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The Powers is an artistic and scholarly performance collective between Emily Pelstring, Katherine Kline, and Jessica Mensch. Together they produce music, television series, video work, incantations, and performance pieces that disrupt white-patriarchal myths of the witch. As part of the Witch Institute, hosted at Queen's University in August 2021, The Powers shared their anti-colonial and feminist oracle deck with participants remotely via Zoom. Throughout the performance, participants were invited to choose a card from The Powers' "Consult the Fates" Oracle deck, to have their fates foretold. Inspired by famous critical race scholar bell hooks, each card cleverly asked participants to rethink, dismantle, and destroy the "white-supremacist-capitalist-imperialist-hetero-patriarchy." Audience members familiar with The Powers oeuvre will undoubtedly have recognized several of the hand-drawn characters such as the Squid, Hairball, Blob, and Skelly, who have appeared in previous performances as part of The Powers' multiverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of Indian TV serials on the lifestyles of female students of Khulna University. This study was executed by using qualitative method of research. It targeted 100 female respondents aged 18-25 years from Khulna university students who were selected through purposive sampling method. Researcher used the Uses and gratifications theory, cultivation theory and social learning theory. This study also recorded the respondent's favorite Indian TV channels, preferred serials and category, favorite watching time, communication pattern and understanding level, level of viewing etc. The general findings reveal that, Indian TV serials have significant influence on the lifestyles of the female students. Alongside, these Indian TV serials impose the indigenous culture, fashion, art, tradition, rituals, language and customs in every sphere of life due to heavy dependency on Indian TV serials. They are constantly becoming more and more addicted to Indian TV serials and giving less importance to other educational or entertainment programs whereas they are giving more priority to these serials. In fact, the analysis shows that majority of female students are jeopardized in their studies due to watching Indian TV serials. Today's young generation is instinctively influencing by Indian norms culture and tradition which is a big threat for Bangladeshi culture as well. This research study demonstrates how Indian TV serials are influencing female's lifestyles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I consider the Apple+ tv series Bad Sisters (2022-) as a transnational production. I take into account the background of its showrunner, Sharon Horgan, and her positioning as a transnational programme maker and comedian. I discuss the series as a remake of the Belgian/Flemish TV series, Clan (English title, The Out-Laws), analysing significant departures, particularly in terms of use of location. I proceed to discuss the overlaps between Bad Sisters and Big Little Lies (HBO 2017–19), notably the strategy of slipping an analysis of coercive control into a drama that makes an overt play for the consumerist pleasures of high-end life-styling. In my analysis of Bad Sisters, I focus particularly on Horgan's reworking of the topography of suburban Dublin to create an image of a family clustered around a region of significant wealth on the coast, exemplified by their meetings at the Forty Foot swimming area. I discuss the differences between this production and other Irish TV drama, and the consequences for Horgan in making Bad Sisters for Apple TV+ rather than with the Irish national broadcaster, RTÉ. I conclude by asking to what extent Bad Sisters, given its glossy aesthetic, can explore social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marginalization of the Orient in U.S. cinema has reduced the Oriental space and its inhabitants to a series of clichés and stereotypes. Based on Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), several film scholars like Jack Shaheen, Ella Shohat, and Lina Khatib, among others, have demonstrated that the exclusion and the distortion of the Orient in U.S. cinema were achieved through the manipulation of Oriental music, culture, religion, and the objectification of the female figure. These cinematic representations contribute to the marginalization of the Orient while creating a Eurocentric narrative. Ella Shohat and Robert Stam in their Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media (2013) and Saër Maty Bâ and Will Higbee in their De-Westernizing Film Studies (2012) challenge this long-lasting tradition that marginalizes the Other. The Hulu TV series Ramy (2019-) by the Egyptian comedian, actor, and director Ramy Youssef attempts to de-westernize the gaze on the marginalized Muslim and Middle Eastern communities in the U.S. This article highlights how the series goes beyond the stereotypical iconography used to approach the Middle East while depicting the life of a first-generation American Muslim. It will use a comparative method and discourse analysis to examine how the show can deconstruct these clichés and offer a fresh perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Television series serve as tools for propaganda and influence, allowing political figures to manipulate public opinion and control how they are perceived. One notable example of this phenomenon can be seen in the representation of Boris Johnson in the TV series 'This England'. The representation of Johnson in the midst of scandals like Party Gate and the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic tainted his public image as a reliable leader and a dependable Prime Minister. The resulting backlash against him was so severe that he was called to testify in the official COVID-19 inquiry (2023) following his compelled resignation. The filming of the 'This England' during his time in office and its airing just 22 days after his departure, appeared as an effort to repair his damaged image. The significance of this study resides in its contribution to our comprehension of the multifaceted ways in which television series can shape public perception of political leadership and contribute to broader societal and political discourse. Utilizing qualitative content analysis and drawing on Stuart Hall's theory of representation, this paper explores the nuanced depiction of Johnson's leadership and contributes to our understanding of how television series can shape political narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Herald of Journalism / Habaršy Žurnalistika Seriâsy is the property