Sameness and Repetition in Contemporary Media Culture

Susana Tosca is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. Over the last twenty years, Susana’s research has combined aesthetic and media study approaches to investigating the reception of digital media and has published widely on the areas of hypertext, digital literature, computer games, transmediality and popular culture. Previously authored books from Susana include Literatura Digital and Understanding Videogames and Transmedial Worlds in Everyday Life.

In engaging, lyrical prose the book demonstrates how repetition has been central to art and literature throughout the ages. Sameness and Repetition re-energises an ancient debate and makes it completely contemporary, drawing effortlessly on examples ranging from the classics to Super Mario and AI-generated images. This book brings together critical theory and literary studies with contemporary digital media studies, enriching both fields.

• Introduction Chapter 1. Definitions: Repetition, Sameness, cognition and learning Chapter 2. Learning to Love Your Stone: The aesthetics and experience of computer games Chapter 3. Sing, Goddess, of the Anger of Achilles: Formal repetition in storytelling Chapter 4. Many Happy Returns: Sameness in digital literature, narrative games, adaptations and transmedial worlds Chapter 5. If You Like That, You Will Love This: On sameness based algorithmic recommendation systems Chapter 6. Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal: Creativity and originality in a new media landscape Chapter 7. In Praise and Criticism of Repetition: The cultural affordances of repetitive media formats