concepts and how they expected developers to utilize them. The study used a qualitative analysis of 959 online forum comments and an online survey with 88 respondents. While it was found that players understood historical accuracy and valued it in video games, historical authenticity prompted confusion with 43% describing it as the same as historical accuracy. The results were used to develop a new player-centric definition of historical authenticity to clarify player understandings and present useful and practical implications for developers and publishers.

This research examines the concept of emergent narrative, located in Game Studies, and brand co-creation, located in Brand Management to bring together both disciplines to produce new understandings about both concepts, video games and their players. Two stages of research were conducted. It was found that players were taking part in brand co-creation behaviours by creating emergent narratives, some of which were quite elaborate. Although these emergent narratives provided no gameplay advantages, creators and other players reading them online derived enjoyment from them which enhanced their consumption of the video game brand. By innovatively bringing together two synergistic disciplines this research extends knowledge about video game media branding demonstrating how examining video game brands using concepts from multiple disciplines can provide rich and useful insights.

Purpose

This study aims to contribute to research into narrative brands by investigating if the lack of closure in the ambiguous season two’s ending of the Australian television series, Wanted, constituted a brand transgression.

Design/methodology/approach

Comments on posts about Wanted from social media accounts associated with the series were downloaded and analysed using thematic analysis informed by non-participatory netnography.

Findings

Audiences found the ambiguous ending of Wanted season two disappointing and it did not fulfil implied promises and their expectations, which fits the description of a brand transgression, and so they engaged in behaviours indicative of a brand transgression such as spreading negative word of mouth online. The ambiguous ending could have been a cliff-hanger to lead into a third season that was not guaranteed when the final episode aired, or the ending for the entire series. Although a third season was eventually made and positively received by audiences, viewer numbers declined by nearly a third, illustrating the importance of brand management for narrative brands.

Practical implications

This research has implications for the creators of television series, particularly if they do not know if it will be renewed. Not providing audiences with their expected closure can constitute a brand transgression and damage the narrative brand’s residual brand equity and potential earnings from streaming or a revival at a later date.

Originality/value

Prior research has focused on audiences’ responses to definitive endings, rather than ambiguous endings, which is the focus of this research. Furthermore, narrative brands are still an under-researched context.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate members' reactions to the forced closure of a narrative video game brand community and its participatory culture. Design/methodology/approach: The BioWare Social Network forums closure was announced in a thread, which attracted 8,891 posts. These were analysed using thematic analysis, facilitated by the software program Leximancer and non-participatory netnography. Findings: The brand community and participatory culture members were predominantly distressed because they would lose their relationships with each other and access to the participatory culture's creative output. Research limitations/implications: Previous research suggested that video game players cannot be fans and that player-generated content is exploitative. However, members, self-identified as fans, encouraged BioWare's use of their player-created content for financial gain and articulated the community's marketing benefits, all of which have implications for Fan and Game Studies' researchers. Research using primary data could identify brand communities and participatory cultures' specific benefits and their members' attitudes about brands' commercial use of their outputs. Further research is required to identify other products and brands not suitable for establishing brand communities on social media to determine the best ways to manage them. Practical implications: Addressing narrative brand communities' complaints quickly can prevent negative financial outcomes and using social media sites for brand communities may not be suitable structurally or because of members' privacy concerns. Furthermore, consumers often have intense emotional bonds with narrative brands, their communities and participatory cultures, which marketers may underestimate or misunderstand. Originality/value: This study of the unique phenomenon of the forced closure of a narrative brand community and its participatory culture increased understandings about them.

This study investigated players' emotional attachment to two non-player characters, Tali and Garrus, from BioWare's Mass Effect videogame series. Two forum threads, created soon after the release by BioWare of Mass Effect 2 in January 2010 dedicated to these two characters, were downloaded and analyzed using thematic analysis. The results found that players had developed intense emotional attachments to the characters, but the emotional attachment for the female character of Tali was expressed from the players' point of view, while the emotional attachment for the male character of Garrus was expressed from the player character of Shepard's point of view. These emotional attachments influenced how players engaged with the game mechanics of Mass Effect 2 (BioWare, 2010), for example players customized their player character's armour to match that of Tali or Garrus. As previous research into videogame characters has focused on playable characters, this article advances knowledge by considering the relationship between players and non-player characters in videogames.