Steering the Author Discourse: The Construction of Authorship in Quality TV, and the Case of Game of Thrones

Abstract

This essay examines how the authorship is discursively constructed and employed as an indicator of quality in the marketing of US cable network HBO's TV series Game of Thrones (2011-). It relates the authorial concept of literary studies to that in the visual media and analyses mise-en-scène and narrative structure of the show pilot in order to detect markers of an authorial voice within the text. Subsequently, it turns to a selection of paratexts – critical reviews, producers' commentaries and special features of the show’s DVD box set – to show how the team of producers help manufacture and promote the presence of a showrunner-auteur collective in order to foster a perception of this text as a ‘quality TV’ narrative.