"Television was introduced in India in 1959 but for many years it was limited to state-owned broadcaster Doordarshan, which had one channel with twice-weekly, one-hour programs. However, there has been a marked shift in the television entertainment options available in India today, with 48 paid-for
...
broadcasters, an estimated 60,000 cable operators, 6000 Multi System Operators (MSOs) and six pay direct-to-home (DTH) operators, all in addition to the public service broadcaster – Doordarshan. In total, there are over 850 TV channels registered with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. 2016 witnessed the arrival of a revolution in content consumption in India, with the entry of OTT (over-the-top) media services. OTT content is defined as the “productized practice of streaming content to customers directly over the web.” This has marked a big shift from the traditional tune-in, “consume-what-you-are-fed” model of conventional terrestrial, cable or satellite dish television, towards a new on-demand era of choice. Given the OTT boom, 82% of users in the Indian market are currently engaged on free-to-view, advertising-led videoon-demand platforms (like YouTube), compared to the 18% who pay for content on subscription-led video-on-demand services (such as Netflix and Amazon Prime). There are many factors that have been conducive to the on-demand model in India, the foremost being the growing penetration of internet and smart phones." (Introduction)
more
"Media Culture in Transnational Asia: Convergences and Divergences examines contemporary media use within Asia, where over half of the world's population resides. The book addresses media use and practices by looking at the transnational exchanges of ideas, narratives, images, techniques, and values
...
and how they influence media consumption and production throughout Asia, including: Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran and many others. The book's contributors are especially interested in investigating media and their intersections with narrative, medium, technologies, and culture through the lenses that are particularly Asian by turning to Asian socio-political and cultural milieus as the meaningful interpretive framework to understand media." (Publisher description)
more
"Latin American telenovelas began to be widely broadcast on African screens between the late 1970s and early 1980s, and today are among the most popular entertainment products on the continent. The content, aesthetic and narrative format of telenovelas have become a model for many African video film
...
producers, who have incorporated some of telenovelas’ defining elements in their productions in order to attract local audiences. This special issue analyses the impact of telenovelas’ circulation in Africa by focusing on the ‘uses’ African audiences and media producers make of them. Why do telenovelas travel so well around sub-Saharan Africa? How do African audiences make sense of them? And what impact do these media products have on local media entrepreneurs and on the aesthetics and narrative aspects of the contents they produce? In this introduction we provide some background and data about the history and the political economy of telenovelas’ circulation in Africa, and answer the questions raised above by connecting the finding of the essays included in the special issue to ongoing debates on the global circulation of melodrama, on the transformation of African screen media, and on the performative dimension of African audiences’ engagement with foreign media forms." (Abstract)
more
"This study investigates how three young Arab influencers negotiate their identities in cyberspace. Abdallah Al Maghlouth, Abdulrahman Mohammed, and Laila Hzaineh were selected for this study because they were listed among the top MENA influencers by the Arab Social Media Summit (2015) or by Stepfee
...
d.[1] The article draws on the cultural hybridity perspective to demonstrate how these influencers articulate cultural identity across three themes: human engagement, women’s empowerment, and cultural revivalism. Cultural hybridity gained prominence within a range of cultural and social theories beginning in the 1980s. Recently, it has come to be interchangeably used with Robertson’s notion of ‘glocalization’ (Robertson 2012). Hybridity is a dynamic process necessary for cultural co-existence, continuity and for reconciling global sets of values with local (dominantly Arab-Islamic) social norms. Identity is informed by aspects of belonging or not to social groups; cyberspace is a new frontier for shaping and renewing social identities in the Middle East, with the majority of the population under 25 years and great levels of internet penetration, it is important to examine emerging sense of self and groups amongst Arab youth in cyberspace." (Abstract)
more
"In the age of multiple screens, online streaming has in the 2010s become the most significant way of consuming overseas television programs in Mainland China. Due to rather strict government policy and censorship, foreign television series are presently only legally distributed and circulated on li
...
