{"title":"Autism spectrum disorder in contemporary American sitcoms: Narrative and social implication","authors":"Betty Kaklamanidou","doi":"10.1177/17496020231163306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231163306","url":null,"abstract":"The Big Bang Theory, Atypical and Community are sitcoms paradigmatic of a recent representational shift, in which center stage is assumed by individuals who face psychological and neurological challenges. Sheldon Cooper ( TBBT), Sam Gardner ( Atypical) and Abed Nadir ( Community) are young male protagonists who all fall somewhere on the spectrum of autism. These representations signal a breakthrough from past, mainly cinematic depictions, which stereotypically addressed mentally challenged individuals as unstable, problematic, and crazy. Our goal is to examine the narrative and social function of autism in these three sitcoms. The theoretical context uses Thomas Elsaesser ’s concept of “productive pathologies” (2009) to argue that autism is also a “productive pathology” that can be applied in the study of contemporary sitcoms. Autism spectrum disorder as a “productive pathology” is then combined with the Incongruity Theory of humour in order to analyze how Sheldon’s, Sam’s and Abed’s developmental disorder is used to create a distinct type of incongruous comedy and at the same time destabilize notions of identity and social “propriety.”","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73619026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Queen Sono: Netflix Original as postfeminist South African spy thriller","authors":"Shelley-Jean Bradfield","doi":"10.1177/17496020231161442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231161442","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores Netflix’s changing business strategies to diversify its catalogues, examining the practices of ‘direct commissioning’ and genre adaptation. The case study of Queen Sono, the first Netflix African Original, reveals how the spy thriller conventions are leveraged to attract a Western audience even as the series is adapted to the African context. Although Queen is portrayed as a female spy with clear moral impulses, I argue that her agency is constrained by the male-dominated spy thriller conventions and the transnational postfeminist sensibility of the series which Netflix paradoxically needs to utilise to attract both African and transnational subscribers.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"18 1","pages":"163 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44659765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultural Diversity in Internationally Coproduced High-end Drama","authors":"Trisha Dunleavy, E. Weissmann","doi":"10.1177/17496020231161643","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231161643","url":null,"abstract":"In January 2023, yielding what was described as a “landmark moment for the creative industry in Wales” (Morris, 2023) it was announced that Netflix had purchased Welsh heist drama Dal y Mellt [Catch the Lightning] (S4C, 2023-present). This acquisition has further extended the already impressive linguistic diversity of Netflix’s TV drama catalogue, will be the first long-form drama on Netflix which was filmed entirely in Cymraeg (Welsh language), and it allows this Welsh drama and Cymraeg itself to reach a multinational audience (Morris, 2023). Since this acquisition occurred within just a few months of this drama’s S4C debut in October 2022, Netflix’s purchase of Dal y Mellt suggests a pleasing level of confidence in its potential to engage this streamer’s nearglobal audience. Although an acquisition rather than a full commission or coproduction for Netflix, this decision provides further evidence of the increasing cultural diversity and specificity of the high-end TV drama that is now on offer to international audiences and of the contributions of Netflix and other multinational premium providers to this development. Entitled ‘Cultural Diversity in Internationally Coproduced High-End Drama’ this themed issue examines an increasing flow of high-end drama productions being produced outside the US, often facilitated by means of transnational coproduction deals that entail full financing or co-financing from leading US-owned premium players. While TV drama continues to be facilitated and produced in traditional ways, and national broadcasters remain the mainstay for this, the most notable recent change, in terms of sustaining this flow of transnational high-end dramas, has been the increasing commissioning activity of multinational subscription video-on-demand (or SVODs), indicatively Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, and Disney+. As the TV drama case studies that comprise this","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"18 1","pages":"117 - 127"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42019359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Finding words: Aesthetic criticism and television","authors":"James Walters","doi":"10.1177/17496020231154462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020231154462","url":null,"abstract":"Those endorsing or opposing the development of television aesthetics scholarship have exhibited an admirable willingness to reflect upon the rationales and motivations for formulating value judgements. However, very little equivalent attention has been afforded to processes that occur within this area: how scholars conduct analysis and develop claims for achievement in television. In addressing this lack, the following article surveys some of the meanings that ‘criticism’ has encompassed in Television Studies, offering ‘aesthetic criticism’ as a useful term to describe the work of analysis and evaluation, before moving to a series of close readings of aesthetic criticism in practice.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82079937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Netflix, Spanish television, and La casa de papel: Growing global and local TV together in the multiplatform era","authors":"Gary Edgerton","doi":"10.1177/17496020221146057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221146057","url":null,"abstract":"This institutional-industrial analysis evaluates how Netflix’s post-2016 rebranding efforts resulted in its ongoing transition from a centrally-managed multinational corporation, based mainly in Silicon Valley, to a more decentralised transnational operation with multiple interconnected headquarters worldwide. Utilising a blended macro-micro critical perspective, Netflix’s October 2015 debut in Spain is examined as an inflection point for this subscription video on demand (SVOD) change agent, Spain’s then-traditional TV infrastructure and the transnational television industry. Netflix’s eventual integration into the Spanish television landscape and its transnational distribution of La casa de papel [Money Heist] (2017–21) serve as a two-fold object lesson into how glocal relations occur during TVIV.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"18 1","pages":"128 - 147"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46485126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Government public relations, audiovisual communication and the informalisation of Sweden","authors":"E. Stjernholm","doi":"10.1177/17496020221146067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221146067","url":null,"abstract":"This article addresses the role of television as a ‘new media’ in government public relations. Drawing on sociological theories on informalisation, this study analyses three features of the Swedish public information programme Anslagstavlan during the 1970s and 1980s: first, formal techniques such as editing, pacing and use of animations; second, narrative strategies including the utilisation of celebrity advertising and intertextuality; and last, the rhetoric of public information. The study shows that the engineering of informality was a key communication strategy for government agencies and that televised information contributed to the conversationalisation and personalisation of government agencies’ communication in medium-specific ways.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75011198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Television and the Genetic Imaginary","authors":"Amy C. Chambers","doi":"10.1177/17496020221136700","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221136700","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"68 1","pages":"108 - 111"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78205335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Netflix and Streaming Video: The Business of Subscriber-Funded Video on Demand","authors":"Ryan Stoldt","doi":"10.1177/17496020221136715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221136715","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"44 1","pages":"106 - 108"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72635510","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Independent Women: From Film to Television","authors":"Júlia Havas","doi":"10.1177/17496020221136701","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221136701","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"126 1","pages":"111 - 114"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88166312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Watching Game of Thrones: How Audiences Engage with Dark Television","authors":"Bethan Jones","doi":"10.1177/17496020221136727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221136727","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":"13 1","pages":"101 - 103"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88070820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}