This paper examines the representation of trauma recovery in the television series I May Destroy You ( 2020 ). Research on rape in fictional television programmes overwhelmingly focus on rape myths or how rape is represented. There is scant research on recovery from rape trauma in television drama. This paper contributes to scholarship on rape in fictional television, through a focus on the process

Using Netflix as a lens, this article identifies and unpacks three central interrelated myths – binge-watching, on-demand, and big data – surrounding global video-on-demand services. These myths are problematic because they make certain ideas about these services seem natural and self-evident, restricting our understanding of their role in culture and society. Moreover, these services provide little

This article presents a qualitative interview study of Finnish screenwriters and commissioners about the impact of generative artificial intelligence on the profession of screenwriting. We ask how screenwriters and commissioners see the benefits and risks of AI tools in screenwriting and how screenwriters see their changing profession in the future. We identify three stances towards AI-driven work

Since the late 2010s, there has been a surge in gay teen drama series that portray their gay male protagonists as cute. This article focuses on four series ( Heartstopper, Young Royals, Love, Victor, and wtFOCK) and examines which formal and narrative practices are used to convey cuteness. It argues that, first, each series participates in the creation of the cute gay boy archetype; second, each series

Thanksgiving-themed episodes of cooking television open up questions about the interrelations of food, history, power, and culture. This study addresses such questions through textual and thematic analysis of 46 Thanksgiving-themed episodes of reality cooking competition programmes on US cable TV, exploring how the Thanksgiving episode operates as a site for the deployment of the culinary as a category

This article focuses on the five-part miniseries, Chernobyl (2019), with its contaminated landscape that deals with a troubled, traumatic history. It takes inspiration from the work of Walter Benjamin and his concept of historical materialism, but principally draws on theoretical paradigms dealing with transcultural memory, to advance a discussion on memory work, (re)mediation of historical events

This article is based on a three-year-long content analysis of the use of reality TV content on the front pages of four popular video streaming services in Denmark: DRTV, TV 2 Play, Viaplay, and Netflix. The results give rare insights into front pages that are normally hidden behind logins but also longitudinal perspectives about the services’ changing curation practices. In particular, the two institutions

Netflix has commissioned and released an increasing number of high-end international series that tap into the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. These follow one of two strategies: (1) local productions that engage with local folklore and myths, or (2) productions centred in the ‘West’, where international talent is brought in to create cosmopolitan ‘global’ TV events such as 1899 (2022)

SKAM (2015–2017) and its Flemish adaptation wtFOCK (2018–2021) use several digital platforms to provide viewers with content, enabling different types of audience engagement. By means of a social media analysis, this study investigates how producers utilise transmedia tools to enhance viewers’ involvement with the depicted storyline and how viewers interact with the provided content on LGBTQ issues

This article explores both US and European streaming shows that feature a protagonist in scenes of queer youth sex, focusing on how the show treats and frames these scenes as constitutive of a broader representational narrative of queer youth sex(uality). By comparing US and European shows, I argue that queer pleasure supplants panic featured in each show by framing the scenes of queer youth sex as

Considering the implications of Netflix’s role as a content producer for cultural diversity in Europe, this methodological article investigates how to define and measure the locality of Netflix Originals. We employ a threefold methodological study based on industry data analysis, audience reception research, and content analysis. This replicable and scalable methodological design provides a solid analytical

WandaVision launched the Disney+ subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform by blending the sitcom and the superhero genres in a nostalgia-inducing fusion of Marvel comics, cinema and television. The series represents the canonisation of Marvel media into a single cohesive narrative ‘multiverse’, yet the story focuses on the personal experience of the character, Wanda, and her struggle with loss

Ted Lasso (2020-present) follows American Football coach, Ted Lasso, as he transforms the waning English Premier League team, AFC Richmond, through his relentless optimism and his mantra of ‘believe’. The show has been praised by critics for its emphasis on kindness and particularly for its exploration of ‘positive’ and ‘vulnerable’ masculinities. It is placed front and centre not just in promotion

This is a case study of 40 years of policy approaches in Australian children’s television during which the children’s television production ecology was profoundly altered by new distribution techno...

Despite critical and popular acclaim, the travel/food television series of Anthony Bourdain have not received much academic attention. This paper examines the negotiations required of the series’ p...

The Big Bang Theory, Atypical and Community are sitcoms paradigmatic of a recent representational shift, in which center stage is assumed by individuals who face psychological and neurological chal...

This article explores Netflix’s changing business strategies to diversify its catalogues, examining the practices of ‘direct commissioning’ and genre adaptation. The case study of Queen Sono, the f...

Those endorsing or opposing the development of television aesthetics scholarship have exhibited an admirable willingness to reflect upon the rationales and motivations for formulating value judgeme...

This institutional-industrial analysis evaluates how Netflix’s post-2016 rebranding efforts resulted in its ongoing transition from a centrally-managed multinational corporation, based mainly in Si...

This article addresses the role of television as a ‘new media’ in government public relations. Drawing on sociological theories on informalisation, this study analyses three features of the Swedish...

This article investigates the equality of female representation in 2019 Global Original Netflix drama series by identifying trends of female representation across 82 series sample, assessing the qu...

Television studies in Poland has not yet been recognized as an academic discipline in its own right. Despite this obvious omission in the institutional division of academic fields, Polish researche...

This study investigates how the concept of ‘quality TV’ is evolving in the age of streaming video on demand (SVOD) platforms, using reviews of two Israeli TV series on Netflix – Fauda and Shtisel. ...

This article discusses the ways locality and sense of place are used in the production and promotion of streaming media from small nations. We concentrate on location-related decisions behind Man i...