censed online streaming services. Focusing on the streaming of US/UK TV series, this paper examines online streaming services’ distribution activities in order to understand both streaming websites’ business practices surrounding transnational TV and the features they employ to cater to online audiences for these series. To grasp how the online distribution of English language TV series operates in China, I begin by looking at China’s five major video streaming services, analyzing the design of their interfaces, scheduling of programs, and accessibility for different tiers of users. I then examine how streaming services use social media as a major tool to promote their US and UK TV series. Through this analysis, I argue that transnational TV flow has had to be localized to achieve distribution and marketing goals in a Chinese context, resulting in the uniqueness of these streaming practices. This article concludes that, with the development of online streaming technologies, distinctive modes of au dience consumption in China have informed the localization of this specific transnational TV content." (Abstract)
more
"El análisis hecho en esta investigación de los distintos personajes protagónicos femeninos de los cuatro relatos seleccionados [Dina Paucar, la lucho por un sueño; Por la Sarita; Las reinas de las carrefillas; Amor de Madre], me permite señalar que las representaciones femeninas que nos ofrece
...
n estos productos culturales del siglo XXI evidencian continuidades importantes pero también transformaciones y rupturas respecto a los modelos femeninos asociados al marianismo y la domesticidad; transformaciones y rupturas, que permiten visibilizar una pluralidad de representaciones femeninas conviviendo en el tiempo actual y que nos hablan de contextos de tensión y de conflicto. Este hallazgo también me permite confirmar que los mandatos de género operan de manera diferenciada en tiempos y espacios sociales diferentes. No encontramos en esta investigación personajes que se ajusten íntegramente al modelo mariano, por ejemplo, aunque sí mantienen algunas características importantes de este, como la maternidad. Un hallazgo importante de esta investigación es que la maternidad permanece como un hecho importante –diría fundante- en la definición misma de la identidad femenina y de las diversas representaciones televisivas melodramáticas, sin embargo, no es la única: aparecen las saberes domésticos aprendidos desde la infancia en el hogar familiar, saberes que se transmiten de madres a hijas –costura, cocina, canto-; los estudios y el trabajo en la esfera pública como ejes importantes que complejizan las representaciones que, de las mujeres, hacen estos relatos audiovisuales. La representación de lo femenino continua presentando a estas mujeres como responsables, amorosas, maternales, sin embargo, la pasividad y la sumisión –condiciones del pasado para la heroína de los melodramas televisivos- cuando aparecen, son solo lugares de inicio de la representación que se van transformando en agencia y empoderamiento, a partir de experiencias que fortalecen a nuestras protagonistas." (Conclusiones, página 206)
more
"Combining theoretical and empirical discussions with shorter thick description case studies, this book offers an anthropological exploration of the emergence in Malaysia of lifestyle bloggers – precursors to current social media microcelebrities and influencers. It tracks the transformation of pe
...
rsonal blogs, which attracted readers with spontaneous and authentic accounts of everyday life, into lifestyle blogs that generate income through advertising and foreground consumerist lifestyles. It argues that lifestyle blogs are dialogically constituted between the blogger, the readers, and the blog itself, and challenges the assumption of a unitary self by proposing that lifestyle blogs can best be understood in terms of the dividual self." (Publisher description)
more
"Der US-amerikanische Streamingdienst kauft sich in Afrikas wichtigste Filmindustrie ein. Ob das anspruchsvollen afrikanischen Filmemachern mehr Geld und mehr Zuschauer bringt, ist jedoch fraglich." (Einleitung)
"Focusing in particular on Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, Tamara Falicov examines commonalities among Latin American film industries, such as the challenges of procuring funding, competition from Hollywood, state funding battles, and the fickle nature of audiences, as well as censorship issues, compe
...
