Distributing Whiteness: Please Like Me and Global Television Circulation

This essay examines the formal and informal distribution of Australian dramedy Please Like Me via the now-defunct American digital cable channel Pivot and via fan communities on Tumblr. I argue that structural whiteness operates as an invisible engine at the heart of Please Like Me’s distribution. My analysis unpacks how an unexamined narrative of white privilege forms the backbone of Please Like Me’s diegesis, fandom’s investment in circulating the show, and Pivot’s alignment of the show with its supposedly socially conscious brand. Examining trade press, promotional material, and fan discourse, I demonstrate how structural whiteness functions as point of intersection between industry and fan-driven distribution.

New Patterns of Flow and Rethinking International Mediascapes: The Influence of Stuart Cunningham on Theories of Television's Travels

Stuart Cunningham contributed to important publications that advanced thinking about transnational media flows, much of which remains relevant a quarter of a century later. This essay explores Cunningham's collaborations with Elizabeth Jacka and John Sinclair in ‘Australian Television and International Mediascapes' and ‘New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral View’ to explore the prescient and productive theoretical innovations these books offered the field.

Slovanská fantasy globálnym popkultúrnym fenoménom

The aim of the paper is to introduce or rather (re)present The Witcher as a model-like pop cultural phenomenon illustrating the mechanisms within the framework of which a local hero, the main character of fantasy narratives written by Andrzej Sapkowski, transforms into a global hero. The Witcher — the character as well as the trademark, or rather brand — represents popular culture pars pro toto and emblematically a pop cultural artefact, undergoing a transformation on an axis from short stories to a novel saga, becoming an object of local cinematic and television-based adaptation and also a thematic basis for a successful digital-game series distributed globally, as well as recently a source of a high-budget television series designed for a global television market.

Moving people: Proper distance and global news coverage of migration in 2019

Moving people comprise both a subject of news reports (of refugees, migrants and other people-on-the-move) and a way of reporting on the issues involved. Viewers can be moved and placed in a discursive relation to the displaced when news stories construct what Arendt called ‘proper distance’. This possibility is explored in the article, which compares coverage of migration issues in 2019 on four global television news channels: Al Jazeera English, BBC World, CNN International and RT. The results provide evidence of approaches that differ in striking and thought-provoking ways, giving global television news consumers different resources for making sense of a complicated global crisis.

Legitimation in documentary: modes of representation and legitimating strategies in The Lockdown: One Month in Wuhan

This article synthesizes modes of representation in documentary films with strategies of legitimation. It develops a framework of documentary legitimation, where each of the six modes recognized by Bill Nichols in Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary (1991) and Introduction to Documentary (2017) – expository, participatory, observational, performative, reflexive and poetic modes – tends to highlight certain legitimating strategies. For instance, the expository mode mainly legitimates through voice-of-God commentary, expert speeches and expository intertitles, the participatory mode legitimates through witness testimony and the observational mode legitimates through audience observation, and so on. The proposed framework is applied to a case study of a documentary entitled The Lockdown: One Month in Wuhan produced by China Global Television Network (CGTN). Analysis demonstrates how legitimation of the Wuhan lockdown during the early outbreak of COVID-19 is realized by adopting different representation modes and legitimating strategies. The article illustrates how an interdisciplinary approach may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of legitimation and its realization.

Foreign Ownership of Production Companies as a New Mechanism of Internationalizating Television: The Case of Australian Scripted Television

This article explores the rise in foreign television production company ownership at the beginning of the twenty-first century as a new mechanism of internationalization. It joins mechanisms such as foreign program sales and transnational satellite channels in shifting television further from its domestic origins. To date, examination of television’s internationalization has focused on programs and programming. Foreign ownership may be a less obvious “cultural” form of business internationalization, but it nevertheless affects the television culture made available in many places and poses consequences for cultures of consumption. Foreign ownership also opens up new avenues of inquiry for global television scholars to question the shifting geographies of power in the field of television production.

Turkish Soaps: Understanding Pleasure Among Iranians and the Underlying Political Economy

This article examines how young urban audiences in Iran derive pleasure from transnationally broadcasted Turkish soaps. Since the early 1990s, the furtherance of developments in communication technologies and the emergence of the new forces in the global television market have resulted in a profusion of free-to-air satellite TV programmes, transforming the television in Iranians' living rooms from a local and monotonous medium into a vibrant and abundant one. Flooded with a cornucopia of tele-viewing choices, Iranian audiences have particularly been enthralled by Turkish soap operas in recent years. Such popularity, especially among younger audiences, is remarkable considering the general prohibition of satellite TV in Iran and authorities' specific censure of Turkish soaps for having corrupting effects on Iranian culture. While soaps have historically been regarded as pleasurable texts primarily aimed towards women, the consumption of non-local forms of such popular cultural programmes both by male and female Iranian audiences raises questions about the kind of pleasures derived according to their gender-specificity. Through an analysis of the data drawn from a series of focus group discussions with 25-35 years old participants in Tehran, this study explores the diverse ways in which these individuals derive pleasure from watching Turkish soaps. Ultimately, the findings challenge the extrapolation of the traditional theories of political economy, which regards Turkish soaps as global purveyors of predetermined pleasure circumscribed by forces of international markets, and instead suggests that the kinds of pleasure can only be ascertained at the local level of consumption. Keywords: Satellite TV, Iranian audiences, Turkish soaps, pleasure, political economy.

Nilai Keikhlasan: Analisis Isi Program Reality Show Pantang Ngemis di GTV

Television reality show programs do not only provide entertainment for the audience, but they are also oriented towards the internalisation of socio-cultural and religious values. Accordingly, many studies of da'wah lately have tried to discuss Islamic values depicted on television programs or other mass media. This article analyses the value of sincerity contained in the reality show Pantang Ngemis on Global television (GTV). A qualitative research methods and content analysis approach of Krippendorf model used in this study. The findings indicate that the internalization of the sincerity values conveyed by this program encompass the value of lillahi ta'ala, the value of high social care, living calmly, being light in doing good, and being grateful for the blessings of Allah Swt.

Promoting and Controlling the China Dream

This chapter captures the myriad ways in which the Chinese government is packaging its image for international audiences (promotional/diffuse), cultivating messengers capable of conveying that image (promotional/specific), trying to respond to or downplay criticisms about its policies in international discourse (obstructive/diffuse), and intimidating and threatening activists outside its own borders (obstructive/specific). To do so, it draws on a variety of data, including speeches and documents from the leadership, close attention to China Global Television Network (CGTN) content about Xinjiang, interviews conducted by the author with targets of China’s promotional/specific efforts, and data from the AAAD about the country’s repression of exiled critics.

SITUATING THE CNN EFFECT IN NIGERIAN CONTEXT: ANALYSING IMPACT ON DIPLOMACY AND LOCAL TELEVISION

Scholars believe that the global media of television influence foreign policy-making through a presentation of compelling images of events happening. It is termed the CNN effect or factor. However, the extent of this effect is not yet determined especially on Nigeria foreign policy and local television. The CNN Effect stands on the agenda-setting theory. The factor implies that the global television goes further to tell policymakers what it should think, what to think about, how to think about what they think, and what to do with what they think and think about. This study is carried out through analysis of secondary data and observation of global and local televisions. Beside already observed effects of global television on foreign policymaking such as making decisions in haste without proper considerations and sideling of diplomatic protocols, the study found some side effects of the influence of global media; one of which is that global television force policymakers to be unduly attached to them (global television). The greater revelation from the CNN effect is not on Nigeria’s foreign policy but on local television industry where the local television loses audience, credibility and revenue to global television. The study recommends better funding and training for local television.