Rethinking Seriality in Platform Cultures

This chapter explores how narrative seriality has been transformed by digital culture and platformisation. First, it traces seriality’s mediamorphosis across three interlocking levels:(a) technological affordances (media infrastructures and production techniques), (b)remediation and hybridisation (horizontal and diachronic flows among media), and (c)collective metaphors (symbolic frames that fuel unconscious and reflective meaning-making). Drawing on the distinction between “ as seriality” (metaphorical readings of serial patterns) and “ is seriality” (formal enactments of serial structures), the chapter shows how online environments generate both interpretive and genuine serial experiences. Next, it analyses contemporary serial forms as inherently disordered and dispersed:production and reception overlap in feedback loopsâ€Â" new “episodes” are released, watched, commented on, and reshaped before the next installmentâ€Â" giving rise to “productive consumption” practices such as binge-watching, fan art, and collaborative decoding. \n Finally, the chapter distinguishes two digital-native modalities: participatory micro-serialisation , the hyper-fragmentation of serial texts into image macros, GIFs, and memes within a participatory “becoming-media” logic; and self-serialised identity narratives , the episodic narration of identity via selfies, stories, vlogs, and other personal formats that leverage platform affordances. Together, these dynamics reveal a serial logic in the digital age that continually negotiates redundancy and innovation, individual agency, and communal storytelling.