Article:

Im Angesicht der ›Qualitätsserie‹. Produktionskulturen in der deutschen Fernsehserienindustrie

Television series from Germany have frequently been criticized for their textual characteristics, but also for their alleged production modes. Following this discourse, the article wants to explore production cultures in which contemporary approaches to ›quality series‹ take place. It is mainly based on participant observations at industry workshops on series and on qualitative interviews with crucial actors of series story development: writers, producers and commissioning editors. Often they move between different contexts of production. Therefore, their production cultures have to be understood as heterogeneous and as linked to each other. Particularly with ›quality series‹, transnational networks can be made-out, too. However, at the same time national, historically developed specifics influence how practitioners in series production work. Particularly for many writers, traditions of agency do not work very well and they are being negotiated within discourses on ›quality series‹.