of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The main objective of this research is to analyze the Netflix (2021) TV series Sweet Tooth through the lens of eco-criticism by applying the theory of Morton of dark ecology and Rob Nixon's idea of slow violence. The study is qualitative in nature and utilizes content analysis. The analysis lay stress on the themes of human-nature relationships, environmental degradation, and the role of technology in shaping the environment. The analysis reveals that "Sweet Tooth" effectively illustrates dark ecology by depicting a world where the boundaries between human and non-human are blurred, creating a sense of environmental eeriness. The article contributes to the emerging field of ecocritical studies by contributing a deeper understanding of the ecological themes presented in Sweet Tooth and for our understanding of human-nature relationships. Future research should explore the reception of Sweet Tooth among diverse audiences to gauge its impact on eco-critical awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neural correlates of sentence production are typically studied using task paradigms that differ considerably from the experience of speaking outside of an experimental setting. In this fMRI study, we aimed to gain a better understanding of syntactic processing in spontaneous production versus naturalistic comprehension in three regions of interest (BA44, BA45, and left posterior middle temporal gyrus). A group of participants (n = 16) was asked to speak about the events of an episode of a TV series in the scanner. Another group of participants (n = 36) listened to the spoken recall of a participant from the first group. To model syntactic processing, we extracted word-by-word metrics of phrase-structure building with a top--down and a bottom--up parser that make different hypotheses about the timing of structure building. While the top--down parser anticipates syntactic structure, sometimes before it is obvious to the listener, the bottom--up parser builds syntactic structure in an integratory way after all of the evidence has been presented. In comprehension, neural activity was found to be better modeled by the bottom--up parser, while in production, it was better modeled by the top--down parser. We additionally modeled structure building in production with two strategies that were developed here to make different predictions about the incrementality of structure building during speaking. We found evidence for highly incremental and anticipatory structure building in production, which was confirmed by a converging analysis of the pausing patterns in speech. Overall, this study shows the feasibility of studying the neural dynamics of spontaneous language production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Definition: Contemporary educators have increasingly recognised the diversity of their student population and, hence, have attempted to use multimodal teaching methods for additional student learning benefits. One popular example is repurposing film and TV content for higher education pedagogies. However, integrating these materials into teaching effectively often proves more complex than lecturers might anticipate. This entry investigates the merits and challenges of using FF/TV in teaching to determine the factors that impact development of an effective FF/TV pedagogy for student learning, through an interdisciplinary review of the existing literature, followed by a qualitative survey and semi-structured interviews with lecturers across disciplines at Australian universities. Using visual literacy theory, cognitive load theory, and dual coding theory, data analysis reveals that the pros and cons of integrating film and TV in teaching are in fact interconnected, and the main role of the teacher is to pedagogically balance them. Evidence-based and theory-grounded suggestions for application are detailed throughout the discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many elements of qualitative data analysis that may appear intangible to novice researchers. In this article, I present an approach to a data analysis workshop with students, where I do my best to avoid the instruction to "fold in the cheese," as per the television series Schitt's Creek. Students attend 90-minute workshops where they use an assortment of buttons to practice different strategies of qualitative analysis. The tactile mechanism of sorting objects has proven invaluable in workshops, as it helps students to physically organize their thoughts and takes pressure off to find the "right" answer. The nature of the items could also be adapted to meet students' accessibility needs. The workshop has improved the quality of student writing in methods chapters and built students' confidence as they approach their own data analysis processes, especially for master's students and research assistants, where a full-length course may not be feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was twofold: to validate the Watching TV Series Motives Questionnaire (WTSMQ) for the Portuguese population and to understand its relationship with loneliness. WTSMQ was validated through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Besides, multi-group CFAs according to gender were conducted having been tested four levels of measurement invariance: configural, metric, scalar, and error variance. Several multiple linear regressions were carried out to estimate the relationship between sociodemographics, series preferences, loneliness and watching TV series motives. Results showed that the Portuguese version of WTSMQ presents good psychometric properties and that configural and metric were achieved, but not scalar and error variance invariance providing some evidence that the WTSMQ operates similarly in males and females. Results also showed that gender, age, TV series preferences, and loneliness contribute to explain different dimensions of Watching TV Series Motives. Also, sociodemographic variables, TV series preferences and WTSMQ subscales explain loneliness. The relationship between the motives for binge-watching and loneliness is bidirectional; sociodemographic variables and series preferences that explain those motives and loneliness overlap. Implications for tracking problematic Binge-watching situations are discusst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The television series The Last of Us imagines a postapocalyptic world ravaged by a fungal pandemic caused by a Cordyceps species. We evaluate whether a fungal pandemic is possible (and reasons behind its current improbability). We further discuss the series' effect on public perception of fungi, fungal infections, and pandemic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral