The article connects the forms of contemporary TV series with the narrative and participatory logics of contemporary media. In particular, the author proposes to consider the wide diffusion and popularity of TV series as a form of response and adaptation to the contemporary media condition. The article proposes an analysis of the ways in which the human instinct for storytelling finds form in contemporary participatory media practices. This reflection is situated within the broader debate on post-cinema and the (...) ways in which new technologies have transformed cinema and audiovisual products. This theoretical perspective is related to the well-known twentieth-century philosophical reflection on the status of narration. TV series, therefore, are a response to the “call for concordance” (Ricœur) that is nowadays more evident than ever. Yet there seems to be a sort of paradox here, that characterises the TV series aesthetic experience: in the process of accomplishing this concordance, by creating solid and unitary world, TV series adapt that transmedia aesthetic (Jenkins) of fragmentation that is typical of contemporary media logic. At the end the author discusses some examples. (shrink)

In this paper I follow Ted Nannicelli in the project of establishing boundaries of television works. I focus on serialized television works pertaining to a particular genre and I set out to provide an account of their identity. My claim is that external identity of such works is determined by their specific genre-affiliation, given the way in which generic norms determine the content of the series, namely, its characteristic storylines and regular set of characters. From the internal perspective, a (...) series’ identity is determined by the particular way in which it implements abstract generic norms. I describe the process of such implementation as creation of series-specific formulaic patterns, and I analyze different layers of works where such patterns are evident. My central claim is that series-specific formulaic patterns create a coherent set of norms which, through repeated instantiation in the series’ episodes, become associated with that particular series. The function of this set is to establish the series’ boundaries, and to maintain its identity when different modifications to the patterns are made. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to test a general interpretation of television series as narrative epics, in the sense defined by Aristotle’s Poetics and canonised by Renaissance literary theorists.

This essay is my review of the classic TV series, Route 66. It was a classic “buddy movie,” with two young men who tour the country in a gorgeous 1956 Chevy Corvette, staying in various towns and working at various blue-collar jobs. The acting was generally superb, and the scripts were mainly written by the fine script writer Stirling Silliphant, and produced by the famous producer Herbert Leonard. I suggest that this 50-year-old series tells us a lot about (...) cultural change in America during that time. I suggest also that it helps demonstrate that the charge made by a famous cultural critic of the time—Newton Minow, who was Chairman of the Federal Communications Corporation from 1961 to 1963—that this period of commercial TV was a “vast wasteland” was not merely arrogantly elitist, but was in fact patently false. The 1950s and early 1960s saw many amazingly good series in a wide variety of genres. (shrink)

This article answers the question of how contemporary Russian TV series portray the police. The results derive from a single-case thematic and functionalist study of the popular Russian TV series Glukhar’ (which aired from 2008 to 2011). The show merits special attention because it was on air when the Russian police were undergoing a legitimacy crisis, which lead to the 2009 police reform. The series recognized the crisis and responded to it with a set of justifications. I (...) analyze the show’s social and cultural contexts, its plot patterns, and the functions of its characters. I build a typology of justifications and claim that the show justifies the police through an open discussion about the reasons for and consequences of their lawlessness. The series shows that the legitimacy of the police is repeatedly questioned, but trust in the police is always restored because police officers are depicted as estranged from the state but not from the community. Thus, the show contains an interesting example of overcoming a legitimacy crisis through its recognition. The study opens the floor to further discussions about how popular culture resolves intense social debates about policing by symbolic means in a moment when police legitimacy is contested. (shrink)

Contemporary TV shows, characterized by their complex narrative form, are designed to reveal the simple. They enable characters and viewers alike to discover the ordinary by coupling the everyday to an underworld populated by criminals, demons, vampires, and other kinds of “lowlifes.” I will argue here that the structure of the Möbius strip, or Escher twist, draws a particular aesthetic appeal at the intersection of these worlds. I call these twists uncanny in the Cavellian sense that the underworld, looking strangely (...) familiar, has the capacity of making the ordinary look unfamiliar, inherently strange, and unstable. Rather than allowing us to judge the demonic or illegal, they disclose what is normally inaccessible to us precisely because it is so ordinary and simple, so familiar and in plain sight. I will support this idea of Escher-twisting from one world to another by analyzing examples from Twin Peaks (ABC 1990-2, Showtime 2017), The Sopranos (HBO 1999-2007), Awake (NBC 2012), and Ozark (Netflix 2017–2022). (shrink)

This study attempts to investigate the role of movie and TV series clips in enhancing EFL learners’ pragmatic competence by utilizing an experimental design. The sample of the study was 42 students from the English language department at Cihan University-Duhok, Iraq. The experiment lasted one academic semester. The participants’ English language proficiency, as determined by an IELTS test sample, was intermediate, and then they were randomly split into two groups, namely experimental and control. Before and after the treatment, a (...) Written Discourse Completion Test served as a pre-and post-test given to the two groups to assess statistically significant differences between them. The experimental group received direct instruction on request and suggestion speech acts via the presentation of the carefully chosen movie and TV series clips. In contrast, the control group was exposed to a minimal amount of pragmatics through printed texts. The findings demonstrated that the experimental group outperformed the control group. More precisely, the findings revealed that movie and TV series clips had a significant influence on learners’ production of requests and suggestions. Considering the above findings, the researchers propose EFL teachers apply movie and TV series clips to improve their Students’ pragmatic competence in class. (shrink)

