Serial Pinboarding in Contemporary Television

“An important contribution to television studies, this book draws attention to pinboards as an overlooked element of production design and narrative exposition. Combining case studies with media industries analysis, Ganzert demonstrates how the malleability and mobility of television content in the age of digital distribution have granted new registers of value to pinboarding. A fascinating read!”

-          Dr Jennifer Gillan, Professor of English and Media Studies, Bentley University

“Serial Pinboarding in Contemporary Television offers a truly intriguing reading of TV’s pinboards, their meaning, audience engagement, aesthetic impact, and storytelling power – and thereby identifies TV’s obsession with them and why it is important to pay heed to them in an interdisciplinary fashion. Ganzert’s work is a must read for TV scholars and those interested in seriality, television style, transmedia, and TV form.”

-          Dr Bärbel Goebel Stolz, Assistant Professor and Program Director of Media and Communications, Coventry University


“Some people watch TV series all the time. Some constantly evaluate charts. In this wonderful book they will discover surprising similarities. It's a piece of diagrammatology at its best!”


-          Dr Steffen Bogen, Professor of Art History and Image Theory, University of Konstanz


This book provides an in-depth study of pinboards in contemporary television series and develops the interdisciplinary and innovative concept of Serial Pinboarding. Pinboards are character attributes; they visualize thought processes; are used for conspiracy theories, as murder walls, or for complex cases in any genre. They significantly condition, and are conditioned by, seriality. This book discusses how the pinboards in Castle, Homeland, Flash Forward, and Heroes connect evidence, knowledge, and seriality and how through transmediality and fan practices an “age of pinboarding” has formed. Serial Pinboarding in Contemporary Television will appeal to TV enthusiasts, professionals and researchers, and students of TV and production studies, fan studies, media studies, and art theory.