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Television and Digital Media

Lynn Spigel and Max Dawson

in American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

In this chapter, Lynn Spiegel and Max Dawson show how American television remained the central medium not just for entertainment, but for discussion of gender roles, race relations, family life and ... More

In this chapter, Lynn Spiegel and Max Dawson show how American television remained the central medium not just for entertainment, but for discussion of gender roles, race relations, family life and other major moral and social issues of the day. They examine the new emphasis on taste and lifestyle in network programming, as well as the continuing under-representation of Latino and other ethnic groups on prime-time shows. They also examine the rise of reality television, the development of a new scheduling policy based on the ‘social arrhythmia’ of the 24-hour information economy, and the rising importance of time-shifting by the end of the period. Finally, they argue that viewers now form a part of television audiences that transcend the old boundaries of the nation-state – even though worldwide audiences continue to interpret programmes in the light of their own local contexts and national concerns.Less

Between global and national: 24 and Spooks; Buried and Oz

Robin Nelson

in State of Play: Contemporary 'High-end' TV Drama

This chapter considers developments in television dramatic form and style in the context of ‘cultural discount’. Any simple binary difference between American and British television cultures is ... More

This chapter considers developments in television dramatic form and style in the context of ‘cultural discount’. Any simple binary difference between American and British television cultures is ultimately unsustainable, but the two cultures do betray different tendencies. Where, even in the new circumstances of TV3, ‘high-end’ American television can afford to be more experimental, a strong disposition to be primarily entertaining remains. British TV drama output, in contrast, retains traces of the legacy of British social realism even where, as in Spooks, it strives towards the production values of ‘American Quality TV’. British culture, though influenced by that of the USA, is perhaps still less upbeat and feelgood, more prepared to be reflectively self-critical, but, in TV3, there have been shifts in television culture on both sides of the Atlantic.Less

Introduction: African American Television Trade

Timothy Havens

in Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe

This introductory chapter looks at media globalization not as a restrictive or liberating force, but as productive of certain kinds of representational outcomes. In some ways, globalization has ... More

This introductory chapter looks at media globalization not as a restrictive or liberating force, but as productive of certain kinds of representational outcomes. In some ways, globalization has expanded the diversity of African American television, while in other ways it has restricted that diversity. Globalization has resulted in more diverse portrayals of African American men in terms of class, politics, and professions. For African American women, however, it has helped narrow the diversity of portrayals or eliminate them altogether, largely because African American characters are most frequently used to attract male demographics. The chapter also explains how the globalization of the media industries shapes the representational politics of African American television. Drawing on Michel Foucault's theory that power produces both social realities and forms of resistance, the chapter argues that media globalization is an exercise in corporate capitalist power.Less

The Worldwide Circulation of Contemporary African American Television

Timothy Havens

in Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe

This chapter focuses on the international circulation of the newer forms of African American television, particularly, how different network organizations and audience configurations create ... More

This chapter focuses on the international circulation of the newer forms of African American television, particularly, how different network organizations and audience configurations create opportunities for new kinds of African American television flows. The priorities of premium cable channels, general entertainment broadcasters, and comedy channels abroad, combined with industry lore about “edgy” and “quality” programming, lead to a heavy reliance on black masculinity, heteronormativity, crime, violence, and frequent use of the word “nigger” in contemporary series. These similar aesthetic choices tend to dominate web-based television series as well, largely because online producers often strive to have their programs noticed by more traditional television outlets. The chapter looks at how series creators navigate these institutional expectations of what African American television should include in order to get their shows on air.Less

A little Brit different? BBC America and transnational constructs of Britishness

Darrell M. Newton

in Adjusting the Contrast: British Television and Constructs of Race

This chapter examines how BBCA has represented contemporary Britain in its programming choices since 1998, when it began service in the United States. With a healthy range of programming that ... More

This chapter examines how BBCA has represented contemporary Britain in its programming choices since 1998, when it began service in the United States. With a healthy range of programming that featured black and Asian Britons from 2004–11 no longer being offered by the channel, the essay argues that the diminished presence of these characters of colour directly affected cultural diversity on BBCA. In turn, the changes in programming choices has constructed Britishness in a manner that reinforces a mostly white, nearly homogeneous nation-state, one that draws from an American fascination with ‘Anglophenia’. There has been limited research on the subject of BBCA specifically, but works by Christine Becker and Melinda Lewis provide insights on its efforts to represent Britain and to capture a portion of the American television market. The chapter also draws from an original interview with past CEO of BBCA Bill Hilary (2004–6) conducted in May 2016.Less

Television and The Flood: Anatomy of an “Inglorious Flop”

Charles M. Joseph

in Stravinsky Inside Out

This chapter takes a look at the first and last television performance of The Flood, Stravinsky's newest work in June of 1962. The Flood, like many of Stravinsky's earlier theater compositions, ... More