Traditionally, in media studies research, the direct address or aside, i.e., a construction in which a speaker communicates a message directly to the audience breaking the continuity of the narrative flow, has been investigated mainly for its dramaturgical function. The present study aims to consider the direct address as a research object of the social psychology of communication to increase our understanding of this technique by going beyond the analysis of its dramaturgical function. In particular, the direct address will be (...) examined through an integrated approach based on argumentative and conversational tools to highlight its less known polydimensional structure, i.e., diegetic and extra-diegetic dimensions and their interactions, and psychosocial functions, i.e., connecting the characters among each other within the show as well as with the audience. This objective will be achieved by analyzing two different direct addresses from the American TV series House of Cards. The analysis showed that the direct address performs its dramaturgical function by impacting both diegetic and extradiegetic levels. In the first case, as considered in previous studies, these plans are activated in parallel, aiming to build what we have defined as the “strategic subjectivity” of the character who employs this technique. Instead, in the second case—which comprises two direct addresses produced by two different characters—this technique involves the creation of what we will call “platforms of intersubjectivity.” In this occurrence, the dramaturgical action establishes a “bridge” between the diegetic and extradiegetic plans that act synergistically. In conclusion, the present study shows how an integrated approach based on argumentative and conversational tools of analysis permits to enlarge the traditional media studies perspective, highlighting the less investigated polydimensional structure and analyzing the psychosocial functions of the direct address, here considered as a research object of the social psychology of communication examined in its diegetic and extra-diegetic dimensions. The integration of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation with the interlocutory logic theory has brought to light a new modality of use of the direct address that can be termed “intersubjective aside,” a type of aside that can be added to the three already known, i.e., aside ad spectatores, monological aside, and dialogical aside. (shrink)

This article analyses the Swedish TV series Hållbart näringsliv (HN) to study hegemonic discursive formations over the meaning of the climate crisis. Combining new materialist approaches in discourse studies with a political ecology understanding of the socio-ecological entanglement, we propose the concept of technocratic solutionism to understand how the neo-liberal green economy secures instrumentalist discourses on nature in the Swedish context. The discourse-theoretical analysis of nine HN episodes identifies four nodal points which articulate the technocratic solutionist discourse: capital’s leading (...) role, Nordic exceptionalism, substitutionalism and long-termism. We argue that the climate crisis can be understood as a materiality that dislocates capitalist assemblages, which then, in response, deploy a techno-solutionism discourse to protect the core principles of economic growth and profitability while marginalizing potential radical alternatives. (shrink)

The paper explores the portrayal of social relations among youth in the popular Norwegian TV-series Skam and places this analysis in relation to Anne Imhof’s award-winning performance piece Faust, which received the Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice Biennale for the German Pavilion. As expressions of how today’s youth experience social relations under the conditions of late capitalism, I examine the way in which the TV-series and the performance work respectively explore when and how ‘we’ is shaped. I (...) argue that they provide particular insight into the limits and possibilities for the formation of relations of solidarity today. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article seeks to draw parallels between today’s transmodern reality and the events recounted in Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and in The Handmaid’s Tale Hulu TV series, particularly Seasons 2 and 3. Addressing issues such as controlled reproduction, violence, corporeal subjection of women, and environmental injustice, I focus on the body as a site of social construction, vulnerability and control. Drawing on the work of various scholars, I argue that the body is simultaneously a site of vulnerability and (...) of resistance that exceeds totalitarian categories, thus allowing for empowering “modes of heterogeneity,” fluidity, diversity, environmental as well as transcorporeal. In Gilead, the totalitarian state where Atwood’s two novels are set, it is the body that is acted upon, with massive repression and violence, and it is the body that resists by forming alternative relations and practices, which eventually facilitate the fall of Gilead from within. Throughout my analysis, I draw on the transmodern concept, while widening it toward the corporeal enmeshment with others in order to demonstrate that it is the interdependence of vulnerability and empowerment that reveals transmodernity’s “new visions of justice.”. (shrink)

Digital media and technology are nearly ubiquitious in contemporary higher education, As such, researchers and educators are keen to identify best practices and understand impacts. Digital media and technology present opportunities to cultivate interactive, creative teaching-learning communities. However, inclusion of digital media and technology in a course does not necessarily cultivate creative engagement or deep reflection among students. This manuscript studies how a contemplative approach to teaching with digital media, specifically TV series, can lead to more effective and engaging (...) in the process of teaching professional ethics. This research explores how the Contemplative Technopedagogy Framework can enrich the use of TV series for teaching professional ethics and positively influence the effective integration of ethical behavior into university students’ future professional lives. (shrink)

