123,798 research outputs found
Extraction and Analysis of Dynamic Conversational Networks from TV Series
Identifying and characterizing the dynamics of modern tv series subplots is
an open problem. One way is to study the underlying social network of
interactions between the characters. Standard dynamic network extraction
methods rely on temporal integration, either over the whole considered period,
or as a sequence of several time-slices. However, they turn out to be
inappropriate in the case of tv series, because the scenes shown onscreen
alternatively focus on parallel storylines, and do not necessarily respect a
traditional chronology. In this article, we introduce Narrative Smoothing, a
novel network extraction method taking advantage of the plot properties to
solve some of their limitations. We apply our method to a corpus of 3 popular
series, and compare it to both standard approaches. Narrative smoothing leads
to more relevant observations when it comes to the characterization of the
protagonists and their relationships, confirming its appropriateness to model
the intertwined storylines constituting the plots.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1602.0781
Who Loves Ya, David Simon? Notes towards placing The Wire’s depiction of African-Americans in the context of American TV crime drama
This essay surveyed a number of key shows from the past that purported to convey a liberal viewpoint, and which made race a focus. This was in order to suggest ways in which 'The Wire' might be part of a genre tradition – and equally how it might be seen as expanding the parameters of that tradition
It Was TV: Teaching HBO\u27s The Wire as a Television Series
Unlike most courses dedicated to The Wire that have examined race, class, criminal justice, urban studies, or education, Sodano foregrounds The Wire as a work of television and examines how it was taught to media majors and non-majors from aesthetic, cultural, technological, economic, and sociological perspectives. It is crucial to recognize The Wire as a piece of television because the circumstances surrounding its appearance on HBO provide context for how it was produced, distributed, and received
Style over Substance?: Fashion, Spectacle and Narrative in Contemporary US Television
Previous scholarship on fashion and film has debated the aesthetic role played by onscreen costume. Yet there has been little exploration of fashion and its use in television. Existing work on fashion in onscreen media has approached the debate from a textual perspective, and such work has been informed by the longstanding assumption that fashion acts primarily as ‘spectacle’, disrupting the economy of narrative flow. This article seeks to challenge this assumption by arguing that previous work is limited by the wider conceptual and methodological problems of purely textual approaches. Using CW’s Gossip Girl as a case study, the author suggests that a mixed method approach to the study of costume (using both textual analysis and reception studies) provides a more productive foundation upon which to begin to examine the function of onscreen fashion in contemporary US television. Such an approach may have particular importance in understanding how costume in ‘fashion-forward’ television can be best understood if one steps beyond the text to explore the sense-making of viewers, the intentions of costume designers and the relationship between viewers, the shows and the wider fashion market
Transatlantic spaces: production, location and style in 1960s-1970s action-adventure TV series
This paper argues that transatlantic hybridity connects space, visual style and ideological point of view in British television action-adventure fiction of the 1960s–1970s. It analyses the relationship between the physical location of TV series production at Elstree Studios, UK, the representation of place in programmes, and the international trade in television fiction between the UK and USA. The TV series made at Elstree by the ITC and ABC companies and their affiliates linked Britishness with an international modernity associated with the USA, while also promoting national specificity. To do this, they drew on film production techniques that were already common for TV series production in Hollywood. The British series made at Elstree adapted versions of US industrial organization and television formats, and made programmes expected to be saleable to US networks, on the basis of British experiences in TV co-production with US companies and of the international cinema and TV market
Studying soap operas
This present issue of Communication Research Trends will focus on research about soap operas published in the last 15 years, that is, from the year 2000 to the present. This more recent research shows one key difference: the interest in soap opera has become worldwide. This appears in the programs that people listen to or watch and in communication researchers who themselves come from different countries
Sexual diversity on the small screen : mapping LGBT+ characters in Flemish television fiction (2001 – 2016)
Apart from figures on LGBT+ characters in television fiction produced by the American
television industry, such as the ‘Where We Are On TV’ – reports by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation (GLAAD), quantitative data on LGBT+ representation television fiction
series remains scarce internationally. With this working paper, we aim to address this lack in the