tition from television, and the transnational nature of Latin American film. She addresses production, exhibition, and distribution contexts and financing and co-production with Europe and the United States, as well as the role of film festivals in funding and circulating films both within and outside of Latin America. Newer trends such as the revival of protectionist measures like the screen quota are framed in contrast to the U.S.'s push for trade policy liberalization and issues of universal concern such as film piracy, and new technologies and the role of television in helping and hindering Latin American cinema." (Publisher description)
more
"In Deutschland nutzen laut ARD/ZDF-Online-Studie von 2018 zwei Drittel der 14- bis 29-Jährigen täglich YouTube, bei Kindern dürfte der Anteil sogar noch höher liegen. Sie wollen sich damit in erster Linie zerstreuen. Die Auswertung der deutschen Top-100-Kanäle ergab: über ein Drittel bietet U
...
nterhaltung (Comedy, Streiche, Wettkämpfe, Video-Tagebücher); ein Viertel sind reine Musikkanäle; 15 % der Angebote sind primär durch Spiele (Gaming) geprägt; knapp zehn Prozent der Videokanäle sind dem Bereich Beauty & Lifestyle zuzuordnen; gerade einmal vier Kanäle beschäftigen sich im weiten Sinne mit Politik und Wissen. Eine herausragende Stellung als Akteure nehmen dabei die so genannten Influencer ein. Diese digitalen Meinungsführer spielen in 56 der Top-100-Kanäle die Hauptrolle, unter den Top 20 sind allein 15 Influencer vertreten. Influencer wollen und sollen auf ihr Publikum „authentisch“ wirken, in jedem Fall haben sie Einfluss auf die Identitätsbildung von Jugendlichen und vor allem Kindern. Häufig auf sehr einseitige Weise und – nimmt man die Bildungsansprüche der Aufklärung als Bewertungsgrundlage – meist nicht zum Guten. Während Umfragen zeigen, dass die ‚Jugend von heute‘ weltoffen, pragmatisch und bis zu einem gewissen Grade auch postmaterialistisch eingestellt ist, predigt die große Mehrheit der digitalen Meinungsführer einen ungezügelten Konsum und führt dem jungen Publikum tradierte Rollenbilder von Mann und Frau vor. Auffällig ist zudem die hohe Quote (43 %) von Influencern mit Migrationshintergrund bei den deutschen Top-100-Kanälen – ein Hinweis darauf, dass migrantische Publizisten so einen leichteren Zugang zum Mediensystem als über die klassischen Medien finden. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass die implizit gesellschaftspolitischen Botschaften tendenziell neoliberalen (Konsumismus) oder konservativen Charakter (tradierte Geschlechterrollen) haben." (Zusammenfassung, Seite 6-7)
more
"Pretty Liar" explores the rise of language and gender politics on Lebanese television to tell the untold story of the co-evolution of Lebanese television and its audiences and how the civil war of 1975-1991 affected that co-evolution. The shift in public interest in television has been widely ackno
...
wledged and interpreted within an institutional context as a victory of the neo-liberal entrepreneurship of a new, agile brand over the government inefficiency of Lebanon's national station, Télé Liban. Yet, the role of the Lebanese Civil War in reshaping national television and broadcasting in Arab media following the emergence of the Lebanese Broadcasting Company in 1985 has been unexplored. Based on empirical data and grounded in theory by Arab and global researchers, "Pretty Liar" offers textual analyses of five Lebanese fictional series, three major and several additional periodicals, and nine literary works, and provides context from unscripted interviews with television administrators, anchors, actors, and freelance contributors, print journalists, and audience members. Khazaal seeks to offer new insight into how entertainment television became a site for politics and political resistance, feminism, and the cradle for post-war Lebanon due to the shift in practices and standards of legitimacy." (Publisher description)
more
"In Convergence 3.0, the dynamics of competition are evolving while a cohort of ever-expanding supercompetitors and more focussed players strive to build relevance at the right scale. And business models are being reinvented so all players can tap into new revenue streams, by, for example, targeting
...