De manière continue depuis les débuts de la télévision, on observe que les femmes sont minoritaires dans les séries et plus jeunes que les hommes. L’écart d’âge joue un rôle considérable dans les rapports de genre asymétriques et inégaux, notamment dans les couples hétérosexuels. Les comédiennes de plus de 50 ans sont très rares, les personnages qu’elles incarnent proposent des scripts sexuels nouveaux et des représentations originales de la féminité et de la masculinité. Les concepts de masculinité et de féminité (...) hégémoniques éclairent ces fictions télévisées, dans lesquelles l’aspect « excessif » des rapports de genre représentés est une dimension importante. (shrink)

Responding to the co-production of screen seriality and human subjectivity within contemporary machine cultures and economies of excess, this article examines televisual affect and proposes concepts that address the languages, components and processes of particular televisual subjectivities. Discussions focus on science fiction fantasy series Farscape – a space odyssey fascinated with biotechnological evolution and mutative consciousness. This article aims to invigorate and extend the critical analysis of contemporary televisual affect, taking up questions and methodologies from Félix Guattari’s machinic ontology (...) and Georges Bataille’s formulation of a sacrificial economy to address the conditions of consumption–production relevant to television today. (shrink)

À la différence du cinéma, les séries TV, genre mineure, regardé dans l’univers domestique, ont mis souvent en avant les femmes. À partir de la série Buffy, leurs héroïnes échappent aux stéréotypes de genre et allient violence, souci des autres et affirmation d’un pouvoir collectif. Au tournant du siècle certaines séries deviennent féministes et accompagnent la transformation de la vision des femmes, de leur âge, de leur orientation sexuelle, de leurs appartenances sociale et raciale. Il y a même des vieilles (...) et des méchantes. L’article détaille ces transformations dans l’évocation concrète des séries de référence. (shrink)

Television series seem to be made of images and sounds just like films, but Luca Bandirali and Enrico Terrone suggest an alternate framework for understanding television series: as concepts whereby narratives made of images and sounds can be constructed.

TV-Philosophy in Action is inspired by philosopher and series-devotee Sandra Laugier’s monthly columns published in the French journal Libération. It is her contribution to the collective reflection on TV series produced by critics, theorists, and the vast mass of individual watchers who evaluate and discuss these programmes every day. The book brings together a selection of articles from Libération, as well as longer pieces, to demonstrate ‘TV-Philosophy in action’: Laugier’s response as a philosopher-viewer to a range of particularly (...) salient TV shows from the last 20 years, and their relationship to social and political issues of our times. Arranged under a number of important themes—relating to politics, identity, and the stories we tell ourselves about our world—the book shows how TV series provide a rich resource for thinking about our lives, and places them centre-stage as works of art, and of thought, in their own right. (shrink)

This is the first book to explore the hold of TV series on our lives from a philosophical and ethical perspective. Sandra Laugier argues that this vital and ubiquitous expression of popular culture throughout the world is transformative in its effects on the activity of philosophy in everyday life. Drawing on Stanley Cavell’s work on film and ordinary experience, Laugier contends that we are deeply affected by the formative role played by the TV series we watch, and by (...) the ways they become interconnected with our daily lives. The philosophical thinking embodied in series empowers individuals in their capacity to experience, understand and appropriate elements of the world, and to educate themselves. Through our relationships with TV series, we develop our own tastes and competences, which are constitutive of our distinct experience of life. ‘Series-philosophy’ is thus a democratizing force. It also offers us a new ethics, for morality can be found not in general rules and abstract principles but in the narrative texture of characters in everyday situations facing particular ethical problems, and with whom we form attachments that result in our moral education—in sometimes surprising ways. (shrink)

This article analyzes the changes in The Handmaid’s Tale’s moral and political outlook as it tracks different forms of complexity in the novel, the film, and the TV series. While the sense of female empowerment increases with each adaptation of this tale of forced sexual servitude in fictional theocratic state of Gilead, the essay argues that Hulu’s TV series develops an intriguing interaction between the interiority of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel and the exteriority emphasized in Volker Schlöndorff’s 1990 (...) film. In so doing, the TV series Escher-twists across related binaries between activity/passivity and personal/political actions as well. By expanding, displacing, and creatively intersecting storylines which the novel cut short, the series weaves an intricate perspectival web that invites the viewer to participate in its mind games. (shrink)

Critical theory with emancipatory aims today to find a source of regeneration in ordinary cultures, and in particular, in TV series. Certain series can play a role in reinventing critical theories, drawing on the tradition of the Frankfurt School but shifting some of that School’s formulations through contact with current forms of interpretive sociology and pragmatic sociology. This requires a cross-border dialogue between the “language game” of TV series and the “knowledge game” of political theory, to use (...) concepts inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In this article, I will focus on four series: seasons 1 of American Crime and The Sinner ; Sharp Objects ; and Unorthodox. The resources provided by these cultural works can help us formulate a critical decoding of important aspects of the current ideological context, in particular, the intersecting identitarian and ultra-conservative tendencies we find in France, Europe, the United States, and Brazil. These critical resources bear affinities to a political philosophy of the opening of being inspired by the ethical reflections of Emmanuel Levinas. (shrink)

