Television and Culture

Biswarup Sen and Abhijit Roy (eds.), Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2014. Hardcover, Pages 322. Television Studies is a new area in the academic disciplines in India. While Film Studies as a discipline flourished in the last two decades, there has been also progress in the fields of Media Studies, Cultural Studies and very recently in New Media Studies. But television which emerged in the last three decades as the largest and most popular media in India has not been properly addressed in the critical disciplines. Empirical researches on television programmes are often conducted from the vantage point of "mass communication" but they usually address pragmatic and functional aspects of Indian TV. There exists very little amount of academic publications in India which is able to address television theoretically by exploring the political economy of television culture. This anthology, edited by Biswarup Sen and Abhijit Roy, aspires to fill up the void in the sphere of our existing knowledge related to television studies in India. Television nowadays in India has become one of the most important spheres of popular culture which claims a considerable span of time in our everyday mores. After the liberalization of Indian sky through global satellite broadcasting in the early 1990s, television in India exclusively redefined the older paradigms of communication and reception. The book edited by Sen and Roy includes most recent theoretical developments in television studies and aims at understanding the political economy of the shifting codes of televisual culture in India. The book contains twelve chapters preceded by an introduction. The chapters are focused on televisual forms, cultural experiences of television and the political histories of television in India. The first chapter, "TV after Television Studies: Recasting Questions of Audiovisual Form" by Abhijit Roy revisits the theoretical frameworks of Television Studies as a critical discipline. His essay maps the historical development of television studies starting from British screen theory to the most contemporary of media

Published in "'The Universe is Indifferent': Theology, Philosophy, and Mad Men" (Cascade Press, 2016)

This essay explores the paradox of television show Mad Men's lead character, Donald Draper, from the perspective of philosopher Jean-Luc Marion's 'erotic reduction.' Rather than attempting to dissolve the paradox of Don Draper I argue that Draper is an exemplary fictional enactment of Marion's insistence that love seeks assurance -- not certainty.  Moreover, Draper's paradoxical nature vividly illustrates Marion's distinction between the 'seducer' and the 'lover' and, consequently, the 'idol' and the 'icon.' Thus Mad Men brilliantly traverses the distance between Draper's (and our) madness and iconicity by way of the lover's advance.

2001) mengatakan bahwa kehadiran televisi di Indonesia tak lepas dari 'proyek kebudayaan' yang dilakukan oleh Negara. Istilah proyek kebudayaan merujuk pada serangkaian kegiatan atau kebijakan yang dirancang dan dibiayai Negara untuk memberikan legitimasi pada identitas kebudayaan nasional Indonesia secara simbolik. Argumen tersebut didasarkan pada hasil kajian Kitley mengenai perkembangan dan peran kebudayan dari televisi serta kebijakan penyiaran televisi sejak kehadirannya pada 1962. Siaran televisi nasional pertama kali dilakukan oleh TVRI dalam rangka menyiarkan GANEFO, event olahraga tingkat Asia, pada masa pemerintahan Sukarno. GANEFO sendiri merupakan proyek ambisius untuk membangkitkan perasaan bangga serta rasa persatuan dan kesatuan sebagai bangsa Indonesia. Bahwa Indonesia merupakan Negara yang populis, percaya diri, dan modern.

O objetivo deste artigo é tratar do impacto de um documentário televisivo no ritual religioso de autopenitência do corpo realizado pelos Penitentes da cidade de Barbalha no sertão do Cariri, Ceará. Aborda questões sobre a penitência no catolicismo popular e as consequências da exposição midiática e espetacularização do ritual religioso de autoflagelo. A metodologia envolve pesquisa bibliográfica, pesquisa documental com análise do documentário do SBT e entrevistas com os últimos penitentes remanescentes do grupo de Barbalha pertencentes à chamada Irmandade da Cruz.

Resumen: El objetivo de la comunicación es el análisis y presentación de la narrativa construida sobre el flamenco en los documentos audiovisuales. El trabajo se detiene específicamente en la representación de las formas de sociabilidad colectiva vinculadas al flamenco, como espacio de producción y reproducción cultural, y muy particularmente la juerga, el rito y la fiesta popular gitana, según el tratamiento de dos estudios de caso de la serie El Ángel (1984) y la película Flamenco (1995).

