Television & New Media recent issues

Can the FCC Still Ignore the Public?: Interviews With Two Commissioners Who Listened

Brown, D. H., Blevins, J. L. — 2008-10-09

Recent events in the broadcast policy-making system of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have raised the question: can public voices effectively participate in the broadcast policy-making process? This paper examines the factors working against public involvement, as well as those that have made recent intervention possible, especially the growth of the internet and its ability to facilitate more public activity. The authors conducted private in-depth interviews with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps and former FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson to discuss their exceptional efforts to better involve the public in the policy-making process during their service with the agency. Our analysis shows that the factors facilitating greater public involvement have developed to the point where, at least sometimes, the public and civil society organizations can either block, or at least modify, the demands of entrenched corporate interests.

Extreme Makeover: The Politics of Gender, Class, and Cultural Identity

Franco, J. — 2008-10-09

This article examines the representation of gender, class, and cultural identity in the Extreme Makeover series, the most widely circulated American cosmetic makeover show that coexists on Western European television with national/regional adaptations of the format. Even though a cross-national analysis of the Dutch, Flemish, and British version alerts us to cultural differences, particularly in terms of generic inflections and aesthetic allegiances, the formulaic narrative structure of this television format ultimately transcends local culture and perpetuates normative gender and class regimes, particularly in combination with other popular reality shows aimed at female spectators.

"The WarGames Scenario": Regulating Teenagers and Teenaged Technology (1980--1984)

Schulte, S. R. — 2008-10-09

WarGames (1983), the first mass-consumed, visual representation of the internet, served as both a vehicle and framework for America's earliest discussion of the internet. WarGames presented the internet simultaneously as a high-tech toy for teenagers and a weapon for global destruction. In its wake, major news media focused on potential realities of the "WarGames Scenario." In response, Congress held hearings, screened WarGames, and produced the first internet-regulating legislation. WarGames engaged a "teenaged technology" discourse, which cast both internet technology itself and its users as rebellious teenagers in need of parental control. This discourse enabled policy makers to equate government internet regulation with parental guidance rather than with suppression of democracy and innovation, a crucial distinction within 1980s cold war context. Thus, this article historicizes the internet as a cultural text, examining how technology and its regulation shaped and were shaped by cultural representations.

"These Two Are Speaking Welsh on Channel 4!": Welsh Representations and Cultural Tensions on Big Brother 7

Klein, B., Wardle, C. — 2008-10-09

As the number and popularity of reality programs continue to grow, there has been an increasing focus in television studies on the representative and constitutive potential of unscripted dramas. Through its inclusion of two Welsh-speaking housemates and consideration of the use of the language on the program, Big Brother 7 provided an opportunity for viewers to deliberate on issues of identity, culture, and nationalism. This article examines the postings that appeared on internet message boards in response to this program, demonstrating the extent to which Big Brother 7 prompted discussions and debate about Welsh culture and language. Significantly, much of the discourse about Wales and the Welsh language was civil, rational, and deliberative, a theme that runs contrary to increasingly accepted wisdom about message board culture. This case also highlights the uses and limitations of popular reality programming for affirming identity and celebrating cultural differences.

Queerness, the Quality Audience, and Comedy Central's Reno 911!

Griffin, H. — 2008-07-25

Comedy Central currently attracts the same kind of quality audience that broadcast television networks courted in the 1990s, one that resulted in the sharp increase in gaythemed content on the networks at that time. Yet the parodic mode of address that so permeates the cable network's content makes the different levels of gay cultural competency a heterogeneous viewership brings to a program like Reno 911! an issue of considerable import. A parodic situation-comedy based on reality crime programming, Reno 911! narrativizes an ambiguously gay police detective who, in turn, provides different viewing pleasures for differently situated viewers. As such, the character foregrounds questions about the political consequences of television's use of queer cultural signifiers and the pleasures that viewers take in a parodic representation of queerness on television.

The Mediation of Suffering and the Vision of a Cosmopolitan Public

Chouliaraki, L. — 2008-07-25

In this article, the author argues that if researchers wish to move toward a "global village" with cosmopolitan values, then they need to examine critically the discourses and practices by which global information flows invite the individual spectator to be a public actor in the contexts of her or his everyday life. In the light of empirical analysis, the author presents a hierarchical typology of news stories on distant suffering that consists of adventure, emergency, and ecstatic news, and she examines the two broad ethical norms that inform these types of news: communitarianism and cosmopolitanism. The possibility for cosmopolitanism, the author concludes, lies importantly (but not exclusively) in the ways in which television tells the stories of suffering, inviting audiences to care for and act on conditions of human existence that go beyond their own communities of belonging.

