Participatory culture transformed audiences into active contributors, but conversational AI and generative systems are beginning to reshape participation into something more enduring: inhabitation. This essay argues that we are witnessing the emergence of a new narrative medium in which people develop persistent relationships with responsive storyworlds that remember, adapt, and evolve alongside them. Drawing on decades of work in transmedia storytelling, tabletop roleplaying, and franchise architecture, Jeff Gomez introduces the concepts of the Mythic Field and upstream authorship to explore how coherent systems of meaning can persist within inhabitable worlds. As storyworlds become places where people rehearse identity, relationships, and values, the challenge shifts from simply expanding stories to intentionally designing worlds worthy of being inhabited.

Here Henry Jenkins shares his foreword for the new book, Female Universalism: Gender, Melancholia, and Radical Empathy in the Korean Wave by Ingyu Oh. This foreword overviews the theories offered in this book and try to provide a larger context in relation to transcultural fandom and global feminisms.

Renata Frade interviews Hartmut Koenitz — a leading scholar, designer, and theorist in interactive digital narratives — to explore the evolving relationship between storytelling, human–computer interaction, and meaning-making in digital culture. Read to understand how interactive narratives reshape our understanding of user experience, complexity, and participation across media forms, how interactive narratives can inform civic and cultural engagement, and what impact generative AI is having in this space.

The current approach to building game-anchored transmedia universes remains stubbornly elusive and often results in commercial failure due to misaligned business realities and late-stage integration. This article introduces the WAG Pipeline (World, Audience, Game), which is a progressive model that flips the traditional development pressure by building an audience and world first, gathering honest signals, and only greenlighting a major game investment when success is audience-backed. This risk-smart strategy treats community as a core system and allows IP to grow organically, ensuring that when the game finally arrives, its immersion is amplified by an invested audience. Discover how this approach relocates risk to stages where originality can breathe, guaranteeing that studios learn cheaply and with a compass.

This piece is part of a series of critical responses based on the films nominated for the 98th Academy Awards. In this contribution, Lauren Sowa considers recent commentary around the popularity of opera and theatre compared with film through a focus on Shakespeare and Hamnet.

This piece is part of a series of critical responses based on the films nominated for the 98th Academy Awards. In this contribution, Tara Lomax explores how Paul Thomas Anderson uses the New Hollywood allusionism in One Battle After Another to invoke signification and expression in the film through cinephiles and curation.

This piece is part of a series of critical responses based on the films nominated for the 98th Academy Awards. In this contribution, Melanie Robson analyses how elements in director Jafar Panahi's cinematic approach that were once only a practical response to restrictions—filming in vehicles, working in small crews, and prioritising rural over urban locations—have cemented themselves in his style. In It Was Just an Accident, which is nominated for Best International Film, they don’t feel like limitations but choices that enrich the film’s visual presentation. 

This piece is part of a series of critical responses based on the films nominated for the 98th Academy Awards. In this contribution, Duncan McLean reflects on F1: The Movie being nominated for Best Picture and how this provokes persistent assumptions about quality associated with the Oscars.

This piece is part of a series of critical responses based on the films nominated for the 98th Academy Awards. In this commentary piece, Robert Boucaut about the Oscars 2026 season, building from threads of his recent monograph Oscar Bait: The Academy Awards & Cultural Prestige (2025, Routledge). It considers the relevance of the Oscars for audiences in today’s attention and money economies. Alongside opinions on this year’s nominees, Boucaut underline points of interest in films and performances echoing the continuing tensions or narratives of recent Oscars.

This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Georgiana Yasumura considers how Kowloon Walled City (KWC, also known as the “city of darkness”) is its own independent character within Hong Kong media. KWC’s spatial presence across Hong Kong’s global mediascapes reveals more than a visually haunting, post-apocalyptic fortress; it also draws attention to issues of nationhood, personal liberation and social justice that are integral to the genre of cross-border film.

This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Lauren Reel considers how nordic noir translates the darkness of film noir into lightness.

This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Graham Paull examines the dimensions of generic compulsion in Creepy (2016).

This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Christian Pattavina employs ideas about genre to question what it means for films to be ‘religious’.

This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Art Tavana explores Tarantino’s punk ethos in Kill Bill, Vol 1 and Kill Bill, Vol. 2 to argue that Vol. 1 is a joyfully punk distillation of Tarantino’s core gestures as a filmmaker: excess, repetition, pastiche, exploitation, and provocation.

This post is part of a series of essays that emerged from Henry Jenkins’ doctoral seminar on global genres at the University of Southern California. In this contribution, Joy Hannah Panaligan explores the relationship between the kaiju genre and disability in Pacific Rim (2013) by Guillermo del Toro, which veers away from traditional kaiju narratives of national trauma. This kaiju invasion instead demands collective, global action and cooperation, allegorizing universal problems like climate change. This post draws on Sunaura Taylor’s (2024) concept of disabled ecologies to map out how kaiju films can examine the invisible and visible “disabilities” embedded in human and non-human actors within the ecological system.

When a little more than a year ago I was invited to teach a course in film genre at the USC Cinema School, my first reaction was that I was born to teach a core class in American film genre. I could teach a class taking contemporary PhD students through the history of genre criticism and watch a mix of genre films – canonical and deep cuts, old and new.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the next wave of important work in genre theory would be coming through an engagement with the global production and circulation of genre films, the mutual influence of genre across the planet.  And so, without even fully knowing what I might mean by it, I proposed teaching a course on “film genre in the age of the global shuffle”.