Este libro consigna los resultados de la investigación llevada a cabo por el Ministerio de Cultura en varias regiones del país, en el marco del Proyecto de Televisión Infantil Cultural de la Dirección de Comunicaciones, con el propósito de conocer de primera mano algunas de las múltiples y diversas formas de ser niño y niña en Colombia.

Más allá de aportar algunas ideas para hacer televisión infantil, esta publicación le permitirá entrar en contacto con pequeños entre los ocho y los diez años de edad, afrodescendientes, gitanos, indígenas, mestizos, habitantes de entornos rurales y de grandes y pequeñas ciudades, y escuchar voces a las que rara vez tenemos acceso, para que sean ellos quienes nos cuenten cómo ven el mundo y cómo es su relación con la realidad y la fantasía. La expresión de los 323 participantes de este estudio da cuenta de algunos de sus problemas, intereses, necesidades, de qué los emociona y los conmueve.

El descubrimiento y reconocimiento de las identidades únicas que configuran el universo de los niños y niñas colombianos por parte de todos aquellos embarcados en la aventura de crear y producir programas de televisión para la infancia, permitirá abrir otros espacios de participación para nuestros niños. Invitarlos a participar no solo supone dar visibilidad a aquellos que tradicionalmente no aparecen en los medios de comunicación, también hace posible que tengamos en cuenta sus historias e imaginarios como fuente de inspiración y que nos acerquemos a los temas que para ellos son relevantes.

Nobel laureate Niko Tinbergen coined the term ‘supernormal stimulus’ after discovering that birds who lay small, pale blue eggs speckled with grey prefer to sit on larger, bright blue eggs with black polka-dots. He found that he could exaggerate the key qualities of any natural stimulus to produce a stronger reaction yet--be it nurturance, courtship, fear or aggression.
    Animals encounter supernormal stimuli mostly when experimenters build them.  Humans can generate their own and media are awash with them: friendly smiling faces more consistently welcoming than ones own friends, animated cartoon characters with wider eyes than any real child’s, seductive bodies exceeding any proportions found in nature, and a huge array of supernatural menaces.
    This chapter examines film, television, spectator sports, video games, and social websites as well as more traditional media such as print and musical performance in terms of the concept of supernormal stimuli.

Este artigo aborda os conceitos de autoria e gênero discursivos na telenovela
“Cordel Encantado”, produzida e exibida em 2011 pela Rede Globo de Televisão,
no Brasil. A leitura bakhtiniana é direcionada pelo tensionamento conceitual de
autor-criador e autor-pessoa e gêneros discursivos secundários no escopo da
ficção televisiva enquanto prática cultural. A metodologia baseia-se numa leitura
culturalista, com enfoque na América Latina, que pensa a teledramaturgia a partir
das mediações socioculturais e da hibridização. Como consideração final é
possível afirmar que visualizar o dialogismo de M. Bakhtin a partir dos meios de
comunicação revela possibilidades de leitura da telenovela que desmitificam a
ideia (de uma visão elitista de cultura) de que apenas na literatura é possível
analisar narrativas permeadas pelas ideias de autoria e discursividade.

Considering the prominence of television as a visual medium, this study sought to know the relationship between television programmes and cultural proximity as well as the appropriate ways to inculcate violence-free behaviour in the viewers through cultural based programmes. The symbolic interaction theory was used as a framework. The survey research design was adopted to collect quantitative data from 138 respondents. Qualitative data was gathered through the observation of the different television channels received in Abia state. It was discovered that a majority of the respondents get exposed to Western TV channels (which contain a lot of violence) more than the local ones. It was also found that infusing lifestyles that are peculiar to the local setting helps to create closeness between programmes and the viewers. It was therefore concluded that television programmes that are culturally close to the people help to reduce violence in the society by injecting moral virtues that eschew violence. Finally it was recommended that NBC should strictly enforce the local content policy because presently, TV stations do not adhere to the rules; when they do, the programmes are adulterated with western values.

In this article, I will analyse the sexualized and eroticized representation of women participants in the popular reality series “Bigg Boss” (season 5). Since 2006, “Bigg Boss” has had a successful run on Indian television; the series focuses on celebrity contestants. Bigg Boss has been extremely controversial for the sexualized and vulgarized representation of women and the use of abusive language. By examining the
professional background of women participants, the various tasks delegated and specific sexualized and eroticized representation of women in the series, I will argue how the Bigg Boss series exploits the female sexuality.