Lockdown has given us an occasion to discover new television series and to revisit others. TV series accompany us in our ordinary lives, but they can also be a resource or refuge in extraordinary situations. As the enduring success of Friends proves, they provide us with universes of comfort. TV series provide strong common cultural referents, which populate both ordinary conversations and political debates. TV series, by virtue of their aesthetic format, the attachment they inspire to (...) their characters, the democratization and diversification of modes of viewing them, make possible a specific form of education and constitution of a public. TV shows are hence a medium for political and ethical discussion. The article studies two series, Homeland and The Bureau, which are paradigmatic examples of a genre that has grown exponentially since the beginning of the century, and which we refer to as the “security series” genre. These series are great works of art and can also be seen as powerful tools for educating and informing the public. (shrink)

The constitution of the Islamic State emerged as a very dangerous reality, that it was going take advantage of the weakness of Syria and Iraq to become a serious threat to the balance in the Middle East. His call to jihad would seduce thousands of Muslims around the world to came to fight for its consolidation and expansion, and this would worry western countries that saw their own citizens also come. Concern for this phenomenon led to the making of the (...) British miniseries the State, where it is about and describes the life and fate of several European volunteers in the territories under the rule of the Islamic State. This article addresses, from the perspective of visual history, the ideological and discursive keys posed by of this television fiction. (shrink)

The quality of political reporting in the news media is a focal point of communication research. Politics, however, is not only conveyed via traditional sources of information, but via fictional sources. In particular, political dramas (e. g., The West Wing, Borgen) enjoy great popularity and are often acknowledged for their realistic depiction of politics. Still, little is known about the democratic quality of such fictional depictions. This paper aims to fill the gap by contrasting the depiction of politics in the (...) fictional TV series Borgen with political reporting in a traditional TV magazine (Berlin direkt). The comparative content analysis is based on ten issues that are covered in both formats and focuses on the quality criteria of relevance, pluralism, and democratic discourse norms. Findings show no significant differences between Borgen and Berlin direkt for any of the three criteria, clearly indicating that fictional TV series can offer the same content quality as political reporting. (shrink)

This paper investigates the logistics of crafting and accounting for animal realities on television. Using the case of The Making of David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies, a behind-the-scenes documentary about how the Sky TV series David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies was created, it explores how the material reality of animals becomes a televisual reality. In seeking to challenge the lingering concern within many media studies critiques of wildlife TV about the constructed and manipulated nature of televisual animals, (...) we propose an approach focused on how realities are provoked. This approach draws on recent debates within STS and screen theory about the contingent elements and accountability relations that become practically operative in making something real. Equally significant is the animal performer. How do the animals, often domesticated, that are used in television to simulate wildness or scientific facts participate in and resist the television apparatus? And how do these animal performances shape distinct animal–human relations and contact zones? (shrink)

Le portrait des héros de séries télévisuelles a progressivement évolué ces dernières années pour faire émerger la figure de l’antihéros, un trope caractérisé par une ambiguïté morale, un système de valeurs individualiste et, paradoxalement, un pouvoir de séduction majeur sur les spectateurs. Il s’agira de comprendre ce qui justifie l’intérêt que l’on porte à ce genre de personnages, et ce que la valorisation de comportements misanthropiques, marginaux ou parfois violents, révèle des valeurs de nos sociétés.

Inheritance is about cold cash and warm emotions. On a macroeconomic level inherited wealth is a source of inequality, but on a personal level it is a gift between relatives that can involve gratitude, but also a sense of obligation and duty continuity, but also conflicts. These perspectives often clash in public discussions about inheritance law and taxation. This article discusses the implicit notions about inheritance and their relationship to positions in the public debate in three Danish filmic works: Per (...) Fly’s Inheritance (2003), first season of the TV-series The Heirs (2014) and Christian Sønderby Jepsen’s The Will (2011). (shrink)

This article presents a fresh perspective on the interplay among visual, verbal, and auditory modalities, positing that these modalities, as semogenic resources, compete to express dynamic meanings. The theoretical paradigm emphasizes that whether a modality or an element within a modality gets or loses semantic status, it will elicit an additional layer of social meaning to depict a comprehensive picture of a story together with an explicit semiotic meaning. The article adopts a qualitative method to analyze the data, which are (...) drawn from The Good Wife and My Roommate is a Gumiho and annotated in ELAN 6.3. It was found that modal competition can shed light on the dynamic meaning-making processes in semiotic and societal orientations. Modal competition may distort space and time of different stories, and reconstruct a different discursive spatio-temporal dimension in the TV world. It can diversify the dynamic orientations from New to Given in visual, verbal, and auditory texts of multimodal discourses to tell stories. Modal competition provides a lens to understand the multidimensional reality and to appreciate the aesthetics of a modern TV series. (shrink)

