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Music and Transmediality: The Multi-Media Invasion of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2018

TIM SUMMERS
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Abstract

This article investigates music in the modern transmedial franchise. Popular culture franchises flow across different forms of media, taking the audience, and often the music, with them. Music plays an important role in articulating and developing textual relationships, while adapting to the possibilities of each particular medium.

To focus on the role of music, a case study that emphasizes audio is chosen, a transmedial franchise founded upon a rock album. Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (1978) has served as the basis for several (very different) video games that also prioritize music. The article traces how musical materials are selected, transformed, and deployed as media boundaries are traversed. It ultimately argues that music is an important part of how media consumers engage with transmedial franchises.

Type
Articles
Information
Twentieth-Century Music , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 231 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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Gameography

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