#PrettyLittleLiars: ABC Family in TV’s Post-Network Era

<p>This thesis explores the branding of ABC Family as a home for ‘Millennial’ viewers through its original TV drama programme, Pretty Little Liars. ABC Family emerged during what Amanda Lotz (2007) terms the ‘post-network’ era of American television, a period that has been characterised by fierce inter-network competition and the availability of TV programming on a larger array of platforms, including online platforms. These revolutionary changes have been coupled with the emergence of a commercially desirable demographic known as the ‘Millennials’, a group of young people who are considered to be ‘native’ to this ‘post-network’ environment and whose media use and preferences are challenging networks to revise their strategies and develop programmes that aim to solicit their attention and engagement. Pretty Little Liars has been specifically constructed to assert the brand identity of ABC Family as a channel “for and about Millennials” (Liesse A2). This programme has sought to distinguish itself within teen-oriented TV drama by incorporating cinematic aesthetics, serial storytelling, narrative complexity, and intertextuality – all of which have been characteristic of adult-oriented ‘high-end’ TV drama in the ‘post-network’ era. Pretty Little Liars has supplemented these efforts to distinguish itself by cultivating a thriving online presence. Important to this online presence are the use of ‘transmedia storytelling’ and social media. As this thesis demonstrates, transmedia storytelling and social media have the capacity to significantly extend the experience of a TV programme beyond what is aired on television. Importantly, their deployment in support of Pretty Little Liars has been successful in encouraging consistent viewing of new episodes as they are broadcast, a pattern that persists despite the post-network era’s capacity for delayed viewing on alternative platforms. This thesis undertakes an in-depth examination of ABC Family’s ‘post-network’ strategy in three chapters, each of which takes a different critical perspective. Chapter One examines the internal and external challenges that contributed to the emergence of ABC Family’s rebranding. Chapter Two analyses Pretty Little Liars as a ‘high end’ teen-oriented TV drama that functions to elevate the profile of ABC Family while simultaneously engaging ‘Millennial’ viewers. Finally, Chapter Three explores the transmedia extensions of Pretty Little Liars that function to supplement the television narrative in ways that encourage and reward consistent viewing patterns and long-term loyalty.</p>

#PrettyLittleLiars: ABC Family in TV’s Post-Network Era

<p>This thesis explores the branding of ABC Family as a home for ‘Millennial’ viewers through its original TV drama programme, Pretty Little Liars. ABC Family emerged during what Amanda Lotz (2007) terms the ‘post-network’ era of American television, a period that has been characterised by fierce inter-network competition and the availability of TV programming on a larger array of platforms, including online platforms. These revolutionary changes have been coupled with the emergence of a commercially desirable demographic known as the ‘Millennials’, a group of young people who are considered to be ‘native’ to this ‘post-network’ environment and whose media use and preferences are challenging networks to revise their strategies and develop programmes that aim to solicit their attention and engagement. Pretty Little Liars has been specifically constructed to assert the brand identity of ABC Family as a channel “for and about Millennials” (Liesse A2). This programme has sought to distinguish itself within teen-oriented TV drama by incorporating cinematic aesthetics, serial storytelling, narrative complexity, and intertextuality – all of which have been characteristic of adult-oriented ‘high-end’ TV drama in the ‘post-network’ era. Pretty Little Liars has supplemented these efforts to distinguish itself by cultivating a thriving online presence. Important to this online presence are the use of ‘transmedia storytelling’ and social media. As this thesis demonstrates, transmedia storytelling and social media have the capacity to significantly extend the experience of a TV programme beyond what is aired on television. Importantly, their deployment in support of Pretty Little Liars has been successful in encouraging consistent viewing of new episodes as they are broadcast, a pattern that persists despite the post-network era’s capacity for delayed viewing on alternative platforms. This thesis undertakes an in-depth examination of ABC Family’s ‘post-network’ strategy in three chapters, each of which takes a different critical perspective. Chapter One examines the internal and external challenges that contributed to the emergence of ABC Family’s rebranding. Chapter Two analyses Pretty Little Liars as a ‘high end’ teen-oriented TV drama that functions to elevate the profile of ABC Family while simultaneously engaging ‘Millennial’ viewers. Finally, Chapter Three explores the transmedia extensions of Pretty Little Liars that function to supplement the television narrative in ways that encourage and reward consistent viewing patterns and long-term loyalty.</p>

