'SCREENSCAPES': PLACING TV SERIES IN THEIR CONTEXTS OF PRODUCTION, MEANING AND CONSUMPTION

The main argument of this paper is that television participates in a complex, cultural process through which environmental meanings and values are produced and consumed. Using the theoretical model of the 'circuit of culture' the ways in which a city's imagery is embedded in the processes of representation, production, and consumption are explored. First, two types of the TV crime genre are examined in order to outline how the differences between them cause and require contrasting geographical imaginations of contemporary Cologne. Second, the contexts of production are looked at in order to explain how the city's representation is inextricably linked to the politics of determining film locations. Finally, the ways in which fans perceive the city through television are explored. In conclusion, it becomes clear that space and genre are highly interdependent elements in crime series, and that environmental meanings are constructed and contested in multiple everyday contexts of media use and appropriation. Copyright (c) 2007 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.