Publication details
Do you deserve to see the DVD trailer? Fans, franchise familiars, and the rhetoric of the Star Wars DVD trailers.
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| Year of publication | 2009 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Our study indicates how important the use of DVD for product differentiation and for addressing groups of viewers is and what specific role the format can have for Hollywood franchise movies. The DVD versions and the circulation of a huge amount of paratexts connected to them play an important role for the most important groups of viewers identified by marketing plans. The paratexts "feed" the fans with new information and artifacts, satisfy the demand of "franchise familiars" for an extension of the fictional world and the experience with it, and offer a new entry points for newcomers. The case study of DVD trailers focused on more specific mechanisms of distribution and reception. The demand of fans for any paratextual forms allows to distribute even a purpose-made marketing paratext (as a DVD trailer is) sequentially in "windows" and use them for differentiation of consumers and for commodification of fandom. For marketing of well established franchises, however, the franchise familiars are more important target group than the already established fan base. In distinction from expensive collector s packs for fans, the first releases of franchise movies on DVD are offered by the trailers as an extension of the already well known world of a fiction (and of its production). |