2021 | 19 | Smörgåsbord of European Television
As VIEW enters its tenth year of publication, we present our first open issue. The resulting collection of articles represents a varied smörgåsbord of European television, covering television in Germany, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. Moreover, many articles discuss the transnational movement of television: a Turkish adaptation of a Danish series, the Portuguese framing of a Spanish historical series, East German films on Swedish television, Russian television programmes on the international market.
Co-edited by Mari Pajala and John Ellis
Co-edited by Mari Pajala and John Ellis
Recent Submissions
- ArticleCartoon Animals vs. Actual Russians: Russian Television and the Dynamics of Global Cultural ExchangeBrassard, Jeffrey (2021)Despite continual improvements in production and writing quality, live-action Russian series have fared poorly in the global market. While many deals have been struck, Western remakes of Russian series have failed to appear, and live-action programs have failed to find mainstream audiences outside of Russia. Russian animated series, on the other hand, have enjoyed global success. The success and failure of different types of Russian series in the global media market suggests that many of the central problems of cultural exchange remain. Issues related to cost and risk continue to impede the global transfer of live-action series and formats from Russia even as animated series have become the most widely viewed Russian media products in history.
- ArticleEditorial: Smörgåsbord of European TelevisionPajala, Mari; Ellis, John (2021)As VIEW enters its tenth year of publication, we present our first open issue. The resulting collection of articles represents a varied smörgåsbord of European television, covering television in Germany, Greece, Hungary, Malta, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. Moreover, many articles discuss the transnational movement of television: a Turkish adaptation of a Danish series, the Portuguese framing of a Spanish historical series, East German films on Swedish television, Russian television programmes on the international market.
- ArticleGDR Cinema on Swedish Television: The Formation of Cultural Contacts and the Reception of East-German NarrativesStjernholm, Emil (2021)This article studies the import of East German films by Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio, and their reception in the Swedish public sphere. While few GDR films reached theatrical distribution, Swedish television imported and broadcasted over 30 productions by the state-owned film studio DEFA during the 1970s and 1980s, making this the primary distribution window for East German film in Sweden. Relying on sources such as Sveriges Radio’s in-house correspondence and screening reports, the weekly Sveriges Radio magazine Voices in Radio/Television (Röster i Radio/TV) and the public service corporation’s annual reports, this study sheds light on the political, economic and ideological considerations involved in the cultural exchange between Sweden and the GDR.
- ArticleHistory in Motion: Using Broadcast Media Content in the Teaching and Learning of History – Some Educational ReflectionsCutajar, Alexander (2021)The subject of this paper is the use of broadcast media content – newsreels, news reportage and non-fiction documentaries – in the history classroom. Used educationally as sources of evidence, such moving images offer students a valuable learning experience. Drawing on findings from a study involving students analysing media content in a Maltese secondary history classroom, I report how students preferred the documentary-type of broadcast content. Students demonstrated an awareness of disciplinary knowledge when analysing moving images and highlighted certain limitations. Teacher questions were key to driving the analysis forward. I place these findings within the general goal of helping students become visually literate. It is hoped that the reflections offered will help educators maximise the use of broadcast media content to promote effective learning in history and increase awareness among researchers and practitioners of television history and culture about educationally-relevant content.
- ArticleMary Tudor – From the Page to the Screen: The Visual Transposition and Transformation of Queen Mary I of England in Carlos, Rey EmperadorEvenden-Kenyon, Elizabeth (2021)This article explores representations of Mary I of England, wife of Philip II of Spain. Specifically, it examines the portrayal of the queen – perhaps most famously known by the epithet ‘Bloody Mary’ – in the TV series Carlos, Rey Emperador (2015-2016), and in its associated online supporting materials. It details how textual representations of Mary underpin European visual depictions of the queen, and considers the ways in which Mary transcends stereotypical, quintessentially English-language portrayals of Mary for Spanish and Portuguese audiences. In doing so, it posits wider observations on the mnemonic strategies underpinning the series Carlos, Rey Emperador, and its different framings for Spanish and Portuguese audiences on the Internet.
