Playing within the lines: an intermedial analysis of newspapers and Arthur’s journal in red dead redemption 2.

Abstract

Intermediality is a field of study that investigates the relationships between media. An example of media mixing and interacting are videogames, which, over the years, has established itself as a format that can adapt, reference and combine different media. Hence, the goal of this research is to analyze intermedial relations found in Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), specifically the newspapers and Arthur Morgan’s journal. In order to understand how videogames interact with other media, the present study draws, mainly, on Elleström (2021) and Rajewsky (2005) theoretical approaches to intermediality. The corpus consists of selected in-game textual media: newspaper issues and specific diary excerpts. In regard to methodology, this work follows an interpretative and qualitative approach, through an (comparative) investigation of particular aspects, such as layout, form of writing, conventions, and discourse. All the while navigating the function that these devices play, comparing the ways in which they are able to evoke nineteenth century media. Following an intermedial methodology, this research shows how seemingly small items can contribute to a game’s diegesis of the western genre, while being an intermedial reference, gameplay prop and helping the narrative’s developments.