features are essential components of TV series, helping the audience to engage with the story, exploring themes beyond sheer entertainment, reflecting current social issues, and leaving a long-lasting impact on the viewers. Their presence shows through the language employed in the plot description. Their detection helps regarding understanding the series writers' underlying message. In this paper, we propose an approach to detect moral features in TV series. We rely on the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) framework to classify moral features and use the associated MFT dictionary to identify the words expressing those features. Our approach combines that dictionary with word embedding and similarity analysis through a deep learning SBERT (Sentence-Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) architecture to quantify the comparative prominence of moral features. We validate the approach by applying it to the definition of the MFT moral feature labels as appearing in general authoritative dictionaries. We apply our technique to the summaries of a selection of TV series representative of several genres and relate the results to the actual content of each series, showing the consistency of results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age, online video platforms have revolutionised the way in which we consume entertainment. YouTube and Twitch, two of the most popular platforms, have undergone a significant evolution since their inception, becoming containers for stories and narratives that go beyond simple improvised amateur content. The hypothesis is that the fundamentals and structures for storytelling are maintained, but we wish to ascertain specifically what endures through the different formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two different media platforms played a key role in keeping Tema Port in Ghana afloat during the period immediately leading up to and during the three-week COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdown in late March–April of 2020. The one media platform, Eye on Port, is a weekly broadcast television show by the port's authorities, which caters primarily to external commercial stakeholders of the port. The other platform is a closed WhatsApp forum used by stakeholders working at the operational level of the port. Both platforms served specific needs among their users, who had been restricted in their mobility but had to keep the port operational. Combining 'scalable sociality' with the concept of polymedia, we identify how the two media functioned to meet the different informational and conversational needs of their respective users. We argue that either medium alone could not fulfil the communicative needs necessary to keep the port operational during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streaming platforms have transformed series distribution and accessibility, with Spanish-language shows gaining immense popularity, notably "La casa de papel" (Money Heist). This series features a diverse cast of characters whose linguistic diversity extends to the use of taboo language. Previous studies have shown that linguistic immersion, such as staying abroad, significantly impacts knowledge of this kind of language. This paper aims to explore to what extent these and other individual differences affect the comprehension of swear words in TV series. To this end, 33 learners of Spanish at B2 level were asked to translate 14 taboo expressions from the series. They also completed a questionnaire on the exposure to authentic language use through extended stays abroad and TV series as well as their attitudes towards the use of taboo words. The results show that students' positive attitudes towards taboo expressions and their multilingual status were associated with significantly better comprehension of taboo expressions. Furthermore, students with stay-abroad experience, watching the series in Spanish (with or without captions) and with higher proficiency levels in Spanish were found to perform better on the comprehension test, although no significant effects were found. Pedagogical implications and further directions for research are discussed in light of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who hasn't questioned one's identity? Pachinko is a direct record and testimony of the narrative of Korean-Japanese who is struggling with his or her identity under the discrimination and prejudice that has continued from the past to the present, including the people who wander adrift. In the words of Foucault, we should hold a skeptical view toward ourselves, our present, our appearance and here and today. In this sense, the boundary crossing of Koreans described in Pachinko showcases the potential for enabling readers to critically contemplate violent discrimination in the era of multiculturalism and multiracialism, increasing their understanding of minorities and their cultures, and ultimately acquiring ethical insights from new perspectives. Furthermore, Pachinko can be seen as contents that present the possibility of acquiring ethics by understanding those who are discriminated against in society. This study examines narratives of discrimination and prejudice as they are represented across media in the novel Pachinko and the TV series Pachinko. This study also examines various aspects of life that move toward a decolonizing subject through the struggling life of characters. We interpret the existential aspect of characters as trans-identity and illustrate various aspects of identity transformation of characters that appear in narrative contents. Humans cannot be free from their ethical and identity related anxieties through the past, present and future. We are sure that literature, or content can continue to play a role that criticizes and supports those anxieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By undertaking a textual analysis of five Flemish (Belgium) television series, this study contributes to the broader understanding of European journalism fiction. The findings underscore a prevailing negative representation of journalism, emphasizing commercial interests and portraying news outlets as disruptive forces in democratic processes. As such, the Flemish series advocate for a collaborative relationship between news media and government officials, aligning with a public service-oriented model. At the same time, a discernible pattern emerges wherein critical assessments predominantly target fictional news brands, systematically contrasted with more neutral portrayals of non-fictional news brands. Lastly, the series perpetuate gendered stereotypes thereby highlighting a lack of inclusivity.