Over the next few posts, Pop Junctions will share a collection of essays that emerged from this course. This post provides an introduction to this series of posts to provide context to the questions that continue to face genre studies today.

The post presents an excerpt from Henry Jenkins and Robert Kozinets’ recently released third book in the Frames of Fandom book series, Fandom as Consumer Collective. This extract considers the work of Daniel Miller which touches on questions of collecting and meaning-making through our relationship with “Stuff.” In honor of the holiday season, we focus on the ways that in an increasingly secular era, Christmas trees can become a site of fannish display and their decoration a process of recalling the stories of our lives.

Henry Jenkins and Robert Kozinets recently released the third book in their Frames of Fandom book series, Fandom as Consumer Collective and the fourth book, Fandom as Subculture, will be published before the end of 2025.  Altogether, fifteen volumes have been planned in this series and are at various stages. The books are being self-published and print-on-demand on Amazon. This post provides an excerpt from the third book, which examines how consumer collectives overlap with, include, and also transcend subcultures and audiences to form a new type of social grouping, simultaneously engaged with and critical of consumer culture.

This blog post is based on remarks Henry Jenkins presented as a keynote speaker at The Older, The Better! Aging Celebrity in Contemporary Media and Sport Contexts, PRIN 2022 PNRR “Celebr-Age” Final Conference at Universita di Bologna in September.  He discusses legendary performer Dick Van Dyke's joyful aging vibrant characters in conjunction with Jenkins' own work as Van Dyke's 100th birthday approaches this December.

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this contribution, Tara Lomax asks Production Designer Alex McDowell about world-building, reimagining the production process, and his work across industry and education.

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this contribution, Academy Award-winning Production Designer Rick Carter shares a meditation on the nature of creativity as a practice of ‘dream minding’.

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this contribution, Mumbai-based Production Designer Shailaja Sharma reflects on the work of production design as a dynamic between creativity, labor, and logistics through two different projects: Gold (Excel Entertainment, 2018) and Dahaad (Amazon Prime Video, 2023).

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this contribution, Australian-based Production Designer Virginia Mesiti unpacks the craft of “natural realism”: a design approach that disappears into character, psychology, and place. The goal is not to create spectacle but to persuade; to build spaces so truthful that viewers forget they were ever designed.

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this contribution, UK-based Production Designer Jane Barnwell introduces the forthcoming open-access collection, Perspectives on Production Design: Practice, Education and Analysis (University of Westminster Press, 2026), co-edited with Jo Briscoe and Juliet John. The book brings together voices from across industry and academia to illuminate the creativity, challenges and cultural impact of production design. This contribution signposts some of the book’s central concerns: how production design is practiced, taught, critically analysed, and why it matters to the wider ecology of film and media studies.

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this first contribution, Australian Production Designer Natalie Beak reflects on the cultural and structural significance of the first Production Designers Gathering that took place in 2022 on the Greek island of Spetses. "The Gathering" highlighted production design as a site of authorship and world-building, while also exposing some of the systemic challenges of visibility, labour, sustainability, and technological change.

This piece provides a summary of the academic event Geek Week in Brazil, which was a collaboration between the research groups NEPF² (​Fans and Fanfic Studies and Research Group), NuPNE (Electronic Narrative Research Center), and NUPLIJ (Center for Research in Children's and Youth Literature). The primary objective of Geek Week was to establish a safe and engaging space for intellectual discussions on topics related to pop culture, gaming, young adult and children's literature, and fanfiction. The event encouraged not only the academic research groups to share their perspectives but also provided an open forum for attendees to actively engage in discourse about widely consumed cultural phenomena.

At an event centered on Chinese otome games (dating games aimed at a female audience), I cosplayed as a male game character and was asked several times if I would accept cosplay commissions — getting paid to cosplay as someone’s favourite character and going on a date with them. Cosplay commission is an emerging practice within Chinese fandom, where clients hire cosplayers to perform as characters in animation, manga, and games, simulating romantic or friendly relationships and dating them in real life. It usually happens in shopping malls, on the streets, in art galleries or in restaurants. This post explores the surprising mix of parasocial relationships and authenticity of cosplay commissions, drawing on both participant observation and semi-structured interviews with multiple female cosplayers.

Ellen Kirkpatrick dives into the character of Captain Nemo, particularly Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s gender-swapped version. She argues that story is the beating heart of social action, helping us to envision a just and equitable world. Yet it’s not enough to simply observe how mainstream stories shape or constrain our imagination of what is possible; we need to dig deeper into how they work. Method doesn’t always marry up with message. As Kristen Warner’s idea of “plastic representation” points out, mainstream media often privileges surface over meaningful substance. Such is often the case with "genderswap" stories like Janni Dakkar's journey into becoming the new Captain Nemo.

‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to this theme explore critical understandings of some series nominated in these categories. This article considers the FX mockumentary sitcom What We Do in the Shadows (2019-2025) at the end of its six-season run. It argues that the show made novel contributions to the development of the sitcom and mockumentary forms in ways that enrich narrative, character and theme, particularly in light of its comic approach to vampire media and lore.

‘Emmys Watch 2025’ showcases critical responses to the series nominated for Outstanding Drama, Outstanding Comedy, and Outstanding Limited Series at that 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. Contributions to this theme explore critical understandings of some series nominated in these categories. This piece explores the cultural dialogue that has extended from the Netflix limited series, Adolescence.