This chapter takes a look at the first and last television performance of The Flood, Stravinsky's newest work in June of 1962. The Flood, like many of Stravinsky's earlier theater compositions, looked back at the past in order to derive some moral truths about the future. Stravinsky's television production, introduced by Laurence Harvey, was an attempt to make his music available to the widest possible audience. The chapter gives a brief breakdown of what factors may have brought about this television production's flop, as four million homes had originally tuned in at the start of the program, and by the end that number had dramatically dropped, resulting in the production's reputation as a disaster. The chapter finally looks at the tremors that Stravinsky's The Flood would have on American television.Less

Roots and the Perils of African American Television Drama in a Global World

Timothy Havens

in Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe

This chapter looks at the miniseries Roots (1977), which became a worldwide sensation. The show's portrayals of blackness, particularly black masculinity, draws on black nationalist and Black Power ... More

This chapter looks at the miniseries Roots (1977), which became a worldwide sensation. The show's portrayals of blackness, particularly black masculinity, draws on black nationalist and Black Power discourses circulating in American society at the time. The chapter reviews how these discourses served differing institutional needs of American, Western European, and Eastern European broadcasters, as well as how other features of the miniseries helped and hindered its export potential. Because miniseries addressing white American history were the main beneficiaries of the international popularity of Roots, the miniseries genre did not become a vehicle for African American stories in the early eighties. Instead, African American characters were relegated to integrated situation comedies involving an otherwise white cast and white cultural surroundings.Less

Conclusion: Transnational Televisual Aesthetics and Global Discourses of Race

Timothy Havens

in Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe

This concluding chapter explains how the discussions in African American television constitute highly institutionalized exchanges. The book argues that while these are not the most interesting or ... More

This concluding chapter explains how the discussions in African American television constitute highly institutionalized exchanges. The book argues that while these are not the most interesting or important exchanges, they are distinct from the more idiosyncratic kinds of exchanges that less organized conversations give rise to. The chapter also talks about the aesthetic dimensions of African American television and how different kinds of institutional practices encourage different kinds of aesthetics. Since television's inception, its institutional formations encouraged the use of realist aesthetics. Ironically, today's global, digital, post-network era supports highly localized aesthetics of hyperrealism and travesty. Thus, the institutional labors of narrowcasters targeting transnational or subnational audience segments give rise to industry lore about viewers embarking on cultural journeys and seeking out cultural difference.Less

Black Television from Elsewhere: The Globalization of Non-U.S. Black Television

Timothy Havens

in Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe

This chapter illustrates how black programming produced elsewhere navigates the circuits of contemporary commercial television and global, digital distribution platforms. It looks at three examples ... More

This chapter illustrates how black programming produced elsewhere navigates the circuits of contemporary commercial television and global, digital distribution platforms. It looks at three examples of non-American black television and video programming: the animated Samoan/ Māori television series bro'Town (2004–2009); the booming Nigerian videofilm industry known as Nollywood; and the transnational pirating of the first Belizean television drama Noh Matta Wat (2005–2008). Together, these examples display several important trends in black television during an era of digitization, globalization, and marketization. First, there is an obvious increase in the variety of video and television programming featuring non-U.S. blacks circulating internationally. Secondly, these programs retain significant cultural specificity. Lastly, black television programming travels through disorganized, parallel markets, which make production funding highly precarious.Less

Rarae Aves: Television’s Female Scientists

Marcel Chotkowski Lafollette

in Science on American Television: A History

This chapter examines the depiction or portrayal of women scientists in science television programs in the United States. It explains that television transmitted potent statements about the role and ... More

This chapter examines the depiction or portrayal of women scientists in science television programs in the United States. It explains that television transmitted potent statements about the role and status of women in science, and that the female scientists were professionally marginalized and culturally stereotyped throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter also identifies the factors that kept the theme of cultural “invisibility” alive on American television.Less

Introduction

in Special Relations: The Americanization of Britain?

This book addresses the reaction of Britain to American popular culture. The phenomena of special postwar cultural relations that this study considers include the prospect of the Manhattanization of ... More

This book addresses the reaction of Britain to American popular culture. The phenomena of special postwar cultural relations that this study considers include the prospect of the Manhattanization of the London cityscape in the late 1950s, anti-American protest in the 1960s, Anglo-American Pop, rock, and utopian counterculture, the radical politics of liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the transatlantic construction of “heritage Britain” in the decade that followed. American popular culture has been a transformative engine of great power. The special nature of Anglo-American cultural relations from the 1950s to the 1970s is then described. It is shown that the transatlantic contact multiplied the short-stay and long-stay tourism, the back-and-forth of professional (commercial, financial, and academic) travel. American visitors have significantly played a role in Anglo-American cultural relations. Furthermore, the effect of American television on transatlantic travel is discussed.Less

Introduction: Men Matter

Judith Walzer Leavitt

in Make Room for Daddy: The Journey from Waiting Room to Birthing Room

This book begins by presenting a prime-time first: On December 8, 1952, American television audiences watching I Love Lucy saw a pregnant actress playing the part of a pregnant woman. Lucille Ball ... More

