From Dystopia to Realism: Emotions, Cultures and Imaginaries of Contemporary TV Seriality

Why has television seriality begun to acquire an increasingly central role in the cultural consumption and media consumptions of millions of people, with its impact becoming more evident since the 2010s? series have become a central medium in the representation of social transformations, cultural processes, and the multiple and heterogeneous identities of contemporary society. This crucial function of TV series can only be fully understood if we analyze the evolution of the TV medium within the broader scenario of digital cultures and the mediatization of everyday life. This requires first of all the recognition of serialization as one of the essential properties of integrated systems of production, distribution and consumption of cultural products since the nineteenth century (Brancato et al., 2024; Boccia Artieri & Fiorentino, 2024), although antecedents can also be traced back to ancient times: Ragone & Tarzia, 2023). Although it is important to trace a history of television seriality specifically (see Teti, 2020; Hudelet & Crémieux, 2021; Fumagalli et al., 2021a, 2021b), it is equally necessary to situate this history within the genealogy of the practices of serialization of storytelling experienced, between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries (such as feuilleton, pulp magazines, radio dramas, film serials, comics), which configured the social, cultural and economic assumptions of the advent of television seriality (Scolari et al., 2014; Tirino, 2019).