Changing Series: Narrative Models and the Role of the Viewer in Contemporary Television Seriality

L'articolo \ue8 dedicato allo studio delle narrazioni seriali televisive e ai grossi cambiamenti intercorsi nella organizzazione delle strutture narrative di questo tipo di prodotto. L'articolo nasce dalla necessit\ue0 di indagare i prodotti di questa nuova ondata di produzione in serie, con lo scopo di concentrarsi su formule narrative e sui rapporti che i prodotti seriali definiscono con la propria utenza. Le narrazioni seriali contemporanee non sono pi\uf9 solo un "testo", ma diventano universi complessi di significato che durano per molto tempo e hanno una forte influenza sul pubblico. L'articolo si propone di indagare le narrazioni seriali come oggetti utilizzabili, che non sono solo visibili dal pubblico, ma che fanno parte di un'esperienza di fruizione sempre pi\uf9 complessa e articolata

Exploring TV Seriality and Television Studies through Data-Driven Approaches

The chapter discusses the use of data-driven approaches in television studies, which has become possible due to the increasing availability of digital data. Computational techniques can be used to analyze cultural artifacts, gain insights into audience reactions to specific shows or episodes, and investigate patterns and trends in television programming over time. The chapter also highlights the challenges of analyzing television series, which are complex open systems that interact with external factors such as the production process, audience feedback, and cultural and social context. Content analysis, which involves qualitative and quantitative methods based on the coding process and data collection, can be used to analyze various elements of a TV series. Generative AI is also discussed, which refers to the use of deep multi-modal algorithms to generate new content such as images, speech, and text. Generative methods like Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Stable Diffusion can create new content that is almost indistinguishable from real data. While generating videos is more challenging, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) like LSTMs can capture the temporal dynamics of the scenes to create interesting and promising applications for complex, but short-duration videos

Gender Equality in European Netflix TV Series Production (2014-2019)

Understanding gender inequalities and segregation within the Cultural and Creative Industries is an increasingly key issue in contemporary debates at the national and international level. Several researchers have found evidence of strong patterns of segregation in the media industries, both in terms of “verticality” – women’s exclusion from creative and leadership roles – and essentialism – how men and women are usually concentrated in roles that entail the use of skills labelled as “feminine” or “masculine”. Hence, with reference to the verticality issue, women struggle to be included as directors, writers, and producers, and are frequently relegated to coordinating roles such as production manager, casting director, or assistant director. At the same time, with reference to the essentialist account of segregation, we find more women in roles framed as more “caring” and “nurturing”, such as in the make-up and costume department. This paper is designed as a quantitative analysis of European Netflix TV series production between 2014 and 2019. Its objectives are: (i) to assess the gender gap within the sample; (ii) to analyse differences in the gender composition among departments in the sample; and (iii) to obtain preliminary indications about a possible relation between on-screen content and off-screen composition. The paper focuses on 81 Netflix productions in ten European countries. Data were scraped from the IMDb database and the analytical sample is composed of 28,607 professionals (34,312 credits). Besides the cast, available data contains information for 28 departments. Each worker’s gender was automatically assigned based on their name, albeit recognising the risks of a gender binary classification scheme, in order to analyse differences in the gender composition among different roles. Then, a subsample of TV series was isolated, labelled by the literature as relevant for their portrayal of women, gender relations, and for how they represented masculinity and femininity more generally. The paper provides a descriptive exploration of the data, by comparing the gender distribution of cast members and off-screen roles in the overall sample and in the subsample. Results show that in the subsample of TV series deemed to be relevant for their portrayal of gender, among above-the-line professions there is indeed a higher proportion of women directors, writers and producers, meaning that they are no longer male-dominated. However, for below-the-line professions there is evidence of the same pattern of gendered division of labour witnessed in the overall sample

Total Entertainment. Rivedere la disco music.

L'articolo fa da introduzione a un numero monografico della rivista "Cinergie" dedicato alla disco music. Il fenomeno della disco \ue8 descritto come un esempio di entertainment il cu valore intrinseco deve essere valutato in termini di piacere individuale e collettivo. Vengono evidenziate le principali aree tematiche che hanno portato i vari contributi del numero monografico ad affrontare l'oggetto di studio: il problema della continuit\ue0/discontinuit\ue0 con fenomeni musicali e spettacolari coevi, precedenti o successivi alla disco; il problema della trasmedialit\ue0 della disco e le sue caratteristiche specifiche; il problema delle tecnologie di registrazione, ascolto e visualizzazione della disco; il rapporto tra centro/periferie e globale/locale nei processi di diffusione della disco

Il ruolo dello studioso

Il testo ripercorre la carriera accademica di Francesco Casetti connettendone l'attivit\ue0 di studioso con i ruoli istituzional

Prefazione

Prefazione sulla nascita degli insegnamenti di cinema in itali

Convergenza digitale e nuove forme culturali

Le modificazioni dello scenario nediale dovute ai processi di digitalizzazione hanno avuto un impatto di grande rilievo nell'ambito dell'audiovisivo e del cinema. Il saggio propone un'analisi della produzione contemporane a partire dai processi di convergenza. In particolare vengono analizzati due fenomeni: la deistituzionalizzazione del cinema come medium e la contemporanea presenza di arcaismi legati alle forme pi\uf9 tardizionali della rappresentazione audiovisiva