English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

This thesis examines the Syfy channel’s broadcast of the television movie Sharknado and the large number of tweets that were sent about it. Sharknado’s audience engaged in cult film viewing practices that can be understood using paracinema theory. Paracinema engagement with cult films has traditionally taken place in midnight screenings in independent movie theatres and private homes. Syfy’s audience was able to engage in paracinematic activity that included making jokes about Sharknado’s low quality of production and interacting with others who were doing the same through the affordances of Twitter. In an age where branding has become increasingly important, Syfy clearly benefited from all the fan activity around its programming. Critical branding theory argues that the value generated by a business’s brand comes from the labour of consumers. Brand management is mostly about encouraging and managing consumer labour. The online shift of fan practices has created new opportunities for brand managers to subsume the activities of consumers. Cult film audience practices often have an emphasis on creatively and collectively engaging in rituals and activities around a text. These are the precise qualities that brands require from their consumers. Sharknado was produced and marketed by Syfy to invoke the cult film subculture as part of Syfy’s branding strategy. This strategy can be understood using the theory of biopolitical marketing. Biopolitical marketing creates brands by encouraging and managing consumer activity on social media. Instead of simply promoting itself, a brand becomes an online platform through which consumers can engage. An active consumer base raises a brand’s profile and puts forward the image of happy, loyal customers. An equally important advantage of biopolitical marketing is that it can mask the marketing aspect of branding. Consumers who are cynical towards marketers may be less defensive towards a group of fellow consumers enjoying a product online. Developing a consumer community around a business where every consumer interaction enhances the brand and there is no semblance of marketer involvement is the end goal of biopolitical marketing. The subculture around cult films not only has brand-friendly practices, but is also positioned as being rebellious, a quality that can be particularly valuable in trying to mask the presence of marketing.

Television Sharknados and Twitter Storms: Cult Film Fan Practices in the Age of Social Media Branding