This article argues the growing interest in investigating how popular historical television series recreates and represents the past by comparing the creative and representational choices of Tom Fontana’s Borgia: Faith and Fear (Canal+, 2011-14) with those of Neil Jordan’s The Borgias (Showtime, 2011-13). The comparison aims to show how these historical television series have boosted the public’s interest in the branding of Italy, the Italian Renaissance and, at the same time, managed to create a unique sense of historical engagement. I call this phenomenon ‘historicity,’ that is, something that ‘might have happened’ given the violent milieu of the times. Even though the creators and writers alter and adapt certain facts, they successfully manage to make the viewers ‘travel through time’ and emotionally engage them with the past, allowing them to meet—virtually, of course— the characters and experience events that shaped Italian and European history from 1492-1503. I intend to show how Fontana’s Borgia, in particular, succeeds in de-mythologizing the Renaissance by shattering the mythical depiction of a golden age and focusing, instead, on the prevailing unbridled violence of the times. Fontana’s narrative does not shy away from displaying the most atrocious tortures, disfigurements, feminicides and male rapes. Although some of these scenes are certainly alienating and shocking, and may leave the audience uncomfortable and even appalled, they succeed in reawakening historical consciousness through affective engagement, narrative transportation, and the proximity effect.

Copyright of Teoría de la Educación. Revista Interuniversitaria is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the intersection of fiction studies and urban studies through the prism of salient points identified in a systematic literature review of French-language research on the subject. The dynamics of exchanges between disciplines are thus explored, taking into account the delicate balance between content and form of series when analyzing representations of territories. The attribution of the quality of “character” to these landscapes, often cities, is questioned in favor of the notion of “arena”, which perhaps better reflects the configuring dimension of spaces upon the progression of the narrative. The article concludes by mentioning the opportunities offered by spatial approaches to serial narration; from a situated, partial point of view, it intends to contribute to the debate on the analysis of space in television series.

The study explores the nature of adaptations made on an experiential product, a TV series, that enters a foreign market, and investigates the perceptions of foreign consumers concerning the adapted experiential product in two parts. The first part content analyses the nature of adaptations based on comparisons of the contents of the original and adapted versions of the TV series, while the second part content analyses consumers' perceptions of the adapted TV series based on their social media entries. The first part reveals three broad categories of adaptations, namely contextual, cultural, and competitive. The second part indicates that the familiarity with the original TV series and the distinct genre were influential on consumers' evaluation of and satisfaction with the adapted TV series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era of unprecedented consumer access to media and the tools to control narrative delivery, speed, and exposure to transmedia content, there is no longer the illusion of a cohesive narrative managed by a recognized singular author or unified authorial voice. Instead, consumers carve their own trajectories through brand narratives. Our multimethod inquiry of television series viewing, based on a combination of interviews, diaries, video recordings followed by member-check interviews and online forum analyses, identifies two key forces that guide narrative navigation: how consumers manage a text's gravitational pull and its permeability to transmedia content. We find that consumers shape their own trajectories by adopting and/or moving between nine documented narrative positions. This more nuanced understanding of narrative consumption in a transmedia environment offers new insights for the study of narrative brand spaces and brand storytelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osmosis (Netflix, 2019) is only the second French television series to be commissioned by Netflix. Set in a near-future Paris and dramatising the final beta-testing and launch of a revolutionary dating application, the programme has frequently been compared to Black Mirror (Channel 4 Television Corporation/Netflix, 2011–19). This article argues that the parallel is unhelpful since Osmosis does not contain the underlying technophobia that characterises the UK series and is largely, though not entirely, optimistic about the implications of artificial intelligence and technological advances for humanity. Nonetheless, the two series do share a common preoccupation with critiquing certain excesses of late capitalism. In its blend of dystopian and utopian elements and allusions to and subversions of Anglophone science-fiction conventions, Osmosis constitutes an original – and unashamedly French – futuristic series whose key characteristic is ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is very little academic work on music in television series, and none on music in French television series. This article focuses on one of the most successful French television series, the eight-season-long Engrenages/Spiral (Canal+, 2005–2020). It identifies the similarities and differences between music for films and music for television series before focusing on the music composed by Stéphane Zidi for Engrenages. This combines the unusual use of gamelan instruments as musical cues with more melodic piano themes. Arguing that television series music, which might have been even more 'unheard' than film music, functions to shape audience perception of the characters, the article focuses on the specificities of gamelan cues and piano themes. The piano themes migrate from one character to another across the eight seasons of the series, and the article shows how this affects the narrative arc of the main character, Laure Berthaud, emphasising her rejection of (both) the conflicting roles of mother and leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maison close [brothel] in French history and culture, particularly during the nineteenth century because of its representation in art and literature, could be argued to be a lieu de mémoire [site of memory]. In light of the gaps in material that gives direct voice to women in sex work, especially during this