Keywords: Reality Shows, Bigg Boss 5, Sexual, Vulgar, Representation, Indian Television, Bollywood

When transnational television channels entered Indian television market with big investments and innovative content, they were accused of bringing in an alien culture and spoiling the local culture. The programming aired in transnational television channels of different genres were viewed as a challenge to Indian culture, and identity. Television content across most of the Indian languages, influenced by Western program formats, has fueled sharp debates about the kind of cultural values it promotes. It is in this background that the present article attempts to critically examine the structural aspects of transnational television in India. The paper also tries to understand the Indian television market, and makes an attempt to trace the programming trend and marketing strategy of transnational general entertainment channels (GECs) in comparison with Indian television channels. An attempt will be made to examine the programming of transnational GECs to find out whether they are culturally sensitive or interfering. Indian government policy towards transnational channels will also be looked into.

Le présent article étudie, dans une perspective sémiologique, le discours de l’émission À vos pinceaux autour de la figure du peintre amateur, en soulignant à la fois la production d’une injonction à la créativité et une « normalisation » de celle-ci par l’émission. Diffusée entre décembre 2016 et février 2017, d’abord sur France 2, ensuite sur France 4, À vos pinceaux s’inscrit dans la catégorie des émissions que l’on pourrait désigner de « télé-réalité artistique » ou, plus précisément, de « télé-coaching artistique », dont le récit se fonde sur un expédient ludique assez simple : dix peintres amateurs se confrontent, en réalisant des tableaux « sur commande », afin de gagner une exposition de leurs oeuvres au Grand Palais. Dans le cadre d’une réflexion autour des notions de créativité, de création et d’oeuvre d’art, que nous entendons au sens de Donald Winnicott (1975), l’intérêt de cette émission réside dans le discours normatif qu’elle produit à travers un récit principalement axé autour de la métamorphose des amateurs, qui passent du rang de peintres du dimanche à celui d’artistes, et de leurs
réalisations, qui évoluent du statut de « croûtes » à celui d’oeuvres d’art.
Dans ce discours médiatique, une injonction émerge : la création (modeste, gratuite, dépourvue de contraintes temporelles et inexpérimentée) que l’on associe culturellement à l’amateur (P.
Flichy, 2010 ; C. Leadbeater, P. Miller, 2004 ; G. Leblanc, 1999 ; R. Sennett, 2010), doit être progressivement abandonnée au profit de l’excellence, entendue, au contraire, comme maîtrise technique, gain et reconnaissance sociale. Dans cette perspective, il est intéressant de souligner la manière dont le genre télévisuel participe également de la fabrication de cette injonction. À vos pinceaux, adaptation française de l’émission anglaise The Big Painting Challenge, produite par la filiale française de la BBC, souhaite accomplir une mission de « service public » autour de l’art et, plus particulièrement, de la peinture. En effet, en tant que sous-genre de la télé-réalité, le télé-coaching s’est développé suite
aux nombreuses critiques dont les émissions de télé-réalité ont fait l’objet, notamment sur le plan moral et éthique et pour le caractère futile de leurs contenus. Ainsi, le processus de légitimation du peintre amateur croise celui du genre du télé-coaching qui tente de légitimer socialement la télé-réalité, en la réinscrivant dans la triple mission d’éduquer, informer et divertir (F. Antoine, 2010). À ce propos, l’émergence d’un discours normatif autour de pratiques créatives (en peinture, en cuisine, en couture, etc.), véhiculé par les médias à travers la forme du « coaching », serait, selon Roland Gori et Pierre Le Coz (2006), un nouveau mode de contrôle social : en partant du présupposé que c’est au « coaché » de s’adapter au monde dans lequel il vit (et non le contraire), le coach se doit de mettre en oeuvre un véritable processus de normalisation.

This briefing on what bothers Australian kids online builds upon a short report from the EU Kids Online network: In their own words: What bothers children online? Based upon research across 25 European nations, with 25,142 children (aged 9-16) and the parent or caregiver most involved in supporting the child’s internet use, the In their own words report addresses children’s answers to the question: ‘What things on the internet would bother people about your age?’ Children had not been asked about troubling content at this stage in the research, so their open-ended answers to this question represent the issues and subjects of concern that first came to mind when they thought about the kinds of online experiences that would trouble a child of about their age.