Remembering Public Service Broadcasting: Liberty and Security in Early ABC Online Interactive Sites

Burns, M. — 2008-07-25

In the late nineties the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) website, ABC Online, was very successful at a time when the ABC experienced severe political hostility and funding reductions. This paper offers case studies of the early implementation of interactive online sites at the ABC to explore an alternative remembering of the ABC. Using the success of ABC Online as a model of how to remember the ABC, one might choose to remember the ABC as dispersed and plural, even rhizomic. Rather than being nostalgic for a unified past or future, we might instead be nostalgic for the diversity, plurality and in-between nature of ABC practices and programming.

Nonprofit Organizations' Perceptions and Uses of the Internet

Kenix, L. J. — 2008-07-25

This research examines how nonprofit organizations perceive and utilize the internet through the framework of Habermas's theory of the public sphere. In seven focus groups across the country, 52 people responsible for creating internet strategy and/or web content for nonprofit organizations participated. Claims of sweeping improvements in democratic participation through the internet were not supported. Almost no organizations utilized the technology for horizontal or vertical flows of communication, data communality, interactivity, or engaged participation. Furthermore, these nonprofit organizations believed the internet offered little democratizing power but paradoxically provided instant credibility. Those making communication decisions overwhelmingly performed in technical rather than strategic roles as they pushed their message out to the public without any regard to feedback or communication strategy. These individuals also believed the corporate model would drive future internet growth, although they rarely trained internet workers. Possible reasons for these findings and implications for nonprofit organizations are discussed.

Clocking Gender Differences: Televised Olympic Clock Time in the 1996--2006 Summer and Winter Olympics

Billings, A. C. — 2008-07-25

Analysis of all 348 prime-time hours of the 1996—2006 Olympic telecasts (three Summer, three Winter) pinpointed trends in coverage of men's and women's sports. Results indicate that while men athletes and events received the majority of clock time in all six Olympic telecasts, the Summer Olympic telecasts treated women far more equitably than the Winter Olympic telecast. The longitudinal study does not offer any reason to feel that coverage of women's athletics is improving over time, finding that the proportion of clock time devoted to men's and women's sports is relatively the same in 2006 compared to ten years earlier.

Men's Soaps: Automotive Television Programming and Contemporary Working-Class Masculinities

Carroll, H. — 2008-05-30

In this paper I argue that the Discovery Channel's reality-based automotive show American Chopper produces a recuperative blue-collar masculinity that attenuates the putative losses suffered by working-class men under the postindustrial service economy of the contemporary United States. In its on-screen presentation of blue-collar work, American Chopper valorizes a form of working-class manual labor at precisely the moment when such labor has all but disappeared in the United States. In its presentation of a world of masculine labor and fraternal affect, American Chopper constructs a nostalgic world of blue-collar work in which the skilled manual laborer—always understood to be male—still reigns supreme, untroubled by the supposed defeats suffered by hegemonic masculinity in the post-civil rights era. By celebrating neoliberal consumer capital and the traditional consumption of the American dream as coterminous discourses of celebrity identity, the show elides the still vast gaps in opportunity and remuneration in the contemporary United States.

The Parodic Sensibility and the Sophisticated Gaze: Masculinity and Taste in Playboy's Penthouse

Thompson, E. — 2008-05-30

The dramatic success of Playboy magazine in the 1950s paralleled the meteoric rise of television as both an industry and cultural form, but the magazine's relationship with the new electronic medium was an uneasy one. Television's status as a domestic, even feminine, medium posed particular challenges, even more so than the "masscult" critique. Rather than recommending specific programs for consumption as it did with books, albums, and movies, the magazine promoted parody as a "sophisticated" way to engage television. Parody was adopted as a form of interpretation that produced alternative pleasures and meaning, thereby making visual consumption practices a marker of cultural capital. The tensions between Playboy and television were especially apparent in Playboy's own syndicated program, Playboy's Penthouse (1959—1961). The urbane and varied performances of the program, and its distinctive televisual style, offered a version of sophisticated television production that supplemented the magazine's model of sophisticated television watching.

