Foundations of Character Studies - Towards a Panmedial Theory of Characters

The overall goal of this project is to create, nurture and grow the nascent field of Character Studies. Characters, whether mythical, historical, fictional, or contemporary,are everywhere in human communication. Not only do they form a cornerstone in the entertainment media such as song lyrics, film/TV, games and literature, but also in religion, history, politics, news, painting, children’s toys, sports, social media,advertisement – in short, they can be found as a central if not always crucial element in every mediated walk of life. One could even claim that they are more important than narratives, because there can be a character independent of a particular story, but there can’t be (successful) stories without characters. And yet, the general study of characters (here defined as the mediated representation of a person) as such does not exist as its own field.The theoretical aim of the project is to create a general and interdisciplinary theory of character and characterisation - the mediated representation of a person - bycomparing and collating theories and media practices from three media sectors (literature, AI Chat characters, and games) and three disiplinary fields (Generative AI,narratology, game studies). The project will break new ground by focusing on character as a panmedial phenomenon, not springing from or limited to any one medium or genre,but as a fundamental, cognitive unit of representation, and will foreground characterization as a crucial media practice driving entertainment franchises, social media, news, historiography, sport, biography, and marketing, to name a few. The resulting theory should contribute to the specific media disciplines and also provide insight to media industries and practitioners, and pave the way for larger investigations of character in other aspects of contemporary culture.The societal impact of this project may be significant: the new field will provide highly useful expertise for the entertainment industries, and for the public in terms ofimproved character literacy. By understanding how characters are constructed to work persuasively, scams can be prevented and harmful practices such as AI-based predators can be legislated against, thus protecting voulnerable population groups such as children and the elderly.