The recent transnational reach of Japanese television dramas in East and Southeast Asia is unprecedented, and not simply in terms of the range and scale of diffusion, but also of the intense sympathy ...many young Asians feel toward the characters in Japanes
In this broad-ranging text, Peter Dahlgren clarifies the underlying theoretical concepts of civil society and the public sphere, and relates these to a critical analysis of the practice of television ...as journalism, as information and as entertainment. He demonstrates the limits and the possibilities of the television medium and the formats of popular journalism. These issues are linked to the potential of the audience to interpret or resist messages, and to construct its own meanings. What does a realistic understanding of the functioning and the capabilities of television imply for citizenship and democracy in a mediated age?
Drawing from 20 interviews with credited episode writers, key show-runners, and Black gay men, The Generic Closet situates Black-cast sitcoms as a unique genre that uses Black gay characters in ...service of the series' heterosexual main cast and deconstructs the concept of a monolithic Black audience.
Broadcasting is arguably the most influential and powerful industry operating today. The media impose an inescapable presence in contemporary life and infuse all areas of public communication. But ...what is the quality of the relationship between 'broadcaster' and 'citizen'? Do the media and media authorities take the audience's interests seriously into account? Do audiences have real opportunities to express themselves? Are citizens well informed and educated about the social, the cultural and the civic role that media can play? In this book, five authors present the main results of an extensive programme of research that was financed by the European Commission. The study was conducted in 29 European countries and each author analyses European trends from different but complementary perspectives.
Although TV distribution has undergone a massive increase in volume and value over the past fifty years, there is a systematic lack of both curiosity and knowledge on the part of both industry and ...scholars about this area. This book assists in the filling of this gap by studying what, in fact, occurs in global trade in TV program formats within international markets such as Cannes, Las Vegas and Singapore. The study investigates key components of this trade, thereby elucidating the crucial dynamics at work in the most significant contemporary transnational cultural industry.
Celebrities have come to increasingly dominate the media and its study in contemporary culture. Although acknowledged as part of this general rise in the importance of celebrity culture, television’s ...specific forms of stardom have until now remained largely under-theorised. Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small Screen examines how television personalities function as commodities, and also function ideologically, thus relating them to issues of class, national identity, sexuality, gender and social history. Television Personalities sets out a new way of considering televisual fame, arguing that it must be understood on its own terms, and thus establishing the television personality as a particular set of performers whose celebrity is constructed through discourses of ordinariness, authenticity and intimacy. The book is divided into three sections that trace the historical development of televisual fame from the 1950s through to the emergence of ‘DIY’ celebrity in the digital era. It examines the economics, aesthetics, production, histories, futures and ideological functions of the television personality across a range of examples, including: Benny Hill, Oprah Winfrey, Cilla Black, Simon Cowell, Ricky Gervais, Alan Titchmarsh, Jamie Oliver; the stars of YouTube and television’s smaller screens; and Extras, Top Gear, The Naked Chef, The Weakest Link.
Television Personalities is an original, indispensable guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media, television and celebrity studies, as well as those interested in digital culture more widely.
In the years before the civil rights era, American broadcasting reflected the interests of the white mainstream, especially in the South. Today, the face of local television throughout the nation ...mirrors the diversity of the local populations.
The impetus for change began in 1964, when the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ and two black Mississippians, Aaron Henry and Reverend R. L. T. Smith, challenged the broadcasting license of WLBT, an NBC affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi. The lawsuit was the catalyst that would bring social reform to American broadcasting.
This station in a city whose population was 40 percent black was charged with failure to give fair coverage to civil rights and to integration issues that were dominating the news. Among offenses cited by the black population were the cancellation of a network interview with the civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall and editorializing against the integration of the University of Mississippi.
However, muscle, money, and a powerhouse Washington, D.C., law firm were on the side of the station. Despite the charges, the Federal Communications Commission twice renewed the station's license. Twice the challengers won appeals to the federal courts. Warren Burger, then a federal appeals court judge, wrote decisions on both challenges. The first ordered the FCC to allow public participation in its proceedings. The second, an unprecedented move, took the license from WLBT.
This well-told, deeply researched history of the case covers the legal battles over their more than fifteen years and reports the ultimate victory for civil rights. Aaron Henry, a black civil rights leader and one of the plaintiffs, became the station's chairman of the board. WLBT's new manager, William Dilday, was the first black person in the South to hold such a position.
Burger's decision on this Mississippi case had widescale repercussions, for it allowed community groups in other regions to challenge their stations and to negotiate for improved services and for the employment of minorities.
Kay Mills is the author ofA Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page,This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer,From Pocahontas to Power Suits: Everything You Need to Know about Women's History in America, andSomething Better for My Children: The History and People of Head Start. She lives in Santa Monica, California.
With cases studies used throughout to help illustrate the more general points, this is an analysis of the most important characteristics of television dialogue, with a focus on fictional television. ...The book illustrates how we can fruitfully and systematically analyse the language of television.