period, the maison close could equally be termed a lieu d'oubli [site of forgetting]. In contemporary popular culture, the brothel has become a popular setting for fiction, as with the Canal+ series Maison close (2010, 2013), set in 1870s Paris. The series reflects a fascination with sex work in popular culture, as well as offering a commentary on the legal standing of sex work between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. This paper interrogates the extent to which Maison close attempts to offer alternative or more nuanced visions of history than simply categorising sex workers as victim/criminal/femme fatale, informed by abolitionist debates during its production and emerging critiques of the Nordic Model of sex work. It also analyses how the series provides an alternative vision for sex workers, and workers more generally, that moves from exploitation to collective action and attempts to increase their agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at reflecting on ways of teaching/learning international relations (IR) critical theories. It does so by analyzing the results of a teaching/learning exercise based on Netflix's series "Black Earth Rising" and put into practice with undergraduate students of a course on IR theory taught at the Argentinian Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Assuming that series of mass consumption work as cultural devices that inform power relations through the production of truths and subjectivities, the exercise had two main objectives: on the one hand, to develop and illustrate otherwise difficult-to-grasp concepts of IR theory and, on the other hand, to make the students aware of how widespread TV series participate in the constitution of both international politics and their own subjectivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are currently more trans characters than ever in television series, while at the same time scrutiny of trans people is intensifying in social and public debate, and the correspondence between this increased presence in the media and improvements in the trans community's rights is in dispute. This research aims to find out how trans audiences relate to their portrayal in TV series, to learn about their perceptions and opinions, and to understand how these depictions affect their everyday lives. A qualitative analysis was conducted of 19 trans people in two focus groups and nine semi-structured interviews. The findings show that the participants perceive a clear distance between their realities and the most popular narratives about trans lives. They identify cispassing as a transversal element that drives the production, creation, and distribution of media narratives, leading to a transnormative representation. Consequently, the trans audience demands the inclusion of trans people in the (audiovisual) cultural circuit in order to combat the 'cis gaze' and to create more diverse narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popularized by Hulu's television adaptation, the allegories and iconography of The Handmaid's Tale have been used in women's reproductive rights activism around the world. However, at the same time, the series has been recognized and critiqued as offering white, conservative feminism. This article explores how Hulu's adaptation often works to domesticate Margaret Atwood's novel and the series' feminist implications in regard to reproduction and motherhood. While The Handmaid's Tale has become spectacularly visible as a popular feminist television series, its reproductive politics and representations of women, family and motherhood are largely conservative: waging a limited resistance on behalf of neotraditional white Anglo-western mothers. In light of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, this article is motivated by the conviction that it is increasingly important to hold sociocultural representations of reproduction and motherhood to account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The language of written fantasy has been amply studied, with extensive research on authors such as JRR Tolkien, Robert E Howard, or Aldous Huxley. The study of television language, on the other hand, is attracting increasing attention, even though the scope of such research often encompasses a single TV show rather than whole genres. Given the renewed interest in all things fantasy, this study seeks to analyze the language of fantasy TV series from a corpus-stylistic perspective to open new paths for linguistic inquiry. First, I depart from a theoretical distinction that relies on Mandala's (2012) overview of the field and James and Mendlesohn's (2012) definitions of fantasy as a genre; I consider some of the traits they associate with written fantasy and propose a taxonomy of the different types of fantasy worlds in television. On the basis of this, I design my own TV fantasy corpus by sampling three episodes from fifteen American fantasy TV shows (2011–2021) and compare it against Davies' TV Corpus (2021). Using a corpus-based approach, I implement a POS (part-of-speech) and semantic analysis of the corpus and consider whether, and if so how, the language of fantasy in television reflects the same characteristics scholars have identified in written fantasy and general television discourse. In doing so, I aim to contribute to the understanding of the style of fantasy as a genre and assess whether fantasy TV series are characterized by particular linguistic features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the territory's sole public service broadcaster and a government department, Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) bears a dual responsibility for disseminating information to the public and in assisting in constructing how the public understands emerging issues and marginalized social groups. This paper analyzes how neurodivergent individuals are (re)presented in A Wall-less World, RTHK's decade-long television series dedicated to promoting social inclusiveness. We find that by using different filming genres, plots, and narratives, the series exposes and negotiates different understandings about disability and perspectives about the lived experience of neurodivergent individuals. Given RTHK's unique position in the industry, and more generally in Hong Kong, we argue that the series perform a social service function to inform their viewers by engaging and shaping the public discourse gradually towards the neurodiversity paradigm. We also suggest future directions for practitioners and researchers to continue to engage and advocate for the neurodivergent community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific evidence has established that sexual consent can be expressed with more than only