This book begins by presenting a prime-time first: On December 8, 1952, American television audiences watching I Love Lucy saw a pregnant actress playing the part of a pregnant woman. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, her real-life and television husband, along with the show's producer, had decided to address directly a subject that had previously been taboo. Although women had been getting pregnant and having babies for millennia, television shows in the early 1950s routinely acknowledged that fact by producing a baby without the nine-month preliminaries. Arnaz, already the father of little Lucie, wanted it to be different this time. “I wanted to talk about my child. I didn't want to put Lucille in a closet for nine months. Having a baby is a perfectly natural happening.”Less

Advertising: social life, social standing and sex

Rebecca Feasey

in Masculinity and Popular Television

This chapter introduces the ways in which stereotypical representations of gender have changed in British and American television advertising from the 1950s to the present day, paying particular ... More

This chapter introduces the ways in which stereotypical representations of gender have changed in British and American television advertising from the 1950s to the present day, paying particular attention to the depiction of the female as a passive sexual object and the depiction of the male as a rugged individualist. Attention is also given to the depiction of masculinity in a range of male grooming, car and beer commercials that have been created for a gender-balanced evening audience. By looking at the representations of masculinity in recent advertisements for the Lynx, Volkswagen Passat, Golf and Budweiser brands, the chapter hopes to illustrate the ways in which these texts can be seen to negotiate early images of the competitive, hungry, individualist in favour a softer, understated image of the male. All of these advertisements challenge the competitive and physically powerful hegemonic male, and, as such, can be seen to respond to the multiple masculinities on offer in contemporary society. One common denominator in these advertisements is the absence of domestic commitments or familial responsibilities, signifying that there exist a number of men living apart from women.Less

Grandparents and Grandchildren in The Simpsons: Intergenerational Rupture and Prefigurative Culture

Mariano Narodowski and Verónica Gottau

in Connecting Childhood and Old Age in Popular Media

Mariano Narodowski and Verónica Gottau employ an anthropological theoretical framework to interpret the intergenerational relationships in the American television series The Simpsons as an instance ... More

Mariano Narodowski and Verónica Gottau employ an anthropological theoretical framework to interpret the intergenerational relationships in the American television series The Simpsons as an instance of what anthropologist Margaret Mead calls “prefigurative culture.” The Simpsons parodies old series and sitcoms of American television in which old people had a central, harmonious, and balanced role within the expected limits of a postfigurative culture which admired and respected the elderly. In The Simpsons, the connection with past traditions that the grandparents might represent is buried under the cynicism and cruelty of the younger characters. Institutionalized and infantilized old people are shown to be at the mercy of young and middle-aged adults. When the transmission of historical and cultural knowledge loses value and intergenerational references are relegated to confined institutions, Narodowski and Gottau argue, any attempt to reconstruct it only provokes a brutal and ironic backlash which suppresses the memory of past eras.Less

Conclusion

Joseph Oldham

in Paranoid Visions: Spies, Conspiracies and the Secret State in British Television Drama

This conclusion surveys the history and evolution of the spy and conspiracy dramas over the preceding decades, summing up the arguments from the main chapters of the book. This is framed by ... More

This conclusion surveys the history and evolution of the spy and conspiracy dramas over the preceding decades, summing up the arguments from the main chapters of the book. This is framed by discussion of some of the most recent programmes in these traditions, most notably the BBC’s return to John Le Carre with their adaptation of The Night Manager (BBC 1, 2016). It explores how these are increasingly made through complex co-production arrangements, with both the independent production sector and transatlantic co-production partners playing more dominant roles. This is linked to shift in trends back towards a ‘novelistic’ serial form, and new moral ambiguity whereby it seems increasingly difficult to distinguish the spy and conspiracy genres. It argues that this this responds to the critical agenda set American ‘quality’ television, with discourses of ‘quality’ emanating from pay-per-view threatening to supplant those associated with public service broadcasting.Less

Sustaining and Transgressing Borders: The Relationship between Children and the Elderly in Mad Men

Cecilia Lindgren and Johanna Sjöberg

in Connecting Childhood and Old Age in Popular Media

The award-winning American television series Mad Men uses historical fiction to reflect on issues that remain pressing, including tensions in family and intergenerational relationships. This chapter ... More

The award-winning American television series Mad Men uses historical fiction to reflect on issues that remain pressing, including tensions in family and intergenerational relationships. This chapter scrutinizes the link between childhood and old age by analyzing how the relationships between Sally Draper and two of her elderly relatives are played out. The companionship between children and the elderly is constructed as rewarding for both parties, yet as provocative rather than romantic and harmless. The (substitute) grandparents take on the roles of both gatekeeper and enabler in relation to the child. When the elderly are portrayed as enablers they make it possible for the child to transgress the borders of childhood, and as such they themselves subversively transgress the borders of grandparenthood and challenge age norms and the authority of the middle generation.Less