Film noir reflects the fatalistic themes and visual style of hard-boiled novelists and many émigré filmmakers in 1940s and 1950s America, emphasizing crime, alienation, and moral ambiguity. In The Philosophy of TV Noir, Steven M. Sanders and Aeon J. Skoble argue that the legacy of film noir classics such as The Maltese Falcon, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Big Sleep is also found in episodic television from the mid-1950s to the present. In this first-of-its-kind collection, contributors from philosophy, film studies, (...) and literature raise fundamental questions about the human predicament, giving this unique volume its moral resonance and demonstrating why television noir deserves our attention. The introduction traces the development of TV noir and provides an overview and evaluation of the book's thirteen essays, each of which discusses an exemplary TV noir series. Realism, relativism, and integrity are discussed in essays on Dragnet, Naked City, The Fugitive, and Secret Agent. Existentialist themes of authenticity, nihilism, and the search for life's meaning are addressed in essays on Miami Vice, The Sopranos, Carnivale, and 24. The methods of crime scene investigation in The X-Files and CSI are examined, followed by an exploration of autonomy, selfhood, and interpretation in The Prisoner, Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Millennium. With this focus on the philosophical dimensions of crime, espionage, and science fiction series, The Philosophy of TV Noir draws out the full implications of film noir and establishes TV noir as an art form in its own right. (shrink)

Bulgaria brought its assimilation policies against the Turkish minority up to an extreme level in the winter of 1984-1985. Weightlifter Naim Süleymanoğlu's asylum in Turkey in 1986 further strained the relations between Bulgaria and Turkey. The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) began broadcasting the TV series Yeniden Doğmak in 1987, which is about Bulgaria's assimilation policies. Bringing to the fore the story of a broken family who immigrated to Turkey by leaving their daughters behind, the series stimulated (...) the nationalist feelings among the Turkish people, which caused a diplomatic crisis between the two countries. As a result of the negotiations with Bulgaria, the series was cancelled in exchange for the release of Aysel Özgür, who is an inspiration to the story. The emotional atmosphere created through the TV series Yeniden Doğmak enabled the assimilation policies of Bulgaria against the Turkish minority to be discussed on both national and international scale. This project realized by using the power of television and drama is actually a political activity that manipulates the emotions of the masses. The Prime Minister of the time, Turgut Özal tried to maintain his power with the politics of affect throughout his political career just like his contemporaries Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The aim of this study is to examine Özal's policy of affect regarding the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in the axis of the TV series Yeniden Doğmak. In the study carried out from a qualitative perspective, the narrative analysis of the series was realized. In this framework; the arguments of Brian Massumi, who emphasized the affective media power and the fact that affect plays a much more important role than ideology, are the starting point of view. (shrink)