speech acts. Moreover, scientific analysis of other elements beyond speech acts reveals that coercion can be clearly indicated. Theories on communicative acts contribute to this debate, introducing three situations where these elements can occur: ones of physical, institutional, or interactive power. However, the public comments on these situations on social networks (Instagram, Twitter and Reddit) has not been analysed before. Within the framework of the Spanish competitive project Consent (PID2019-110466RB-I00), we conducted a novel study on the comments and reactions made around the communicative acts that prevent or facilitate the identification of sexual consent in specific episodes of television series aimed at young and adolescent audiences internationally. Social Media Analytics (SMA) with communicative content analysis with predefined codes was carried out on 1465 tweets about sexual consent on Twitter relating to 10 television series and movies watched internationally. The results show that when viewing these scenes, young people: (1) open debates (albeit few, as yet) around communicative acts beyond the verbal and nonverbal ones; (2) take a position against whoever coerces and (3) perceive that they will be able to avoid future situations of a lack of sexual consent by remembering the image discussed and the communicative acts that were in it. In doing so, the results can promote healthy discussions of sexual consent among youth through prevention programs and critical media literacy activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perception of forensic evidence is greatly influenced by crime TV series. The analysis of the human voice is no exception. However, unlike fingerprints—with which fiction and popular beliefs draw an incorrect parallel—the human voice varies according to many factors, can be altered deliberately, and its potential uniqueness has yet to be proven. Starting with a cursory examination of landmarks in forensic voice analysis that exemplify how the voiceprint fallacy came about and why people think they can recognize people's voices, we then provide a thorough inspection of over 100 excerpts from TV series. Through this analysis, we seek to characterize the narrative and aesthetic processes that fashion our perception of scientific evidence when it comes to identifying somebody based on voice analysis. These processes converge to exaggerate the reliability of forensic voice analysis. We complement our examination with plausibility ratings of a subset of excerpts. We claim that these biased representations have led to a situation where, even today, one of the main challenges faced by forensic voice specialists is to convince trial jurors, judges, lawyers, and police officers that forensic voice comparison can by no means give the sort of straightforward answers that fingerprints or DNA permit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime shows have been airing on television for over 70 years and we continuously find said shows to have high rates of viewership. But how accurate are the portrayals depicted in said shows? This research analyzes crime show drama portrayals of victimization across two time periods by analyzing 270 episodes from 11 different crime drama television series in which a clear criminal event is followed by a law enforcement investigation. Shows were chosen at Time 1 for inclusion based on popularity, longevity, accessibility, and recency; Time 2 data included a 5-year follow-up to any of the Time 1 shows still in production. Demographics and background characteristics of victims are analyzed including gender, age, race/ethnicity, occupation, military/law enforcement affiliation, parental/marital status, and prior victimization. Additionally, the relationship between offender and victim, whether the victimization was actually portrayed in the show, whether the victim was held captive, and if the victim ultimately survived or died are also addressed. Findings are discussed in comparison to what previous research from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicates actual victimization patterns to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research question is the role of audiovisual narratives in the construction of myths to transcend historical events in the collective imagination. The objective is to study the case of the figure of King Juan Carlos I in the history of the democratic transition in Spain (1975-1982) as told in the television series "Cuéntame cómo pasó" (Tell me how it happened), broadcast since 2001 and with an audience of more than 7 million viewers. The qualitative methodology used consists of a bibliographic review of scientific works on "Cuéntame", myths, construction of collective memory and recent history of Spain, and the viewing and analysis of the first fourteen seasons of Cuéntame (2001-2013 - 253 episodes) using the methodological categories of Julien Greimas' actantial model of semiotics. The results show that in the first season of the series the idea that the king will lead the Spaniards towards democracy is already established, but it is in the fourteenth season that the circle is closed with his leading role in stopping the military coup d'état attempt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binge-watching has become a usual behavior for many people, especially during the COVID-19 pandemics, satisfying immediate needs for relaxation. However, concerns were raised about using binge-watching as a coping mechanism, as it usually becomes a maladaptive coping style, leading to serious mental health issues such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, and sleep problems. The objective of this study is to identify the relations between binge-watching as a way of coping and several variables that were identified as effects of excessive television consumption: problematic behavior, loneliness, and procrastination. The results showed that individuals with high scores for using coping as a reason for watching TV series or movies tend to have high scores in terms of problematic behavior when it comes to television watching. Moreover, watching series as a strategy for coping was a good predictor for developing problematic binge-watching behaviors regarding television. The associations between excessive binge-watching, loneliness and procrastination was confirmed in this study with a moderate effect, similar to other studies in literature. Further research is needed to expand the conclusions to other participants than adolescents and young adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binge-watching is a phenomenon that involves the action of watching several chapters of a television series in digital format continuously, which