- ArticleThe Process of Establishing the Hungarian Television: Resolution, Failure, New ResolutionRajcsányi, Péter (2021)The study discloses the secretly held facts of the establishment of Hungarian Television. It analyses the four-year-long process, including fiascos of political decisions, infighting in governmental economic and political organizations, financial aspects, as well as personal conflicts and battles. It discusses the factors leading to the original resolution of establishing Hungarian Television and also the factors contributing to the failure of the resolution. Beyond showing the role and activities of the Television Department itself, the article presents the peculiarities of Hungarian Television stemming from the changes sweeping the Hungarian political, economic and social life between 1952 and 1957.
- ArticleThe Suez Crisis of 1956 and 1957 in West German Television NewsLehnert, Sigrun (2021)From the mid-1950s onwards, the number of television viewers in West Germany increased rapidly and television became the “window to the world” for many people. Through audio-visual reporting the people were informed so that they could feel save as they know what had happened in the world, especially in times of the Cold War. The Suez Crisis of 1956/1957 was one of the Cold War conflicts that television was able to report on continuously and thus demonstrate its advantages. The Suez Crisis has to be considered not only in the context of the larger, geopolitical conflict between East and West, but also in a decolonization context, and it affected the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in several ways. The daily newscast Tagesschau, and the weekly compilation Wochenspiegel was able to convey images from a distant region with high actuality. In the beginning, Tagesschau used material from the cinema newsreel and followed its style, but the news editors very soon developed their own strategies of modern reporting. This article outlines the style of West German television news in the 1950s as well as the routines and ways of reporting, which continue in news production today.
- ArticleTracing the Ephemeral: ‘Lesbian’ Characters in Greek Television ComediesChairetis, Spyridon (2021)This paper examines how Greek television fiction introduced and represented lesbian characters during primetime. Drawing on feminist and queer theory and taking the codes and conventions of the comedy genre into account, the paper reveals Greek comedy’s elusive and ambiguous stances towards heteronormativity. By applying a qualitative textual approach, the paper argues that despite their subversive potentialities, the television shows in question (re)produce cultural stereotypes about lesbian identity, invest in queerbaiting strategies and play down the transgressive elements of certain lesbian characters. Despite this critique, the paper stresses the importance of recording, archiving, and further exploring such ephemeral moments in television history in understanding how small national television industries as well as audiences have engaged with the visual representation of gender and sexual diversity.
- Article‘Aesthetic Proximity’ and Transnational TV Series: Adapting Forbrydelsen in the Turkish ContextKesirli Unur, Ayşegül (2021)This article focuses on the short lived Turkish police procedural TV series, Cinayet (The Murder, Akbel Film and Adam Film, 2014) which is a scripted format adaptation of the celebrated Danish crime drama Forbrydelsen (DR, 2007-2012). By making a comparative textual analysis of the series, the article intends to emphasize the significance of ‘aesthetic proximity’ as a concept in discussing the global flow of television content and to reveal the challenges of adapting a scripted format which is stylistically different than the local stylistic conventions.
- Article“Everything is Connected”. Narratives of Temporal and Spatial Transgression in DarkBatori, Anna (2021)The paper discusses the storytelling formulas of the first season of the German series Dark (2017–2020) by focusing on the key temporal and spatial aspects of seriality in the show, such as the time frame of diegesis (story time), the temporal structure of the story (discourse and narration time) and the unique temporal installation of the series. As argued, the story and visual textuality of Dark not only transcends time and space – thus to provide us with a complex narrative set – but, by atemporal and spatial storytelling jumps, it creates a map of inconsistencies of double discontinuity fairly new to television and serial narration. By focusing on these spatial-temporal aspects of the series, the paper sketches a new approach to postmodern television formulas, while it also offers a possible interpretation to the national characteristics of the production based on the recurring theme of captivity in time.