In the TV series, Joe Miller is the stop‐cap which keeps James Holden occupied so he does not have time to send constant broadcasts out to the world. When we think about Holden helping others, why he's always in the midst of things, it's helpful to think about what distinguishes Holden from other characters in the series and what makes him unique—that he grew up on a farm. Holden is the exact opposite of Dresden, Strickland, Mao, and Marco. (...) And that's what Naomi loves about him. The Expanse is dark science fiction whose references are to a war of all against all (Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan), to the massacre of American Indians, and to a dark intelligence that maybe intended the ultimate domination of nature. And one of their protagonists is a guy who thinks he's a knight tilting at windmills. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 92-93. A collection of Images produced by intentionally corrupting the circuitry of a Kodak DC280 2 MP digitalcamera. By rewiring the electronics of a digital camera, glitched images are produced in a manner that parallels chemically processing unexposed film or photographic paper to produce photographic images without exposure to light. The DCP Series of Digital Images are direct visualizations of data generated by a digital camera as it takes a picture. Electronic processes associated with the normal (...) operations of the camera, which are usually taken for granted, are revealed through an act of intervention. The camera is turned inside­out through complexes of short­circuits, selected by the artist, transforming the camera from a picture taking device to a data capturing device that renders raw data (electronic signals) as images. In essence, these images are snap­shots of electronic signals dancing through the camera's circuits, manually rerouted, written directly to the on­board memory device. Rather than seeing images of the world through a lens, we catch a glimpse of what the camera sees when it is forced to peer inside its own mind. With the digital photo, this light, from out of the night, no longer comes entirely from the day, it doesn't come from a past day that would simply have become night (like the photons emenating from Baudelaire's face.) It comes from Hades, from the realm of the dead, from underground: it is an electric light, set free by materials from deep within the belly of the earth. And electronic, that is to say, a decomposed light. Digitization breaks the chain, it introduces manipulation even into the spectrum, and by the same token, it makes phantoms and phantasms indistinct. Photons become pixels that are in turn reduced zeroes and ones on which discrete calculations can be performed. Essentially indubitable when it was analog (whatever its accidental manipulability), the this was has become essentially doubtful when it is digital (it is nonmanipulation that becomes accidental). —Bernard Steigler, The Discrete Image There are so many ways to take something apart. Deconstruction, differentiation, dissection, dissolution. A whole slew of concepts and processes towards atomization which aim, eventually, to evoke or locate an essence of some kind, in material science as in philosophy. In picking things apart, what is it we attempt to do? To simplify? To comprehend? To confront? To disprove? With Stearns’ DCP Series we see that destructive scrutiny can sometimes bring about new forms. To create this series of images, Stearns applies circuit bending techniques to modern photography—his fingers and stray wires cutting across the camera’s circuitry at the moment of registration. As with Moholy­Nagy’s vinyl records and Nam June Paik’s cathode ray TVs, Stearns deconstructs the technological inscription of his era. In so doing, the function of the digital camera is revealed, but its transduction inverted: A recorder becomes a synthesizer, the scientist an artist. In a single, simple gesture, these works example a media archeology of the present. We resist the urge to call these photographs. —Jamie Allen. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungVor dem Hintergrund, dass in den Medien und der Öffentlichkeit thematisierte und dargestellte Arztbilder stets auch auf die öffentliche Meinung und die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Ärzten wirken, spürt der Artikel der Frage nach, welches Arztbild die amerikanische TV-KrankenhausserieDr. House transportiert und welche Ausprägung das dargestellte Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnis einnimmt. Hierbei werden die medizinethischen Reflexionen durch eine detaillierte medienwissenschaftliche Genre-Einordnung und dramaturgische Analyse eingerahmt und unterstützt. Zudem werden als Analyseinstrumentarium die vier Modelle des Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnisses nach Emanuel/emanuel herangezogen. Dieser interdisziplinäre Forschungsansatz zeigt, dass (...) die Hauptfigur der Serie, der Arzt Dr. Gregory House, durchaus als Gegenentwurf einesmodernen Arztes, der fürsorglich, nicht-direktiv und stets im Sinne desinformed consent handelt, konzipiert und präsentiert wird. Doch ist daraus nicht zu schließen, dass die Figur des Dr. House einseitig als Paternalist gezeichnet ist. Die Kategorisierung und Einordnung des Dr. House und der von ihm repräsentierten Arzttugenden ist vielmehr entlangaller Elemente des gesellschaftlichen Arztideals vorzunehmen, zu denen eine entsprechende wissenschaftlich-medizinische Kompetenz, die Orientierung an objektivierbaren Indizien, die Verpflichtung auf das naturwissenschaftliche, evidenzbasierte Ideal, eine angenehme Kommunikation mit dem Patienten sowie die nötige, gebotene Aufklärung zählen. So wird in der Analyse deutlich, dass die Darstellung von Dr. House vielschichtiger ist und immer wieder auf ethische Dilemma-Situationen in der Medizin verweist. Diese wirkmächtige dramatisch-filmische Darstellung von Konfliktsituationen im diagnostisch-therapeutischen Kontext sollte daher auch in der kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Wirkungsforschung vertieft werden. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the Christian discourse of the English TV series «Robin of Sherwood» (1984–1986). As a methodological basis for the scientific work, a philosophical-hermeneutic approach is used, presented, in particular, in the works of W. Dilthey, H.-G. Gadamer and M.M. Bakhtin. The most important structure of understanding is the principle of the «hermeneutic circle», which assumes that the text as a whole is understood through each of its parts, and the part through the whole. In (...) addition, understanding arises in the process of «dialogical cognition», a dialogue between the author, as well as the text as a subject, and the reader (viewer). The content of the series «Robin of Sherwood» is analyzed in the specific historical conditions of the 1980s. This is a period of growing social and cultural protest caused in Europe and the United States by the policy of neoconservatism and the reduction of social guarantees. Many phenomena previously classified as counterculture are becoming fashionable and becoming mainstream, including the legacy of paganism, pre-Christian mysticism and mythology. The article shows that the creators of the series intended to present Robin Hood not only as a leader of social or national resistance, but also as a defender of the ancient pagan religion against the new, Christian. An analysis is given of episodes from the first two seasons of the film, which trace criticism of the Christian church as an institution, as well as specific monks and clergy. In the third season, the critical pathos towards the church practically disappears. However, the author comes to the conclusion that it is the first two seasons that demonstrate the development of the moral consciousness of the characters from pagan to Christian, and Christian discourse is present in the film text, perhaps contrary to the original intention of its creators. There is also a reception of the Christian discourse of the series in the Russian and, more broadly, Russian-language literary Internet space, which is reflected in discussions on relevant literary and historical forums, as well as in works of fan literature. (shrink)