produces effects to which students attribute meanings related to their occupational performance patterns. This being so, it is worth asking: What are the meanings that university students attribute to the effect of binge-watching on their occupational performance patterns? To this end, the article examines how this phenomenon occurs from a qualitative approach, collecting intentional data from 13 informants through semi-structured interviews. Identifying categories of analysis regarding the influence of binge-watching in students in their habits, routines, roles, feelings and emotions linked to it. As well as emerging categories such as the influence of COVID-19 on students' social interaction. The article manages to identify that the binge-watching affects in the habits and routines of university students, causing feelings of guilt, on the other hand, facilitates social interaction. It highlights the need to attempt research to understand how binge-watching influences occupational roles in different age ranges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the book "Teleshakespeare. Remastered Edition" by Jorge Carrión, published by Galaxia Gutenberg in 2022. The book analyzes television series and their relationship with cinema, the representation of the contemporary world, and the literary condition of series. The concepts of self-aware series and Teleshakespeare are explored. The author highlights Shakespeare's influence on fictional television narratives and concludes that series are a form of Teleshakespeare. The text includes a list of analyzed series, such as Mindhunter, Hannibal, The Handmaid's Tale, Chernobyl, Twin Peaks, Stranger Things, Euphoria, Black Mirror, and Game of Thrones. The author also mentions the importance of quality criticism in writing about series and announces that they will continue to explore Teleshakespearean seriality in future essays and other media. [Extracted from the article]

This article investigates the conceptualization of spatiality and temporality in television drama series in the age of extensive digital media consumption by focusing on Turkish audiences' reception of Danish TV dramas. Based on the empirical data collected through extended fieldwork in Turkey, and relying on Bakhtin's concept of chronotope (spacetime), I analyze how research participants negotiate socio-geographical features, as well as both spatial and temporal textual representations signifying Danish culture and society by delineating "authenticity" and "local color" to distinct spatiotemporal cues in Danish TV drama series. This study reveals that by critically articulating notions of authenticity and local color as distinguishing markers of a particular spacetime, Turkish audiences employ these concepts as strategies to define "national chronotope" which provides a middle ground for reconciliation between the facticity of the geographical place and mediated images of space, as well as factuality of time and local temporalities on screen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay analyzes the Netflix-produced French series Lupin dans l'ombre d'Arsène, showing the exhaustion of the fidelity question. In fact, the television show is not so much an updated transmediated retelling of one or more of the Leblanc stories, but rather tells the story of Assane Diop, interpreted by French actor Omar Sy. Inspired by Arsène Lupin's methods, the character Assane Diop seeks revenge on a wealthy family who framed his father for the theft of an invaluable piece of jewelry. Examining the relationship between the series and the original Lupin novels, this essay shows the reinterpretation of a distant source corpus to align with a twenty-first-century French context. In many ways, Netflix's Lupin is very different from the original text from the 1900s. Through a study of the reimaginings of Maurice Leblanc's gentleman-cambrioleur, this essay thus highlights a type of adaptation that rests almost exclusively on form (how Lupin operates) rather than content (what his actions tell about contemporary society). This discussion of Netflix's Lupin therefore challenges what adaptation means and the transmedial operations it supports. The anchoring strategy displayed in Lupin, which relies almost exclusively on canonical citations, in fact characterizes works that relate to an "original," rather than retell a story in a new media form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older men’s sexualities have recurrently been defined as either “asexual” or “in decline.” Their sexualities, when/if represented at all, have also been associated with the “dirty old man” stereotype, which has depicted sex in old age as both unpalatable and grotesque. Delving into these (mis)representations, this article offers an overview of representations of older men’s sexual lives in contemporary Spanish cinema and TV series, which seem to reify but also challenge such stereotypes. Thus, for example, both the classic film El abuelo by José Luis Garci and the highly acclaimed animation movie Arrugas by Ignacio Ferreras, based on Paco Plaza’s graphic novel of the same title, present the older men in an old people’s home as eminently asexual, while the TV series Crematorio, based on Rafael Chirbes’ homonymous novel, focuses on the relationship between an aging (heterosexual) man and a younger woman, which thus seems to reinforce the traditional “dirty old man” stereotype. Yet Salvador Calvo’s “El trasplante,” one of the episodes of the recent remake of Chicho Ibáñez-Serrador’s well-known horror TV series Historias para no dormir, appears to turn the stereotype upside down, featuring a dystopian story of an older woman who grows increasingly apart from her suddenly rejuvenated lifelong husband. Movies such as En la ciudad sin límites, on the other hand, question rigid (hetero)sexual binaries as the dying older male protagonist, a supposedly straight husband and father, is finally revealed as bisexual, while Eloy de la Iglesia’s Los novios búlgaros depicts a middle-aged man’s attachment to a younger boy, who ends up marrying his girlfriend. Using the character of Salvador Mallo as his alter-ego, Pedro Almodóvar’s (semi-)autobiographical Pain and Glory also focuses on gay aging, redefining it as a queer” rather than linear or “straight” temporal experience (Halberstam), while one of the latest Spanish horror films, Malasaña 32, revolves around a house inhabited by a ghost whose traumatic past as a transgender person living under the Francoist regime comes back to haunt the present. Whilst exploring a number of selected films and TV series that seem to conform to conventional images of older men’s sexual lives, this article will thus include alternative film representations that also