Convenient Fictions: The Script of Lesbian Desire in the Post-Ellen Era: A New Zealand Perspective

<p>Little has been published about the ascending trajectory of lesbian characters in prime-time television texts. Rarer still are analyses of lesbian fictions on New Zealand television. This study offers a robust and critical interrogation of Sapphic expression found in the New Zealand television landscape. More specifically, this thesis analyses fictional lesbian representation found in New Zealand's prime-time, free-to-air television environment. It argues that television's script of lesbian desire is more about illusion than inclusion, and that lesbian representation is a misnomer, both qualitatively and quantitively. In order to assess the authenticity of television's lesbian fictions, I sampled the opinions of New Zealand's television audience through focus group and survey methodology, and analysed two primary sources of lesbian representation available between 2004-2006. Television and other media provide the social and cultural background - the milieu - against or within which their fictions, dramas and comedies are set. Even when media texts are clearly non- or anti realistic (fantasy films, for instance), they usually attempt to produce their narratives as consistent, familiar and in keeping with the cultural characteristics, values and proclivities of mainstream contemporary society. This is not realism so much as a set of arbitrary conventions that are read as, or stand for, reality and the real. In short, the media is a teller of stories and fairy tales; and since mainstream Western culture has naturalised homonormativity, television's fairy tales are almost exclusively tales of heterosexuality. Television, from this perspective, reinscribes and reinforces what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as the 'masculine order'. Television uses reality to frame messages of compulsory heterosexuality, and it rarely presents homonormative messages. Lesbian representation is, therefore, difficult for a heteronormative medium to render without effort. Homonormativity is, for lesbian audiences, a central part of the cultural background - the components of realism, if you like, within which representations of lesbians would 'play out' their stories in media texts. Television stories which ignore this imperative deny both the audience's ability to interpret for themselves the integrity of the representation, and their ability to acquire new knowledge of lesbians.</p>

Convenient Fictions: The Script of Lesbian Desire in the Post-Ellen Era: A New Zealand Perspective

<p>Little has been published about the ascending trajectory of lesbian characters in prime-time television texts. Rarer still are analyses of lesbian fictions on New Zealand television. This study offers a robust and critical interrogation of Sapphic expression found in the New Zealand television landscape. More specifically, this thesis analyses fictional lesbian representation found in New Zealand's prime-time, free-to-air television environment. It argues that television's script of lesbian desire is more about illusion than inclusion, and that lesbian representation is a misnomer, both qualitatively and quantitively. In order to assess the authenticity of television's lesbian fictions, I sampled the opinions of New Zealand's television audience through focus group and survey methodology, and analysed two primary sources of lesbian representation available between 2004-2006. Television and other media provide the social and cultural background - the milieu - against or within which their fictions, dramas and comedies are set. Even when media texts are clearly non- or anti realistic (fantasy films, for instance), they usually attempt to produce their narratives as consistent, familiar and in keeping with the cultural characteristics, values and proclivities of mainstream contemporary society. This is not realism so much as a set of arbitrary conventions that are read as, or stand for, reality and the real. In short, the media is a teller of stories and fairy tales; and since mainstream Western culture has naturalised homonormativity, television's fairy tales are almost exclusively tales of heterosexuality. Television, from this perspective, reinscribes and reinforces what Pierre Bourdieu refers to as the 'masculine order'. Television uses reality to frame messages of compulsory heterosexuality, and it rarely presents homonormative messages. Lesbian representation is, therefore, difficult for a heteronormative medium to render without effort. Homonormativity is, for lesbian audiences, a central part of the cultural background - the components of realism, if you like, within which representations of lesbians would 'play out' their stories in media texts. Television stories which ignore this imperative deny both the audience's ability to interpret for themselves the integrity of the representation, and their ability to acquire new knowledge of lesbians.</p>

Exposure of French Children and Adolescents to Advertising for Foods High in Fat, Sugar or Salt