Vor dem Hintergrund, dass in den Medien und der Öffentlichkeit thematisierte und dargestellte Arztbilder stets auch auf die öffentliche Meinung und die Vorstellungen der Menschen von Ärzten wirken, spürt der Artikel der Frage nach, welches Arztbild die amerikanische TV-KrankenhausserieDr. House transportiert und welche Ausprägung das dargestellte Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnis einnimmt. Hierbei werden die medizinethischen Reflexionen durch eine detaillierte medienwissenschaftliche Genre-Einordnung und dramaturgische Analyse eingerahmt und unterstützt. Zudem werden als Analyseinstrumentarium die vier Modelle des Arzt-Patienten-Verhältnisses nach Emanuel/Emanuel herangezogen. Dieser interdisziplinäre Forschungsansatz zeigt, dass (...) die Hauptfigur der Serie, der Arzt Dr. Gregory House, durchaus als Gegenentwurf einesmodernen Arztes, der fürsorglich, nicht-direktiv und stets im Sinne desinformed consent handelt, konzipiert und präsentiert wird. Doch ist daraus nicht zu schließen, dass die Figur des Dr. House einseitig als Paternalist gezeichnet ist. Die Kategorisierung und Einordnung des Dr. House und der von ihm repräsentierten Arzttugenden ist vielmehr entlangaller Elemente des gesellschaftlichen Arztideals vorzunehmen, zu denen eine entsprechende wissenschaftlich-medizinische Kompetenz, die Orientierung an objektivierbaren Indizien, die Verpflichtung auf das naturwissenschaftliche, evidenzbasierte Ideal, eine angenehme Kommunikation mit dem Patienten sowie die nötige, gebotene Aufklärung zählen. So wird in der Analyse deutlich, dass die Darstellung von Dr. House vielschichtiger ist und immer wieder auf ethische Dilemma-Situationen in der Medizin verweist. Diese wirkmächtige dramatisch-filmische Darstellung von Konfliktsituationen im diagnostisch-therapeutischen Kontext sollte daher auch in der kommunikationswissenschaftlichen Wirkungsforschung vertieft werden. (shrink)

For years Supernatural has gained the status of a cult series as well as one of the most passionate and devoted fandoms that has ever emerged. Even though the main concept of the series indicates that Supernatural should appeal predominantly to young male viewers, in fact, the fandom is dominated by young women who are the target audience of the CW network. My research is couched in fan studies and audience studies methodological perspectives as it is impossible to (...) understand the phenomenon of Supernatural without referring to its fandom and fan practices. However, it focuses on the series’ structure in order to explain how this structure enables Supernatural’s viewers to challenge and revise prevailing gender roles. Supernatural combines elements of divergent TV genres, traditionally associated with either male or female audiences. It opens up to gender hybridity through genre hybridity: by interweaving melodrama with horror and other “masculine” genres the show provides a fascinating example of Gothic television which questions any simplistic gender identifications. (shrink)

The TV series American Gods (2017-2021) features a war between the Old Gods, a syncretic pantheon of deities of the natural powers drawn from all mythological and religious traditions, and the New Gods, the deities of history and the artificial realm of man-made technics. Gods of both fences are shown as beings whose morals beyond good and evil is entirely focused on fulfilling their will to power in terms of immortality. Humans are trapped within this conflict; their only option (...) is seemingly limited to choose which side they stand. While the series sumptuously renders Heidegger’s claim that metaphysics and technics are the same, it also employs a different and positive meaning of the latter: by showing the old gods, the new ones, and humans as different options about existence – namely the logic of sacrifice, the logic of hedonism, and the economic logic of human reason – and eventually rejecting all of them as viable solutions, it favours an idea of existence as full open-ness and experimentality. In the end, technics is one with man’s self-creativity, embodied in his very biology, providing him an escape route from the vicious circles constantly ambushing him on his path towards authenticity – namely, all deities, religious as well as secular. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of realism in relationship to contemporary serial fiction. Drawing on The Bureau, it argues that spy TV series are “realistic” not because they correspond to reality but because of their impact on reality. It begins by giving an overview of the many ways in which “realism,” in the ordinary sense of a resemblance with reality, served as the working framework for The Bureau’s team. It then identifies three distinct types of realisms in the (...) class='Hi'>series. The first is a “fictional realism,” namely the ability of The Bureau to conform to the aesthetic and narrative conventions of realistic fictions. The second type of realism, which I qualify as “ordinary,” refers to the possibilities offered by the show’s aesthetics and the enmeshment of The Bureau with viewers’ ordinary experience. The third type of “performative realism” refers to the series’ impact on shared representations and reality. By providing a common language about the secret activities of the state, The Bureau has gone from being a framed version of reality to being one of the defining frameworks through which state secrecy is experienced both individually and collectively, by insiders and the public at large. (shrink)

Within the genres of news and current affairs television, it is the generic logic of the ‘feelgood’ genre of the talk show that legitimizes personalized discourse between famous hosts and politicians. The article presents a case study of such an interview, focusing on the ways in which the interaction between the verbal, the visual and the rhythmic modalities of the interview is employed by the multiple authors of the text to construct a variety of interpersonal footings for interviewer and interviewee (...) on the one hand and a series of preferred interpretations for the audience on the other. The method is deviant case analysis, using tools from semantics and pragmatics, discourse and conversation analysis, and visual analysis of news images. To explore the manner of interaction between the verbal and visual channel, the concept of rhythm is developed for dialogic audiovisual texts. Dialogic audiovisual rhythm is defined as arising from the interaction of speaker or addressee change with onset of new shot, and with frequency of shots per turn/ generic unit of the interview. Rhythmic sequences can then be segmented which make up the textual structure of the interview, delineating its semantic units and areas of strategic positioning between the private, the personal and the political. Three types of the personalization of politics can be discerned in the text: that of the private domain, that of political relations as private ones, and that of politics as history being made by great men. A forth type of personalization is that of the relations between the media and politics. Different combinations of verbal, visual and rhythmic means are used to realize these types discursively. (shrink)