Desperate Citizens and Good Samaritans: Neoliberalism and Makeover Reality TV

McMurria, J. — 2008-05-30

This article considers the emergence of makeover reality TV, including Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EMHE), within the cultural and political economic context of neoliberalism, which advocates corporate benevolence, individual volunteerism, and personal responsibility as principle means for solving serious social issues. Four contexts include (a) the integration of corporate philanthropy and product marketing since the 1980s; (b) the proliferation of goodwill reality TV in a post-9/11 reality television economy; (c) home improvement reality TV's connections to the housing boom, shifting domestic gender roles, and the neoliberal ideals of an "ownership society"; and (d) EMHE's representational engagement with neoliberal frameworks for addressing social inequalities with particular attention to race and the Katrina disaster. The article concludes with thoughts on how noncommercial reality TV might broaden the frameworks for addressing social problems beyond commercial TV's neoliberalism.

A Fantasy Made Real: The Evolution of the Subjunctive Documentary on U.S. Cable Science Channels

Metz, A. M. — 2008-05-30

The need for drama in the contemporary television science documentary, coupled with the advent of computer-generated imaging (CGI) technology, has led to the development of increasingly fiction-driven science documentary, specifically on cable outlets such as the Discovery suite channels and National Geographic. While subjunctive documentary shows such as Walking with Dinosaurs initially used CGI technology to illustrate scientists' best understanding of Earth prehistory, the use of CGI has quickly escalated to the animation of purely fantastical life forms. This trend has resulted in a baroque subjunctive documentary form that has evacuated any possibility of serious science documentary on cable channels devoted to science programming.

"An . . . Unmarried Mother Sat in a Wing-Backed Chair on TV Last Night . . .": BBC Television Asks Is This Your Problem? (1955--1957)

Holmes, S. — 2008-03-31

In 1955, Daily Mirror reported, "An unmarried mother hid her face on TV last night. . . ." The headline referred to the BBC's Is This Your Problem? (ITYP? 1955—57), in which members of the public sought the help of an "expert" panel. Based on archival research, this article situates ITYP? in relation to the historical circumstances of its circulation, exploring what it can contribute to knowledge of British television's aesthetic development and production of cultural identity and how these were negotiated by the BBC. In precariously negotiating public service values and popular appeal, ITYP? is interesting for prefiguring debates about television's "tabloidization," and the program's reception speaks to the cultural debate that greeted the talk show in the 1990s. While there is always a danger of fostering an "undue proximity" between past and present, ITYP? offers a valuation contribution to the genealogy of these debates, particularly in elucidating television's (re)negotiation of public—private spheres.

The Depiction of Politicians and Politics in British Soaps

Coleman, S. — 2008-03-31

This paper explores ways in which politicians and political themes are depicted in British soap operas. A three-dimensional definition of "the political" is employed, and the distinction between the personalized communities depicted in soaps and the impersonal world of politics is investigated. The study draws upon interviews with producers and scriptwriters from the major British soaps; a representative survey of the British population, 59 percent of whom described themselves as regular soap viewers and/or listeners; and two focus groups.

Public Service Media Online? Regulating Public Broadcasters' Internet Services--A Comparative Analysis

Moe, H. — 2008-03-31

Facing a digital media system, European public service broadcasters have encountered increasing scrutiny from both competitors and regulators. As these institutions have ventured onto media platforms very unlike traditional broadcast radio and television, discussions about the scope of their activities have flourished. The case of the internet clearly illustrates the emerging challenges. How have public service broadcasters approached the internet? How do regulatory frameworks relate to the wider remits? Is it public service media online? This article presents a comparative study of three Western European mainly publicly funded broadcasters' activities on the internet, their arguments in support of them, the role of competitors, and actual regulatory frameworks they relate to. It scrutinizes how different forms of regulations affect the developments. Based on the findings, the article outlines remaining problematic issues for national regulation of public broadcasters' online services and suggests how researches might get a better grasp of public service media online.

Television's Power Relations in the Transition to Digital: The Case of the United Kingdom

Christophers, B. — 2008-03-31

This article examines the contemporary configuration of power relations in the U.K. television sector, probing, in the process, the enduring accuracy of longstanding economic arguments concerning distributor dominance in the "cultural industries" more broadly. Such arguments are important because we cannot understand the power of the media unless we understand the circulation of power within the media. The article shows that while recent developments in respect to both producer—distributor and producer—advertiser relationships have begun to enhance the leverage enjoyed by the production community, the steady inflation of the mass-market premium enjoyed by the leading distributors (the terrestrial broadcasters) in the advertising market has largely sustained their power, in relation to smaller (multichannel) distributors, to producer suppliers, and—of course— to the consuming public.