fans and connecting more effectively with customers to develop a membership mind-set. The pace of change isn’t going to let up anytime soon. New and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality will continue to redefine the battleground. In an era when faith in many industries is at an historically low ebb and regulators are targeting media businesses’ use of data, the ability to build and sustain consumer trust is becoming a vital differentiator. The result? To succeed in the future that’s taking shape, companies must reenvision every aspect of what they do and how they do it. It’s about having, or having access to, the right technology and excellent content, which is delivered in a cost-effective manner to an engaged audience that trusts the brand." (Page 2)
more
"Los ensayos del libro analizan el éxito de la serie Narcos desde una perspectiva crítica. Explican la popularización de la misma, su estrategia de publicidad retorcida o su poco éxito en Colombia. Y también su juego entre el realismo mágico y los «retazos» de la realidad colombiana. El libr
...
o se cierra con una entrevista realizada a Sebastián Marroquín (Juan Pablo Escobar Henao) en la que el hijo de Pablo Escobar comparte su visión sobre Narcos como serie de ficción, sobre el problema de las drogas en Colombia y sobre su lucha constante en contra de la heroización de su padre. Es el cierre perfecto para un libro crítico sobre el fenómeno de la narcoficción en el siglo XXI." (Descripción de la casa editora)
more
"Against the backdrop of the war in Syria BBC Media Action produced and broadcast 150 episodes of the radio drama Hay el Matar (Airport District) between 2015 and 2017. Funded by the European Commission as part of a broader project aiming to help build an open and inclusive society in Syria, the dra
...
ma and an accompanying weekly discussion programme was available online and on BBC Arabic. Set in a fictional Damascus suburb, Hay el Matar followed the daily lives of residents and featured love affairs, family feuds and tragedies. Each episode was scripted by a team of Syrian writers and touched on a different issue - from violence, radicalisation and migration, to economic insecurity and forced marriage. To understand how listeners engaged with Hay El Matar, BBC Media Action commissioned and trained local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to conduct focus group discussions with listeners in Syria and Lebanon. We found that the drama prompted listeners to think about topical issues, challenges stereotypes and have a view of the Syrian conflict that extended beyond their own personal experience. It also challenged their assumptions and prompted them to talk about and reflect on other people’s multi-faceted experiences of the conflict." (https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction)
more
"The article revisits classical debates about the positive and negative relation of popular culture and socio-political developments with regard to the Arab world. Within the Frankfurt School and modern Cultural Studies at times contradictory approaches to the role of entertainment in political cult
...
ure are being debated. In Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies rather positive readings of entertainments’ political potential seem to prevail. During the “Arab Spring” the impact of participatory values promoted by both popular culture and the new social media (“entertainment is political”) appeared to be actually tangible. The article discusses the dynamic relation of entertainment television and individualization on a theoretical and empirical level. On the basis of a large body of follow-up discourses of media reception (group discussions) with young Egyptians during the time of the “Arab Spring,” we ask whether contemporary television shows promote both individualization on a cognitive, affective and practical level of experience as well as the appreciation of individualization as a social value. We argue that popular culture reveals tendencies of differentiation and modernization in Arab societies, which are all too often described as “collectivistic.” The case study shows that critical faculty, media literacy and the appreciation of individual articulation can be triggered by entertainment. Moments of “ironic pleasure” and transitions of simulated empathy and stimulated action are discussed." (Abstract)
more
"El presente libro ofrece una visión general de fácil comprensión sobre la historia de la telenovela en América Latina. Las telenovelas, una variedad aparte de series televisivas que se originan en América Latina, involucran temas clave de raza, clase, identidad sexual y violencia, entretejiend
...
o historias con aventuras melodramáticas y la búsqueda de la identidad. June Carolyn Erlick analiza las implicancias sociales de estos temas en las telenovelas, en el contexto de la evolución de la televisión, como parte integral de la modernización de los países latinoamericanos." (Cubierta del libro)
more