Research Seminar - Aesthetic Accountability in Screen Storytelling: Narrative Friction and the Politics of Representation

Aesthetic Accountability in Screen Storytelling: Narrative Friction and the Politics of Representation

Presented by: A/Prof Alberto N. García (Universidad de Navarra)

Date: Friday 17 October 2025
Time: 12-1pm
Location: Online via Zoom and in-person at the SCA Writer's Studio (Level 6, Michie Building)

Abstract

Recent controversies surrounding streaming and cinema are often framed through polarised “culture war” narratives, yet this presentation argues that these conflicts stem less from irreconcilable ideologies than from structural disparities between paratextual promises and narrative delivery. Screen media infrastructures—platform interfaces, theatrical trailers, promotional campaigns—function as architectures of prominence that pre-format stories and articulate justice claims before any scene unfolds. When these cues foreground diversity without sufficient diegetic grounding, they produce heightened interpretive instability and audience division.

I conceptualise this dynamic as aesthetic accountability: the expectation that identity claims made in promotional paratexts be narratively sustained through intelligible agency, affective congruence, and stable processes of identification. Whereas industry discourse tends to celebrate representation as brand capital and critical reception often reduces controversies to culture-war polarisation, this framework shifts attention to the ongoing negotiation between paratextual promise and textual delivery that underpins durable audience engagement.

Combining Cultural Studies’ concern with representation and industry practices with Cognitive Media Theory’s analysis of empathy and identification, the article theorises three recurrent “failure modes”—narrative friction, emotional dissonance, and ruptured identification—that illuminate why controversies erupt. The talk combines close textual analysis with paratextual and reception mapping, centering on The Little Mermaid (2023) and The Rings of Power (2022). These case analyses are situated within wider debates where both “progressive” franchises and works accused of reactionary politics reveal the recurrence of these dynamics in different ideological registers. In doing so, the article advances the claim that representational gains are most durable when narratively grounded and affectively integrated. It thereby reframes polarized responses as aesthetic negotiations rather than ideological impasses, challenging both celebratory industry discourse and reductive culture-war framings. 

Presenter

Alberto N. García is Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Navarra (Spain), currently a Visiting Fellow at the Digital Media Research Centre, QUT (Brisbane). His current research examines how contemporary screen narratives negotiate identity, emotion, and cultural tensions. He has previously held visiting positions at the University of Queensland, the University of Stirling, and George Washington University. His work has appeared in journals such as Continuum, International Journal of Communication, New Review of Film and Television Studies, and Quarterly Review of Film and Video. He is the editor of Emotions and Contemporary TV Series (Palgrave, 2016).