PUBLIC TELEVISION AND THE RETURN TO SOCIALIST YUGOSLAVIA: MEDIATIZED CULTURAL MEMORY AMONG POST-SOCIALIST GENERATIONS

This paper deals with four significant concepts and discourses in contemporary Serbian post-socialist culture: sacred space, cultural memory, mediatization and Yugoslavia. A cursory look at the contradictions of Yugoslav history and politics implies a broadening of the research perspectives and themes. Unfinished debates about positive and negative aspects of socialist Yugoslavia provide an opportunity to rethink television heritage and cultural memory from a temporal distance. Here, we will discuss one dimension of memorized sacred space: TV reruns on public television in Serbia. Particularly, the research focus is on TV series as authentic TV genre and cult television. The paper shows that a large number of reruns of Yugoslav TV series on public television contributes to the maintaining of cultural memory among post-socialist generations and construction of the distinctiveness of the local cultural identity.

Fan-ning the flame

While promoting recent seasons of supernatural Western horror series Wynonna Earp (2016), cable channel Syfy released several fan-style videos championing the show’s resident lesbian couple: the protagonist’s sister, Waverly, and police officer Nicole Haught (celebrated via the portmanteau “WayHaught”). In 2019, a network “shipping” its own queer characters in service of fans contrasts starkly with the televisual landscape twenty, or even ten, years prior, when viewers invested in lesbian characters and/or same-sex couples relied on subtext and fan paratexts to fuel their enthusiasm for mostly unacknowledged or thwarted relationships between female characters. In this article, I engage in a two-part interrogation of the representation of lesbian romance on cult television shows in the last twenty-five years, with a focus on Wynonna Earp and its historical antecedents—supernatural, sci-fi, and fantasy shows featuring women and their female companion(s) (whether close friends or lovers). This includes a historiography of the development of lesbian fan communities around certain shows from the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as an analysis of the narrative stakes and character development in both historical and contemporary shows, like Earp, in order to interrogate their representations of subtext or main text romantic pairings.

Contextualizing the bronies: Cult, quality, subculture and the contradictions of contemporary fandom

This article critically situates My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010‐19) and the ‘brony’ following it has attracted in terms of age and fandom, discourses of quality television, cult media and interactions between fandoms and cultural producers. Far from unprecedented, the show’s unexpected male audience reflects adults’ historic appreciation of media for children, the increased mainstreaming of animation, and the already infantilized persona of media fans. Aspects of the reimagined series reproduce characteristics of ‘quality television’ concerning characterization, genre, authorship and political intentionality. Simultaneously the show corresponds with overlapping aspects of cult television and cult cinema, crucially affording both cultural and subcultural value. Finally, examples of the series deliberately courting adult fan audiences are presented as reflecting reciprocal relationships between show producers and its mature viewers. The brony following consequently reflects changes in contemporary fandom dynamics, and the increasing mobility of twenty-first-century television viewing.

Body-cult television advertisement recall among young women suffering from anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa

Advertising conveys an aesthetic model that seems to have a negative influence on young women. However, it is unclear whether the media are the cause, or only act as a reinforcement of disorders related to body image, such as those associated with eating behavior (anorexia or bulimia). This study measures the influence that advertising (measured by recall scores) during a television program has on women with eating disorders (anorexia or bulimia) compared to healthy women. Experimental study of exploratory nature performed on a sample of young women with eating disorders and a control group. The influence of advertising was estimated by recall scores, obtained after viewing a real television program, which included two commercial breaks containing two kinds of ads: body cult advertising (showing thinness or promoting it) and neutral advertising. Young women with eating disorders better recall advertisements showing thinness and products for weight loss and pay less attention to other types targeted at their age and gender group. Television advertising seems to be more of a reinforcement for these women who are already dissatisfied with their body, rather than a direct cause of their body image disorder.

Expansion, Excess and the Uncanny: Deadly Premonition and Twin Peaks

The influence of the cult television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991) can be detected in a wide range of videogames, from adventure, to roleplaying to survival horror titles. While many games variously draw upon the narrative, setting and imagery of the series for inspiration, certain elements of the distinctive uncanniness of Twin Peaks are difficult to translate into gameplay, particularly its ability consistently disrupt the expectations and emotional responses of its audience. This paper examines the ways in which the 2010 survival horror title Deadly Premonition replicates the uncanniness of Twin Peaks in both its narrative and gameplay, noting how it expands upon conceptualizations of the gamerly uncanny. It contends that Deadly Premonition’s awkward recombination of seemingly inconsistent and excessive gameplay features mirrors the ways in which David Lynch and Mark Frost draw upon and subvert audience expectations for police procedurals and soap operas in the original Twin Peaks in order to generate an uncanny effect. Furthermore, Deadly Premonition uses the theme of possession—a central element of the television series—to offer a diegetic exploration of the uncanny relationship between the player and their onscreen avatar. In these regards, Deadly Premonition provides a rare example of how the subversive uncanniness of Twin Peaks can be addressed through gameplay, rather than solely through the game’s narrative or representational elements.

Expansion, Excess and the Uncanny: Deadly Premonition and Twin Peaks

The influence of the cult television series Twin Peaks (1990-91) can be detected in a wide range of videogames, from adventure, to roleplaying to survival horror titles. While many games variously draw upon the narrative, setting and imagery of the series for inspiration, certain element of the distinctive uncanniness of Twin Peaks are difficult to translate into gameplay, particularly its ability consistently disrupt the expectations and emotional responses of its audience. This paper examines the ways in which the 2010 survival horror title Deadly Premonition attempts to replicate the uncanniness of Twin Peaks in both its narrative and gameplay, noting how it expands upon conceptualisations of the gamerly uncanny (Hoeger and Huber 2007). It contends that Deadly Premonition's awkward and uncanny recombination of seemingly inconsistent and excessive gameplay features mirrors the ways in which David Lynch and Mark Frost draw upon and subvert audience expectations for police procedurals and soap operas in the original Twin Peaks, while also providing a similarly disorienting excess of “realistic” detail. Furthermore its exploration of the theme of possession – a central element of the television series – offers a diegetic exploration of the uncanny relationship between the player and their onscreen avatar.

Using fiction in organization and management research

Robin Holt and Mike Zundel describe their use of another unconventional source of data—a television fictional crime series. They argue that the boundaries between ‘soft fiction’ and ‘hard fact’ are blurred, and that fictional accounts can generate insights into aspects of organizational and social life more effectively than conventional methods. The relationship between fiction and social science can be understood in four ways: fictional research, fiction as inspiration, fiction as data, and fiction as research. Their approach is illustrated with an analysis of the cult television crime series The Wire, which is based on the drugs trade in Baltimore, involving the gangs, police, social workers, churches, local authorities, and wider community. The Wire can be seen as a rich ethnography, illustrating how fiction can illuminate individual, group, and organizational phenomena including emotions, hopes, fears, and conflicts, and the wider social condition, highlighting the institutional constraints on individual behaviour.