The idea of transferring and even imposing individual thoughts on others is as old as human history. Quran states that the first people were deceived by being influenced by the words of the devil. It is a known fact that the Prophet conveyed the message to guide people to the right path and was assigned to fulfill this duty. In fact, it is quite natural for this situation to happen wherever there are people. However, advances in the cultural and technological (...) fields throughout history have changed the tools used in the mentioned activities. For instance, with the ease of supply of writing materials and the developments in the field of printing, ideas were conveyed more in writing. When it comes to the modern era, visual programs have gained speed with the digital changes and transformations experienced by television, computers and the internet as their supporter. In this direction, television and subsequently digital broadcasting platforms became widespread, and with the increase in demand for digital platforms, a mandatory change was required in the media sector. Anticipating this change, Netflix is the largest digital broadcasting platform, which entered the digital broadcasting industry quickly and reached millions of subscribers. As it is known, the most important purpose of visual media civilization, if not the only one, is to obtain financial benefits. However, it is also certain that Netflix and similar companies deliberately or unintentionally impose their world of thought, ways of making sense of life, and even ideologies through their content. In this direction, TV programs, series and movies that carry religious images are given a great deal of places on digital platforms, because they attract the watchers and they have high potential to influence on them. Although, these programs sometimes lead people to reach the right information, they often cause false religious teaching to be conveyed. the Caliphate series, which is one of the most watched content on the mentioned platform in recent days and tells the drama-filled story of a family who went to Raqqa from Sweden within the borders of the so-called Islamic State, directs its viewers about Islamic teachings in various ways. In our study, Islamic images in this series will be analyzed through topics such as religious abuse and Islamophobia, and it will be focused on how digital platforms shape the perception of religion. In addition, the transformation of media and digital platforms, the compatibility of the series with its aims and objectives, and how the minds of ISIS militants overlap with the main teachings of Islam will also be touched upon. After all these, the creation of perception will be emphasized in the media sector in general, and digital platforms in particular. (shrink)

This article draws on concepts from cognitive psychology to explore the significance of the narrative climax, focusing on the final climax of the series The Americans as a case study. Two aspects of the aesthetic experience are considered: the special intensity that climaxes elicit, and the diversity of the cognitive content they generate, which can include both aesthetic and non-aesthetic properties. The climax is experienced in a state of absorption triggered by a set of strategies of temporal prolongation related (...) to the main suspenseful moments and plotlines, to character engagement, and to the multiplot structure, involving the content of the narrative itself and the aesthetic qualities that define it. The source of this absorption during the climax lies in the interplay between emotion and cognition in a temporal process that may last for a whole series. To demonstrate this idea, this study identifies key narrative comprehension processes, drawing on the explanatory potential of mental model theory to clarify the importance of memory and interrelated inferential processes. The aim of this research is to contribute to explanations of the role of the climax in serialized television and other artistic works. (shrink)

This chapter talks about TV series character Veronica Mars who believes in the old school of thought of an eye for an eye. Logan Echolls has extracted the payment from Stosh “Piz” Piznarski by battering him bloody for the presumed crime of taping himself and Veronica. Vengeance is the quintessential passion of the victim. It's a visceral instinct, not a high‐minded aspiration. The essence of vengeance may be well captured in the image of Veronica's classmate Mandy, wild‐eyed and screaming (...) as she repeatedly tasers dognapper Hans, whom she has pinned beneath her on the floor of the Neptune dog pound. The chapter also mentions that Neptune is a town without mercy, as it presents various instances of persons taking revenge for past sufferings. It also describes other episodes of the TV series entitled “Shut Up, Sane Veronica—I'm in Charge Now!” and “Do You Not Instinctively Fear Me?”. (shrink)

The US TV series Mad Men, set in an advertising agency in 1960s New York, offers a vivid portrayal of corporate sexism in pre-feminist America, and yet its creators defend it as a ‘feminist’ show. Reflecting on the series, I will draw out two key elements which seem significant for a consideration of the current state of feminism in church and academy, both of which centre around what it means to remember or to forget. First, there is the (...) power of what might be called ‘the allegorical past’ in helping to shape the sensibilities of both feminist theory and feminist theology: reimagining the past in order to destabilize the present and to re-envision the future. But second there is the question of whether we have become too complacent – and forgetful about the sexual revolution of the past 50 years, and whether a new wave of ‘re-membering’ our feminist heritage is required, in order to rejuvenate progressive visions of critique and transformation. (shrink)