Watching Game of Thrones: How audiences engage with dark television

'This is the best summary of all the work out there on Game of Thrones I have read. The authors have extensively researched audience reactions and existing work on audience research. I would say that it will prove itself to be a "must-buy" for GoT fans and scholars alike.'
Kim Akass, Professor of Radio, Television and Film, Rowan University

HBO's television adaptation of George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones was an international sensation, generating intense debates and controversies throughout its run. This book draws on ambitious international research that used innovative methods to gather information from over ten-thousand viewers of the series. It details seven distinct ways in which audiences watched the series and how these led to different responses and judgements.

The book considers the claim that Game of Thrones can be seen as a lens for thinking about the world by exploring how viewers engaged with the series' characters, lands and peoples and how they understood its world in relation to their own. It examines how some of the show's more shocking scenes were understood and appreciated as examples of 'extreme storytelling' while others were angrily rejected, and it reflects on what this suggests about broader debates on television and representations of violence. And in the wake of the controversy over the show's final series, it explores how audiences make sense of 'endings'.

Watching Game of Thrones makes an important contribution to understanding the role that fantasy plays in contemporary society, to the study of television audiences and to research on audiences, fans and engagements with media more generally.