No abstract

In this article, we discuss how primetime programming is unjustly the subject of the moral panic constructed around television, a moral panic that seems primarily useful to maintain the high vs low culture dichotomy. To assess the moral content of primetime television, we used a framework derived from literary culture, since narratives’ content and morality (or, rather, [moral] imagination) are primarily discussed within this tradition. We will argue that primetime television (news, soap operas, sitcoms, and so on) is not only rife with reflections on what counts as a moral issue, who we are, who the ‘other’ is and various ways of deliberating moral issues, but also that the content of primetime programming contradicts the arguments used in the moral panic surrounding primetime television.

Academic work focusing on the multiple interactions between gender and media has an extensive history. Interestingly, developments in gender and media research run parallel to feminist activism. From their earliest beginnings, mass media have inspired academic investigation. However, it was not until the early 1960s, the start of the second-wave feminist movement in the United States, that gender awareness began to be incorporated into studies on gender and media. The male bias of academic themes and theory and the underrepresentation of women in universities were major points of criticism (Van Zoonen, 1994). The principal areas of investigation concerned gender stereotypes, construction of gendered social roles, gender ideology, and pornography and its (social) consequences. These themes were and still are scrutinized in all aspects of media: production, content, and consumption. Different fields of research have developed, each marked by a specific epistemological and ontological viewpoint on understanding gender and its relation to media.Ontologically, gender is understood in a number of ways, each with its repercussions for the type of research conducted on a certain topic. Views range from an essentialist perspective that presents a dichotomous understanding of an individual's physical sex (male versus female) as a biological fact that determines their gender (masculine or feminine), to a postmodern view that presents gender and sex as fluid, non-dichotomous social constructs (Krijnen & Van Bauwel, 2015).Epistemologically, we find studies ranging from purely data driven to theory driven. The first approach produces valuable, often numeric, insight into the relationship between gender and media, while the second approach offers advancements in theory. Studies in gender and media often combine empiric and theoretical approaches, resulting in work that nuances and/or advances theoretical insight.Clearly, over half a century later, ideas on the relations between gender and media have evolved tremendously. This is partly due to almost 60 years of academic research in gender and media. Additionally, both social and technological developments have changed the context of research with its repercussions on the study of media and gender. More specifically, the rise of social media and globalization (which is a major consequence of technological developments) complicates traditional understandings of gender and media.In this entry, the dynamic relationship between gender and media is discussed in the light of digitization and globalization. First, the traditional categories in the study of media and gender-production, content, and consumption-are briefly

Despite globalization, television is still bound to the nation-state in several aspects. The international television industry meets the national in the cross-border exchange of television content. Canned programming can hereby run into cultural barriers, which TV formats presumably can overcome, due to localization. Formats are translated to local versions that presumably suit national culture and identity. In globalization debates, localization is being used as an argument against cultural homogenization. However, there is little comparative work reviewing the extent to which TV formats are culturally specific. By comparing linguistic, intertextual and cultural codes in the Dutch and the Australian version of the British reality TV format Farmer wants a Wife, we will argue that localization of TV formats might be overrated as protection of cultural diversity.Farmer Wants a Wife is a reality TV format developed in Great Britain. The format has been purchased, adapted and broadcast in more than 20, mostly European, countries, as well as in South Africa, Australia and the United States. In most countries the show is extremely popular and breaks television viewing records, with the result that people from all across the world are watching a programme about farmers looking for a wife. However, different versions of the show exist, and in each country the format is localized and adjusted to suit national structures and characteristics. Farmer Wants a Wife is one of the reality TV formats that are incredibly successful on a global level and is therefore

The second feminist wave, which started in the 1960s in the United States and spread through Europe during the late 1960s and the 1970s, increased interest in media and their relations to gender. On the one hand, the role media play in creating gendered stereotypes and maintaining patriarchal values-that is, creating a distorted, malebiased view on the world-was questioned. These questions gave rise to specific fields of study for feminist scholars-stereotypes and social roles, ideology, and pornography (Van Zoonen, 1994)-which are currently investigated in three academic disciplines: psychoanalysis, social psychology, and cultural studies.On the other hand, feminist scholars raised questions about academic knowledge itself. Relating feminist political viewpoints to academic knowledge, the androcentric character of Western understandings of knowledge was criticized, resulting in three feminist epistemologies: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism (the latter is also called postmodern feminism). These three traditions share one important view that Western understandings of knowledge are androcentric and prioritize rationality (Hawkesworth, 1989). However, their ideas on how to change the androcentric character of knowledge and how to come to alternative conceptions of knowledge differ tremendously (Smith, 1998). In feminist studies on media, the three epistemologies rarely appear in their "pure" forms; rather, insights often are mixed and used in complementary ways. Nevertheless, values advocated in each epistemological tradition have important repercussions for feminist studies on media and their audiences. To elucidate how epistemological beliefs have had an impact on feminist theory on media, the three epistemological traditions and their specific values and beliefs will be discussed briefly. Next, psychoanalytic, social psychology, and cultural studies approaches to media are discussed in terms of their epistemological beliefs and the impact thereof on the generated theoretical insights. Feminist epistemologiesAndrocentric epistemologies emphasize a strict separation of fact and value, hence prioritizing rationality over the realm of emotions, to which values belong. Feminist epistemologies start from a reverse observation, namely that academic knowledge is saturated with male values (androcentrism) that masquerade as objective truths. Martin (1991), for example, describes how research on biological human reproduction is imbued by male and female stereotypes. Though studies show how egg and spermThe International Encyclopedia of Media Effects. Patrick Rössler (Editor-in-Chief), Cynthia A. Hoffner, and Liesbet van Zoonen (Associate Editors).

No abstract

Public debates on reality television often address the display of emotion and immoral conduct. Television scholars have recently proposed that while reality television offers its audience an opportunity to learn valuable lessons, they rarely address the issue of the morality of the genre. In this contribution, we analyze the display of emotion and immoral conduct in the Dutch reality show The Golden Cage. Reality television is viewed as constituting a 'moral laboratory'. The question guiding our research revolved around the kind of exercise this moral laboratory provides for. A dramaturgical study of the display of actions and emotions as part of participant "projects" (Beckerman, 1979) was used to answer this question. Results indicate that moral issues and emotions were continuously at stake, and immoral conduct appeared to be coupled with pleasurable emotions. It is concluded that the laboratory of The Golden Cage is at least equally suited for exercising autonomy and identity performance under competitive pressure as it is for the simulation of moral conflicts.

To survive contemporary developments in the TV industry and as a result of international mergers and acquisitions, production companies often form transnational media corporations. In this article, we examine TV production groups as global-local networks that pursue competitive advantages of transnational integration. Combining a critical industry studies approach with management perspectives, and building on different data sources, this article aims to open up the black box of management beliefs, discourses, and material practices within TV production networks. Our analysis shows how the industry’s hunt for profitable, reproducible practices and intellectual property (IP) rights translates into transnational creative pipelines, knowledge flows, and interdependencies. Transnational management practices include surveillance of local production, the installation of information flows, shared practices and procedures, and socialization processes. This article argues that corporate structures, strategies, and management practices coordinate TV production across borders, shape industrial practices, and foster a transnational production culture.