In this article, I will analyse the sexualized and eroticized representation of women participants in the popular reality series “Bigg Boss” (season 5). Since 2006, “Bigg Boss” has had a successful run on Indian television; the series focuses on celebrity contestants. Bigg Boss has been extremely controversial for the sexualized and vulgarized representation of women and the use of abusive language. By examining the professional background of women participants, the various tasks delegated and specific sexualized and eroticized representation of women in the series, I will argue how the Bigg Boss series exploits the female sexuality. Keywords: Reality Shows, Bigg Boss 5, Sexual, Vulgar, Representation, Indian Television, Bollywood

Während die Struktur multimodaler Kommunikate inzwischen recht gut erforscht ist, weiß man immer noch wenig über deren konkrete Produktionsprozesse, also über die Verfahren und Muster des Doing Multimodality. Im Beitrag wird gezeigt, wie man mit ethnografischer Feldforschung, der Dokumentation und Reflexion von Textproduktionsprozessen sowie Experteninterviews die systematische Verknüpfung von Sprache, Bild und Ton erfassen und dabei zugleich Redaktions-und Senderkulturen sowie multimodale Stile oder Ideologien offenlegen kann. Zwei qualitative Verfahren werden vorgestellt: die langfristige Textproduktions- bzw. Schreibprozessforschung, mit der man Produktionsprozesse in einem spezifischen redaktionellen Kontext en detail erfassen kann, und die Kurzethnografie, mit der unterschiedliche Settings kontrastiv erforscht werden können. Als Fallbeispiele dienen die Produktion von Fernsehnachrichten und TV-Programmtrailern.

Jean Baudrillard earned notoriety when he announced that the Gulf War did not take place. Those who opposed him on the ground of a deplorable insensibility which he has written with ignoring the dimension of human suffering missed the argument of Baudrillard that it is the manufactured reality which television caters to us, and not reality per se. The very idea of real is a postmodern problematic because in this image-dominated (televised) hyperreal stage it is impossible to deduce any idea of real by following a simplistic logic of representation mirroring reality. What the television and media in general present to us is a nebulous form of the real whose authenticity can no longer be established because such representations operate on the level of signification without an immediately available signified. Postmodern culture, especially media culture, is marked by a distortion of the real. The distortion does not arise from some technical constraints inherent in the medium; rather, this is deliberately architectured to render the events obscure so as to serve without being seen to serving the interest of those who control its resources.

O presente artigo apresenta uma discussão de cunho teórico acerca do folhetim na
televisão, sua estrutura e sua linguagem. O objetivo é refletir sobre a ficção seriada
televisiva lida a partir de três conceituações: a imaginação melodramática, a cultura
televisiva e a estética televisiva. Utilizando-se das obras de Brooks, Martín-Barbero,
Rincón, Fuenzalida, Mittell e Fahle, este trabalho intenta apresentar uma visão acerca da
televisão e de seus produtos como o local de uma cultura específica da
audiovisualidade, com uma estetização peculiar e uma abrangência de extrema
ressignificação no espaço social.

In this paper we argue that contextual multi-armed bandit algorithms could open avenues for designing self-learning security modules for computer networks and related tasks. The paper has two contributions: a conceptual one and an algorithmical one. The conceptual contribution is to formulate-as an example-the real-world problem of preventing SPIT (Spam in VoIP networks), which is currently not satisfyingly addressed by standard techniques, as a sequential learning problem, namely as a contextual multi-armed bandit. Our second contribution is to present CMABFAS, a new algorithm for general contextual multi-armed bandit learning that specifically targets domains with finite actions. We illustrate how CMABFAS could be used to design a fully self-learning SPIT filter that does not rely on feedback from the end-user (i.e., does not require labeled data) and report first simulation results.

As founding editor of this series, I am actively seeking high-quality monographs and specialized reference works on all aspects of SF television. Proposals oriented around classic SF themes (rather than series), and proposals dealing with forms of television other than the hour-long serial drama, are especially welcome, as are proposals on SF TV produced outside the United States.

Rowman & Littlefield primarily markets to school, college, and larger public libraries, but it also welcomes proposals for potential general-interest titles that can appeal to a broad audience.