undermine such limited and limiting images, thereby redefining aging men’s sexualities on the contemporary Spanish screen as much more complex and plural than has been acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laughter in the midst of tragedy can be one of life’s most disturbing, cathartic and enlightening experiences, a maxim experienced in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, one of the most painful periods of Irish history. Northern Irish playwrights were acutely aware of this when dealing with violence in their plays and so, however grim the events they depicted, the comic element was very much present. After the Good Friday Agreement, along with the change in the political situation in Northern Ireland, there was a generational change in the theatre. What seems to characterise this new wave is the ironic distance taken towards the sectarian divide and the consequences of the conflict on Northern Irish society, which is revealed above all in their use of humour. Lisa McGee, one of the most important representatives of the new generation thanks to the popularity of her television series Derry Girls, had already shown her maturity in her 2006 play Girls and Dolls, performed by Tinderbox the same year. McGee mixes the tragic and the comic to present the terrible consequences of childhood trauma alongside the violence of the late Troubles, while raising questions about guilt, the meaning of friendship and the subtle ways in which violence affects us. This article aims to analyse the different uses of humour employed by McGee to deal with tragic episodes and their theatrical effect, drawing on the existing research on humour in literature and McGee’s own observations given in an interview with the author on 3 March 2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the manufacture of Juan Calos I's charisma as a pilot of change in the transition from late Francoism to the democratic transition through Cuéntame Cómo Pasó. Its objective is to carry out a comparative study of the first fourteen seasons of the series and the reception of the viewers. For this purpose and relying on a work of visualization of the episodes (which includes the transcription of the conversations and highlighted images) and on the focus groups (with viewers who present different ideological sensibilities as well as different places of residence, social classes, age or gender), the ideological structure of the series is revealed ant the type of reception it has had in the viewers is discussed. The article concludes by showing a certain coherence between the ideological interests of the series and the opinions of the members of the focus groups. On the one hand, it served to crystallize the ideological profile of one of the most relevant television series of the 21st century in Spain. On the other hand, it allowed us to give voice to the viewers instead of a strictly erudite analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entertainment industry is driven to sell certain commodities transnationally, particularly in a world where borders are becoming increasingly diffused through the access afforded by the Internet. Media content is easily consumed, making cultural exporting fast and easy. Similar tropes and plot have been replicated in the East Asian film and TV industry, perhaps in hopes of replicating the success. This paper looks at the manufacture of ideal masculinities within East Asia, particularly China. From ex-members of K-pop group EXO to the successful TV series, cross-influence of East Asian popular culture is prominent. Through this paper, I look at the influence of K-dramas on the Chinese TV industry and particularly the manufacturing of a militarized masculinity on Chinese TV. Far from portraying brute and fearsome soldiers, ideal masculinity on TV is portrayed as "steely exterior but gentle internally" and thus desirable romantic partners to heterosexual women. By exploring the basic conception of Chinese masculinity, I then discuss representations of militarized masculinity on the silver screen (Wolf Warrior II) and C-dramas, with particular focus on the series, You Are My Hero (2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of Turkish television drama series—or dizi as they are known in Turkey—is one of the most notable media phenomena of the past decade in francophone West Africa, particularly Guinea. This is taking place at a time when Turkey has significantly ramped up its economic, political, and cultural investments in Africa, with countries such as Guinea, rich in natural resources and with geostrategic sea access, rapidly emerging as new targets for Turkey's outsized ambitions. This article asks what we can learn about the global circulation of Turkish modernity—a unique blend of tantalizing consumerism and piety conceptualized as "neo-Ottoman cool"—in francophone West Africa by analyzing the hugely popular dizi alongside public debates on Turkey's investments in energy, transportation, energy, culture, or construction. Drawing on Joseph Tonda's notion of éblouissement (dazzlement), it argues that Guineans, like other West Africans, encounter the dazzling images of Istanbul's rich and famous that permeate dizi in stark contrast with Turkish investments in floating power plants and public transport or the Turkish-built Abdul Hamid II Mosque in Bambeto, a popular quarter of Conakry. The article proposes the phrase dazzle-to-diesel to account for the constant oscillation between blinding power and toxic fumes that accompanies encounters with neo-Ottoman cool in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, the audiovisual translation (AVT) market has been transformed by the advent of cloud tools and the integration of translation technologies into AVT workflows. More specifically, machine translation (MT) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) tools are changing the localisation process for films, TV series and other video materials. However, as these are very recent developments, there is very little research on the effectiveness of such tools and the potential productivity gains. This paper presents the ¡Sub! and ¡Sub!2 projects, which compared three cloud subtitling workflows with different degrees of automation in a series of experiments. The aim was to determine the workflow with the best quality/turnaround time ratio in relation to the audiovisual material in question, i.e., science documentaries. The relevance of key findings is discussed in relation to training and to the varied set of skills and competences that trainee subtitlers need to acquire to operate in today's rapidly evolving market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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