A work · 1912 · Cinema
The film serial
Episodes released in instalments, each ending unresolved, the audience expected to return for the next one.
The cliffhanger as an industrial practice rather than a narrative trick, and the direct ancestor of the soap and the serialised novel.
Application. One-sided attachment put to work on purpose. Creator economies, community, fandom as infrastructure, and the things that genuinely help people. Not automatically good - a tool with an obvious use is a tool that will also get a bad one.
Where it sits
1900 1900-1949 · 1912 1949
Provenance · 3 source record(s)
- retrievableAmerican serials begin in 1912 as publisher-sponsored film adaptations of their own magazine characters, to build interest and boost circulation - the parasocial mechanism, documented, at the start of cinemaSerial film. Wikipedia, citing trade histories. Serials in the United States first came about in 1912 as extensions of magazine and newspaper stories; publishers sponsored live-action adventures of the printed characters to boost circulation. ↗
- retrievableThe first serial: What Happened to Mary (1912), Edison, 12 reels, Mary Fuller, released one chapter per month alongside the story in McClure's Ladies' World from 26 July 1912Serial Films: Part 1. filmsite.org. ↗
- retrievableThe early audience was female - thrills rather than blood-and-thunder - and the format ran to 1956EBSCO Research Starters, Film Serials. ↗
Connected · 3 out, 3 in
Radio and the soapcame before · 1930 · A workThe protagonist is a parasocial objectcites · 1939 · A term or conceptThe comic stripof the same time as · 1897 · A workThe protagonist is a parasocial objectdepicts · 1939 · A term or conceptRadio and the soapcame after · 1930 · A workThe comic stripof the same time as · 1897 · A work
It sits in