context of Flemish television fiction. To meet the challenges posed by a lack of centralized data
on Flemish television fiction in general, and LGBT+ characters and storylines specifically, we
constructed a three-tiered database. Comprising of all 156 domestic television fiction series
between 2001 and 2016, the quantitative presence of LGBT+ characters in these series, and
individual traits of the 117 collected LGBT+ characters respectively. In doing so, we provide an
overview of Flemish television fiction in general, the distribution in these series of characters
who identify as LGBT+ and the storylines that relate to sexual and gender diversity, and offer a
tool to identify individual pertinent characters. Flanders presents itself as having a dynamic
television fiction industry in the past fifteen years, with genre diversity and a sizeable output. In
its general output, LGBT+ characters have had a significant habitual presence since 2001, with
a noted correlation to specific ‘lowbrow’ genres, and a noted lack in ‘quality’ series. The collected
characters display a severe lack of diversity, with most LGBT+ characters being gay male
characters, a significant majority being middle class, and few non- white LGBT+ characters
The representation of women in the family in Spanish television fiction
The rise of television drama in the late nineties challenged comedy as the most popular and resilient genre of fiction. The diversity of themes and growing complexity of new narratives have relegated family representations –key to comedy’s success- to contextualize sentimental and sexual relationships
and, to a lesser extent, the work sphere of female characters. This article analyses the context and family relations of 709 female characters represented, with varying degrees of importance, in 84 programs of Spanish television fiction (series, serials, TV movies, miniseries and sketches) premiered in 2012 and 2013. The approach combines quantitative (SPSS coding) and qualitative (socio-semiotics and script theory) methods. The analysis reveals that Spanish television fiction offers a complex picture of family relationships, which mixes clichés and stereotypes, while trying to capture reality. Generational
conflicts are the most common misunderstandings in everyday representations of female characters, although most of the women generally have the support of their families to address problems and difficulties of their exciting fictional experiences.El auge del drama televisivo, a finales de los noventa, le disputó a la comedia el protagonismo que la había convertido en el género más popular y resistente de la ficción a lo largo de más de cuatro décadas. La variedad de temáticas y la creciente complejidad narrativa de los nuevos formatos de ficción fueron relegando las representaciones de la familia, la clave del éxito de la comedia, al contexto de los avatares sentimentales, sexuales y, en menor medida, laborales de los personajes
femeninos. Este artículo analiza el contexto y las relaciones familiares de los 709 personajes femeninos representados, con un grado variable de protagonismo, en los 84 programas de la ficción televisiva española de estreno (series, seriales, TVmovies, miniseries y sketches), emitidos a lo largo de 2012 y
2013. El método utilizado combina técnicas cuantitativas (codificación en SPSS) y cualitativas (socio-semiótica y script theory). El análisis revela que la ficción televisiva española proyecta una imagen compleja de la familia, en la que se mezclan tópicos y estereotipos, pero que intenta reflejar la realidad. Los conflictos generacionales representen las desavenencias más frecuentes de la vida cotidiana de los
personajes analizados, aunque la mayor parte de las mujeres representadas en el contexto familiar suelen contar con apoyo de los suyos para afrontar los problemas y los conflictos de sus azarosas existencias de ficción.Este artículo ha sido elaborado en el marco del proyecto “La construcción social de la mujer en la ficción televisiva y la web 2.0: estereotipos, recepción y retroalimentación” (FEM2012-33411), financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. En esta parte de la investigación han participado, además de las autoras, Deborah Castro, Mariluz Sánchez, Belén Granda, Tatiana Hidalgo, Elsa Soro y Karina Tiznado (investigadoras), y Marc Bellmunt, Germán Muñoz, Lucía Trabajo, Estitxu Garay y Amaia Nerecan (colaboradores)
Lawyers Not in Love, The Defenders and Sixties TV
This essay offers a social history and examination of The Defenders as a popular, criti- cally acclaimed television text that negotiated anxieties regarding crime, law, justice, lib- eralism, and masculinity in the 1960s and 1990s. Both The Defenders television series (1961–1965) and the Showtime motion picture series (1997–1998) by the same name rearticulated enduring tensions between law’s formalism and just desires for compassion and mercy, depicting defense attorneys as men who work both inside and outside of “law” to ensure justice and confront the lack of humanism in “the rule of law.” Such discourses are understood and appreciated in different ways in different times, particularly as the cultural politics of nostalgia are engaged. The Defenders offers clear illustrations of the ways in which popular narratives not only depict juridical roles but also perform them, specifying when and where “law” begins and ends
- …