Development of Retail Payment Systems Since 1949

<p>Starting with the introduction of the Diner's Club payment card in 1949, the means of exchange have progressed well beyond traditional instruments such as notes, coins and cheques. I use institutional economics to analyse historical data on the evolution of recently-developed retail payment systems in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. The framework I create yields insights into the incentives faced by the users of payment instruments and the payment networks that provide them. It also provides a means to assess the role of government in the evolution of retail payment systems. Ceteris paribus, consumers and merchants will prefer low transaction cost payment instruments. In order to complete a transaction, a consumer will proffer an instrument that may or may not be accepted by the merchant. Together, merchants and consumers will choose the payment instrument that generally reduces demand-side – i.e. consumer and merchant – transaction costs, relative to other available instruments. Consumer irreversible costs of adoption enhance the importance of network effects. To help overcome these, I argue payment networks need to make acceptance of their instrument attractive to merchants, which I find to be supported by analysis of the pricing of payment instruments. It distinguishes recently-developed payment instruments from other new technologies – the most technologically advanced instrument will not likely be adopted unless it is first acceptable to merchants. In workably competitive conditions, profit-seeking payment networks will attempt to provide an instrument that gets used while it at least recoups its costs of supply from fees paid by users. I argue this suggests a process of institutional adaption for profit-seeking payment networks. Network effects mean the use of an instrument grows disproportionately faster, the greater the number of people using it. For instrument supply, this means profit-seeking payment networks have an incentive to increase participation. In the presence of potential inter-network competition, a payment network will likely experience greater participation if, ceteris paribus, it offers an instrument that generally reduces demand-side transaction costs to a greater degree than competing networks' instruments and provides it with lower costs of supply. Governments play two key roles in retail payment system development. First, they can affect the development of systems by how well they protect property rights and enforce contracts. Although this role is performed relatively well in my sample countries, my analysis suggests that the use of recently-developed retail payment systems would fall, substantially, were it not so. Second and more importantly in my sample countries, governments impose restrictions on the freedom of contract for payment networks. If restrictions on this freedom are such that they prevent the trading of property rights, they risk reducing either the demand or the supply of payment instruments. Such restrictions might reduce demand if the instrument that would have been used no longer generally reduces demand-side transaction costs. They might reduce supply in two ways: by impeding payment networks' attempts to offer instruments that reduce these transaction costs or by reducing inter-network competition. In summary, I find that it is government restrictions on the freedom of contract that cause the substantial differences in the use of newly-developed retail payment systems between my sample countries. By risking reducing the supply and demand of retail payment systems, these restrictions may diminish innovation in payments, thereby harming dynamic efficiency.</p>

Development of Retail Payment Systems Since 1949

<p>Starting with the introduction of the Diner's Club payment card in 1949, the means of exchange have progressed well beyond traditional instruments such as notes, coins and cheques. I use institutional economics to analyse historical data on the evolution of recently-developed retail payment systems in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. The framework I create yields insights into the incentives faced by the users of payment instruments and the payment networks that provide them. It also provides a means to assess the role of government in the evolution of retail payment systems. Ceteris paribus, consumers and merchants will prefer low transaction cost payment instruments. In order to complete a transaction, a consumer will proffer an instrument that may or may not be accepted by the merchant. Together, merchants and consumers will choose the payment instrument that generally reduces demand-side – i.e. consumer and merchant – transaction costs, relative to other available instruments. Consumer irreversible costs of adoption enhance the importance of network effects. To help overcome these, I argue payment networks need to make acceptance of their instrument attractive to merchants, which I find to be supported by analysis of the pricing of payment instruments. It distinguishes recently-developed payment instruments from other new technologies – the most technologically advanced instrument will not likely be adopted unless it is first acceptable to merchants. In workably competitive conditions, profit-seeking payment networks will attempt to provide an instrument that gets used while it at least recoups its costs of supply from fees paid by users. I argue this suggests a process of institutional adaption for profit-seeking payment networks. Network effects mean the use of an instrument grows disproportionately faster, the greater the number of people using it. For instrument supply, this means profit-seeking payment networks have an incentive to increase participation. In the presence of potential inter-network competition, a payment network will likely experience greater participation if, ceteris paribus, it offers an instrument that generally reduces demand-side transaction costs to a greater degree than competing networks' instruments and provides it with lower costs of supply. Governments play two key roles in retail payment system development. First, they can affect the development of systems by how well they protect property rights and enforce contracts. Although this role is performed relatively well in my sample countries, my analysis suggests that the use of recently-developed retail payment systems would fall, substantially, were it not so. Second and more importantly in my sample countries, governments impose restrictions on the freedom of contract for payment networks. If restrictions on this freedom are such that they prevent the trading of property rights, they risk reducing either the demand or the supply of payment instruments. Such restrictions might reduce demand if the instrument that would have been used no longer generally reduces demand-side transaction costs. They might reduce supply in two ways: by impeding payment networks' attempts to offer instruments that reduce these transaction costs or by reducing inter-network competition. In summary, I find that it is government restrictions on the freedom of contract that cause the substantial differences in the use of newly-developed retail payment systems between my sample countries. By risking reducing the supply and demand of retail payment systems, these restrictions may diminish innovation in payments, thereby harming dynamic efficiency.</p>

Sequins and Songs on the Small Screen

By the late sixties, television was America’s medium and, just as it had with stage and film musicals in the decades prior, it embraced the increasingly legitimized musical style of Vegas. Whether through Mitzi Gaynor’s string of television specials; the repackaging of Sonny and Cher’s Vegas shtick, glitz, and musical tributes; or The Carol Burnett Show’s Bob Mackie–clad musical extravaganzas, Vegas/Broadway hybrids filled the small screen. This fusion of old-school and, to a lesser degree, contemporary musicals with the popularized pizzazz and glamour of Vegas brought the television musical comfortably in line with the cheeky sexiness of 1970s network programming. Highlighting the ongoing symbiosis among various musical platforms, this chapter explores the rise of a hybridized Broadway-Vegas style on television, or what the author terms “BroadVegas,” in the context of changing generic norms across stages and screens, heightened inter-network competition and branding, and emergent visual, generic, and promotional styles.

Concept for a Multinational Patent Search using Elements of Blockchain Technology

Blockchain Elements Integrated Multinational Search (BEIMS) is a response to an ongoing discussion about the search and examination procedures employed in patent offices, relaunched in 2018 when German law firms sent an open letter to the President of the European Patent Office. The BEIMS concept turns away from patent examiners working by themselves in isolation, and instead involves experts from different offices working in close co-operation. BEIMS integrates elements of Blockchain Technology – such as decentralized network, competition and consensus building – with the participation of several national and/or regional patent offices, and involves financial incentives. The co-operating patent offices are coequal and, as a consequence, a multinational search report is generated with cited prior art determined and evaluated by patent examiners of different patent offices in due time.