Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This digital humanities analyzes data about the TV show “Seinfeld.” Professors of media studies, information science, and students worked to populate a relational database, use quantitative analysis, and look for trends. “Seinfeld,” of course, heavily influences the TV shows of today, including “hangout” sitcoms, one-camera comedies, and antihero dramas as well as our culture. But what is its reach? Reach looks at the kinds of media texts that the cast/crew from “Seinfeld” worked on, which we count as those with an overlap of one or more cast/crew. Using the Internet Movie Database and additional research, we discovered that the 1540 cast/crew had worked on over 32,500 other discrete media texts, many with multiple overlaps. Questions include, what genres did the cast/crew, presumably chosen for a common comic sensibility, work on other than comedy? What genres included the most actors? What is the gender, age, and ethnicity distribution of the actors? What were their different career trajectories? “Seinfeld” is a rich and ideal microcosm of the entertainment business. This project will show interesting intersections and trends to represent several media industries.