Food marketing of products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS), including television advertising, is one of the environmental factors considered as a contributor to the obesity epidemic. The main objective of this study was to quantify the exposure of French children and adolescents to television advertisements for HFSS products. TV food advertisements broadcast in 2018 were categorized according to the Nutri-Score of the advertised products. These advertisements, identified according to the days and times of broadcast, were cross-referenced with audience data for 4- to 12-year-olds and 13- to 17-year-olds. More than 50% of food advertisements seen on television by children and adolescents concerned HFSS products, identified as classified as Nutri-Score D and E. In addition, half of advertisements for D and E Nutri-Score products were seen by children and adolescents in the evening during peak viewing hours, when more than 20% of both age groups watched television. On the other hand, during the same viewing hours, the percentage of children and adolescents who watched youth programs, the only programs subject to an advertising ban, was very low (<2%). These results show that the relevance of regulating advertising at times when the television audience of children and adolescents is the highest and not targeted at youth programs, in order to reduce their exposure to advertising for products of low nutritional quality.

Quality and reliability of content as factors in the flow of television audience to Internet resources

The Internet successfully competes with television as a source of information on socio-political issues. The article analyzes the objective (digitalization) and subjective (trust, tastes, preferences, etc.) factors that contribute to the flow of the audience to online information resources. Consumer sensitivity to distorted, manipulative content and the practice of testing media messages for authenticity are considered.

New audience dimensions in streaming platforms: the second life of Money heist on Netflix as a case study

The growth in popularity of on-demand content consumption, boosted by large global agents such as Netflix, Amazon and HBO, has brought audience fragmentation even further. Exponential growth in the content available to users (which reduces viewer concentration based on a limited selection), its commercialisation through a subscription-based business model (removing advertising from content) and the boom in consumption on different receivers, many of them mobile or outside the home (thus complicating people meter monitoring), has generated a new ecosystem where success can no longer be assessed using traditional audience measurement systems. This article discusses audience behaviour in streaming platforms and the new dimensions used to measure the success of a television series, above and beyond data provided by television audience measurement (TAM) techniques. From this analysis, the article reviews the transformation in the concept of popularity and how new audience indicators affect the structure of the content distribution medium, which adds further dimensions (engagement, customer retention, talent acquisition, new subscriptions and branding, among others) to more traditional elements (advertisers and international sales). Finally, we examine whether a single concept of audience, valid for all consumption models and audiovisual operations, can be established. Money heist is used as a case study, as it provides a good example of two ways of understanding audience: one linked to its commercial success in the Antena 3 Televisión channel’s scheduled programming and the other arising from its inclusion on Netflix, the platform that gave it worldwide popularity. Resumen La popularización del consumo de contenidos bajo demanda, impulsado por los grandes agentes globales como Netflix, Amazon o HBO, ha provocado una importante disrupción en los hábitos de consumo y ha intensificado el fenómeno de la fragmentación de audiencias. El gran aumento de contenido ofrecido al usuario (que reduce la concentración de espectadores a una selección limitada), su explotación dentro del modelo económico de la suscripción (que elimina la cotización publicitaria del espacio) y la multiplicación de consumos en distintos horarios y a través de distintos receptores, muchos de ellos móviles y fuera del hogar (lo que complica su monitorización), ha generado un nuevo ecosistema. Dentro del mismo, el éxito ya no se puede evaluar en base a los indicadores de la audimetría tradicional. En el presente artículo se aborda cómo se comporta la audiencia en el consumo de contenidos en plataformas de streaming y las nuevas dimensiones con las que se evalúa el éxito de una serie televisiva más allá de los datos que ofrecen las técnicas de medición de audiencias (TAM). Se repasa la transformación del concepto de popularidad y el impacto en el medio que distribuye el contenido de estos nuevos indicadores de audiencia, que añaden a los elementos tradicionales (anunciantes y ventas internacionales) nuevas dimensiones (engagement, retención de clientes, captación de talento, nuevas altas, branding, etc.). El estudio se integra en un marco de investigación más amplio que avanza en la construcción de un nuevo concepto de audiencia en el consumo de video bajo demanda en modelo de suscripción (tomando Netflix como referencia, dada su cuota de mercado) y reflexiona sobre si es posible un concepto de audiencia único aplicable a todos los modelos de consumo y explotación audiovisual bajo demanda. La casa de papel se ha tomado como estudio de caso, ya que es un buen ejemplo de estas dos maneras de entender la audiencia: la vinculada a su recorrido comercial de éxito en la parrilla de Antena 3 y la derivada de su incorporación a Netflix, plataforma donde se popularizó globalmente.