The Swedish/Icelandic co-produced serial Tunn is (Thin Ice, 2020) offers an insight into current possibilities and challenges of production in the Nordic Arctic region and the involvement of the de...

On their surface, medicalised reality television series about food addiction and fatness seem to reinforce the same discourses of neoliberalism that have come to define our understanding of contemp...

Interventional reality programmes often give rise to speculations about how they treat their contributors. However, little is known about the actual production practices that lie behind these compl...

The excess of mystery and ‘meaning’ in Twin Peaks: Season 3 (2017) reflects the post-truth ontological dissonance of information overload, tantalising the thirst for answers that dominates digital ...

Since 2020, Netflix has emphasised the diversity of representation the platform provides through its content. Following the publication of its diversity report, the streamer positions itself as a d...

Netflix’s status as a personalised service has been central to its business proposition and brand. However, recent changes to include community-based metrics within the user interface – such as the...

Small Axe, a series of five films, has brought innovation and prestige to TV drama not only for its overdue history of Caribbean migrant experiences in post-war Britain but also for its transformat...

This article analyses how three South Korean multicultural-themed reality television programmes discursively produce Koreanness. We ground our study in scholarship on ‘othering’ and the notion of b...

For this final issue in the year of the BBC’s centenary, the Book Reviews section has commissioned a special ‘article’. In this issue, we wanted to publish a number of short reviews by critics and academics of their favourite books about the BBC. We asked some authors, writing from different places and at different stages in their careers, to choose and write about a favourite book about the BBC. We

This issue marks the final of our special volume commemorating the centenary of the BBC. It takes as its theme the ‘BBC in the World’, drawing on one of the institution’s five public purposes as laid out in its charter: ‘to reflect the United Kingdom, its culture and values to the world’ (BBC, 2022). From an early stage in the BBC’s development, it has understood itself in global terms: by defining

This provocation gives an overview of the BBC in India in terms of television news. It discusses the BBC's sensibilities in relation to the interests and perceptions of Indian audiences through two methods: one, a review of available secondary literature; and two, brief conversations with media professionals who have previously or currently work with the BBC in India. It briefly comments on the conflicting

In the context of constantly changing media communication and the behavior of different actors engaging it, our paper seeks to map current transformations and adaptations to changes within Czech au...

Although the dominant narrative among Africans is that Western media portray Africa in a one-sided and negative way, this belief is being challenged as a result of the intervention of the BBC’s Afr...

This article examines the CBC/Netflix co-production Anne with an E (2017–19), a leading example of cross-platform co-production whose legacy is disrupted by the drama’s unexpected cancellation. Theories of cultural and media imperialism are discussed to contextualise this circumstance, along with an overview of the Canadian media policy context. The relationship between the CBC’s public service model

This essay examines how society and culture constructs differing responses to memory and remembrance in producing documentary series that look back at the American War in Indochina. Drawing upon studies of memory, nostalgia, and remembrance, the primary focus is on the recent documentary series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War. That series can be seen as a remembrance rather than

This article outlines and examines the role comedy and entertainment have played at the BBC in constructing a sense of national identity both in the UK and overseas. It demonstrates the ways in which UK national identities are intertwined with ideas of a sense of humour, and the extent to which this is a performative act. Beginning with a historical approach, the article shows how the BBC, over time

The article examines formal innovation, authorship and representation within Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s television series Fleabag (2016–2019). Through close examination of the developed use of direct address within the programme, in particular two key moments of trans-diegetic address, the analysis considers how, contrary to ontological assumptions, the adaptation of the theatrical ‘aside’, when converted

This article discusses the important role the BBC played in advancing the careers of ABC women in the post-war era. Adopting an integrated, transnational approach, it revisualises the British broadcasting empire from a dominion perspective, a gendered perspective. This research follows ABC television producers as they undertook transformative, transnational excursions and recognises the necessary mobility

This study explores the transformation of production spaces from empty sound stages to standing sets, drawing on the findings from fieldwork involving 14 key players; studio owners and managers, screenwriters and art directors. The sets containing standing decors of hospital rooms, police stations, jails and courtrooms, transformed from abandoned factories, warehouses and administrative buildings in

This article explores historical representations of Liverpool in two television dramas: ITV’s Cilla (2014) and the BBC’s Boys from the Blackstuff (1982). It is concerned with the ways that television drama can both record and recreate places from the past. Focussing on two dramas set in Liverpool at formative moments in the city’s past, it considers the centrality of an evocation of place and specifically

This working paper focuses on women in leadership roles in the Entertainment Department of BBC North, based at New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road, Manchester and subsequently at Media City UK. In so doing, it considers the role of the department’s founder, Janet Street-Porter, and her leadership of the then Youth Programmes department in the late 80s/early 90s. Drawing on interviews with six women

Past studies of broadcasting histories sometimes excluded and rendered invisible the work of women, concerned as such histories often were with recounting the achievements of pioneering men or detailing institutional chronologies through themes of technology, bureaucracy, leadership and innovation (Abramson, 2003; Burns, 1986; Crisell, 2002; Herbert, 2004). Studies of individual broadcasting institutions

This is a working paper on women and the early BBC television service, prior to September 1939. It considers women in four main areas of work: in production roles, in secretarial/clerical support work, in Makeup and Wardrobe, and as on-screen announcers. Apart from the latter two, which were developed especially for television, it shows a clear link with radio practices, particularly the possibility

Cooking on television after WWII mainly addressed ‘the housewife’ audience, while women themselves were presenting television cooking programmes. History has largely forgotten the presenter Joan Robins, who appeared alongside Philip Harben and Marguerite Patten on BBC broadcasts of the late 1940s and 1950s. Robins specialised in ‘common-sense’ cookery, nutrition, and health, including a controversial