Televisual Authorship and Comedy Showrunners: The Case of Greg Daniels
Dawid Junke
dawid.junke@gmail.comInstitute of Cultural Studies, University of Wroclaw (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4894-994X
Abstract
The article focuses on Greg Daniels, the acclaimed comedy showrunner whose credits include the US version of The Office (NBC, 2005-2013) as well as King of the Hill (Fox, 1997-2010), Space Force (Netflix, 2020-2022), and Upload (Amazon, 2020-). The author analyses press and podcast interviews with Daniels and his co-workers, as well as other articles connected to the showrunner and his works, supplementing them with quotes from a previously unpublished in-depth interview. The central emphasis lies on Daniels’s creative methods, situated within the broader context of television and streaming shows authorship. The sources are interpreted with the help of methods characteristic of the critical media industry studies and utilize Jason Mittell’s model of authorship by management.
Keywords:
Greg Daniels, showrunner, television show authorship, authorship theory, sitcom, critical media industry studiesReferences
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Authors
Dawid Junkedawid.junke@gmail.com
Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Wroclaw Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4894-994X
Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies, University of Wrocław; Fulbright Slavic Award recipient. A scholar of popular culture, he is fascinated with TV shows, films, and narratives. His research interests revolve around the cultural aspects of the production and reception of television shows. Author of the book Transcendencja i sekularyzacja. Motywy religijne we współczesnych amerykańskich serialach telewizyjnych [Transcendence and Secularization: Religious Motifs in Contemporary American Television Shows] (2018). In 2022 he lectured as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle.
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