{"title":"On the harsh realities of researching television in Poland: Traditions, obstacles and perspectives","authors":"Sylwia Szostak","doi":"10.1177/17496020221092694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221092694","url":null,"abstract":"Television studies in Poland has not yet been recognized as an academic discipline in its own right. Despite this obvious omission in the institutional division of academic fields, Polish researchers have been studying television: its texts, audiences and history. This aerial review aims to present the main intellectual traditions that influenced academic writing of Polish scholars on the topic of television, both domestic and imported. This focus on research conducted by Polish scholars, and written mainly in Polish, allows for an examination of the body of work that is otherwise inaccessible to Anglo-American researchers due to the language barrier. Local academic debates are presented in a way that reflects the main disciplinary criteria of Anglo-American television studies, allowing for a clear organization of what is a substantial amount of literature. Additionally, this review aims to give a sense of what it is like to study television in an environment where TV criticism and analysis are not granted the status of an academic discipline. The consideration of the broader context for Polish studies on television allows for a thorough understanding of this academic field, its focus, main methodologies, challenges and its way forward.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85884588","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":"The constructed quality of Israeli TV on Netflix: The cases of Fauda and Shtisel","authors":"Noa Lavie","doi":"10.1177/17496020221137661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221137661","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates how the concept of ‘quality TV’ is evolving in the age of streaming video on demand (SVOD) platforms, using reviews of two Israeli TV series on Netflix – Fauda and Shtisel. In accordance with Pierre Bourdieu’s view of journalistic reviewers as social agents and intermediaries with the power to enshrine cultural artifacts in an artistic canon, the study is based on a qualitative analysis of reviews of these two series published on major Anglo-American journalistic platforms. The analysis shows how the reviewers take part in constructing the Netflix brand of ‘a ‘foreign-language quality TV’ series.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86545118","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":"Post-Nordic-Noir landscapes: Competition through localisation in Finnish streaming media","authors":"Sanna Wicks, Pietari Kääpä","doi":"10.1177/17496020221135183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221135183","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the ways locality and sense of place are used in the production and promotion of streaming media from small nations. We concentrate on location-related decisions behind Man in Room 301 (2019), a Finnish thriller series produced by VOD service Elisa Viihde Viaplay. While locality acts as a significant tool for Nordic Noir, a genre of film and TV characterised by a distinct ‘localised’ style, this article explores how the Finnish streaming industry is progressing towards a ‘post-Nordic-noir’ framework, a direction that focuses on an intense sense of place, both on the level of representation and production-related decisions.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73447294","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":"Creating (in) the Arctic: Investigating collaboration and location through a case study of the Arctic noir serial Thin Ice","authors":"Anders Grønlund","doi":"10.1177/17496020221129969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221129969","url":null,"abstract":"The Swedish/Icelandic coproduced serial Tunn is [Thin Ice] (2020) offers an insight into current possibilities and challenges of production in the Nordic Arctic region and the involvement of the developing Greenlandic screen industry. By analysing both off- and on-screen elements through a broad screen industry and location-driven approach, the explorative case study illustrates both a region and a screen industry in development as well as changing production practices. Furthermore, the article highlights the perceived value of location and cultural specificity in high-end TV drama from the multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Arctic region.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46791626","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":"Medicalized reality weight-loss television and the negotiation of neoliberalism on my 600 Pound Life","authors":"Melissa Zimdars","doi":"10.1177/17496020221134014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221134014","url":null,"abstract":"On their surface, medicalised reality television series about food addiction and fatness seem to reinforce the same discourses of neoliberalism that have come to define our understanding of contemporary reality TV. However, this article considers how one of these shows, My 600 Pound Life (2012), negotiates and de-centres discourses of neoliberalism through medicalisation and spectacle. The bodies and behaviours on medicalised reality TV programmes can be engendering of sympathy as much or more than of discipline and shame, which reflects expanding and shifting narratives of the ‘obesity epidemic’.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74462360","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":"Televisual transformations: The making of (media) citizens in interventional television productions","authors":"Balázs Boross","doi":"10.1177/17496020221130256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221130256","url":null,"abstract":"Interventional reality programmes often give rise to speculations about how they treat their contributors. However, little is known about the actual production practices that lie behind these complex and often contradictory media texts. Based on in-depth interviews with crew members of a variety of popular formats, this article explores how ordinary people are turned into subjects of emancipation and spectacular transformations. By analysing the ideals, tactics and constraints characterising this process, I address how particular discursive and organisational mechanisms support or hinder morally viable compromises in situations where the imperative of ‘selling strong performances’ and personal standpoints come into conflict.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84506469","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":"‘Make sense of it’: Cult and complex TV fandoms, post-Truth discourse and an excess of meaning in Twin Peaks: Season 3","authors":"Michael Waugh","doi":"10.1177/17496020221129048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221129048","url":null,"abstract":"The excess of mystery and ‘meaning’ in Twin Peaks: Season 3 (2017) reflects the post-truth ontological dissonance of information overload, tantalising the thirst for answers that dominates digital communication. Combining its clues and codes with payoffs for ‘long-term fan investments’ (Hills, 2020: 197) situates the series between two modes of fan participation: the curative puzzle-solving of complex ‘Quality TV’, and cult television’s ‘hyperdiegesis’. Season 3 is complex cult television, encouraging forensic and creative engagement. Replicating the polarisation of contemporary discourse while simultaneously promoting algorithmic literacy informs Mark Frost’s politicised vision for Twin Peaks, and David Lynch’s aesthetic experiments amplify this.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76157351","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":"Streaming difference(s): Netflix and the branding of diversity","authors":"Axelle Asmar, T. Raats, Leo Van Audenhove","doi":"10.1177/17496020221129516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221129516","url":null,"abstract":"Since 2020, Netflix has emphasised the diversity of representation the platform provides through its content. Following the publication of its diversity report, the streamer positions itself as a driver of inclusion for underrepresented communities in film and television industries. This article examines how Netflix rhetorically frames the emphasis on diversity in its corporate communication. Based on a thematic analysis of Netflix’s press releases, it explores how Netflix uses its branding of diversity to generate a transnational appeal. The article outlines four strategies which highlight the cultural and industrial practices deployed by the streamer to gain competitive advantages.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73190648","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":"‘What are people watching in your area?’: Interrogating the role and reliability of the Netflix top 10 feature","authors":"Alexa Scarlata","doi":"10.1177/17496020221127183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221127183","url":null,"abstract":"Netflix’s status as a personalised service has been central to its business proposition and brand. However, recent changes to include community-based metrics within the user interface – such as the 2020 addition of a national top 10 feature – denote a shift in corporate strategy from personalisation to communal discovery. This article uses a critical communications and media industry studies approach to consider both the data being produced by the top 10 ranking and the broader industrial function of the list, especially within a longer history of audience measurement.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79895026","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":"‘Black Lives Have Always Mattered’: Cultural specificity and transformative representations in Small Axe","authors":"Trisha Dunleavy","doi":"10.1177/17496020221122184","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/17496020221122184","url":null,"abstract":"Small Axe, a series of five films, has brought innovation and prestige to TV drama not only for its overdue history of Caribbean migrant experiences in post-war Britain but also for its transformative representations of Black British people. The article examines three areas of the Small Axe production and text in recognition of their importance to these achievements: its creative genesis as a TV drama inspired by the under-representation of Britain’s Caribbean diaspora; the opportunities it gained as a BBC commission and Amazon coproduction; and the indicators and outcomes of its deployment of the four ‘markers’ of Third Cinema textuality.","PeriodicalId":51917,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Television","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48881250","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}