Gossip Girl and The CW: defining a new network. (You’re nobody until you’re talked about)

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the teenage soap Gossip Girl was crucial to the gendered strategy by which The CW (2006-2012) defined itself in the post-network era. The CW relied on narrowcasting, branding, and transmedia to attract and keep a very specific share of the audience in order to create a viable fifth network. Analyzing The CW’s early years through Gossip Girl casts light on the evolutions that shaped US television industry’s during this period, from the renewed interest in female audiences to economic and technological convergence.

Keywords

• The CW
• Gossip Girl
• post-network era
• audience commodity
• feminist television criticism