Arrival Of Television Research Articles

The Drive-In and the Desegregation of Cinemas in Apartheid Cape Town

Going to drive-ins became a popular pastime in Cape Town during the 1960s and 1970s, although most were restricted to white audiences. Towards the end of this period, however, the arrival of television and emerging cinemas in ‘Coloured’ areas pushed white cinema owners throughout the city to apply for permits for mixed-race audiences and to transform the white-only status of their venues. This article focuses on drive-ins, an overlooked dimension of South African cinema history, and proposes that these venues are an important lens through which to examine the racial politics of cinema during apartheid, particularly from the late 1970s. As spaces that contrasted with the homogeneity of walled cinemas and their urban audiences, the drive-in became both a symbol of segregation in the city and a placeholder for transition. The opening-up of all Cape Town’s drive-ins in 1980 signalled new commercial horizons of non-racial audiences, making desegregation a popular buzzword and revealing the complex dynamics of racial integration before the end of apartheid.

The Arrival of Television in US and Italy: A New Catholic ‘Holy Crusade’ or Something Else?

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the origins and the first decades of the US television by focusing on the US religious television and the debates in the Catholic press on the use of the new medium. Through the documentation recently made available by the Vatican Apostolic Archives and an overview on the main US catholic Journals and Magazines, the paper pays attention to the effects that the arrival of TV and the first religious television shows had on the US Catholicism, on its relationship with the Holy See, on the official teachings, and on the different strategy adopted by ecclesiastical authorities as compared to the cinema. The US context is also analyzed against the background of what was simultaneously happening in Europe and especially in Italy. As a matter of fact, the case of the US TV is particularly interesting not only for the history of American Catholicism but also for its close connection to the Italian TV and Italian Catholicism.

Historia entrelazada sobre la llegada de la televisión a México y Colombia (1950-1955)

El objetivo de este artículo es exponer enlaces, contradicciones e influjo en torno a la llegada de la televisión a Colombia y México, en la década de 1950. Se sostendrá que, en dicho proceso histórico es evidente una dimensión global, que permite reconstruir relatos entrelazados, en diálogo permanente, aunque los dos países representen modelos televisivos antagónicos. Dicho carácter se puede exponer en cinco ámbitos: la naturaleza misma de la televisión; los proyectos políticos y económicos que enmarcaron la instalación; las expectativas que la prensa expandió sobre el tema; el tinte nacionalista de los gobiernos de la época, la prensa y los propietarios de concesiones; y los referentes internacionales, los influjos y los intercambios con otros países. Para rastrear la globalidad de este fenómeno, esta investigación acudió a fuentes primarias y bibliografía especializada. Se resaltaron las experiencias de cada país, desde sus rasgos particulares, pero sobre todo, sus coincidencias. El lector se encontrará con una historia cruzada entre dos estudios de casos, más que con una tabla de comparación.

With a Latin Flavor: Cultural and Narrative Contributions of the Latin American Telenovela to Spanish Fiction

For more than twenty years in Spain, national series and telenovelas were broadcast alongside Latin American telenovelas, which have gradually decreased until practically disappearing from the screens. Although the production of Spanish fiction goes back as far as the arrival of television, the truth is that the disaffection with the Latin American telenovela and the consolidation of Spanish fiction may have brought with it the transfer of narrative, aesthetic and cultural codes upon the which the new model of Spanish audiovisual fiction was built. This article1 analyzes these characteristics in both models from the comparative analysis of broadcast titles. The results show similarities in the superimposed structure of the plots and the use of drama, while differences include the design of characters and the preference for certain themes and settings related to the cultural spaces in which the stories occur.

Television, gas and electricity: Consuming comfort and leisure in the British home 1946–65

The arrival of television into the British home in the post-war period coincided with rising standards of comfort, provided by utilities such as gas and electricity and the devices that they powered. Television, in its capacity as a broadcast medium, was another utility flowing into the post-war home, providing domestic leisure. This article will explore how the material image of the television set became emblematic of the modern, leisure-based home, examining how it was used, in conjunction with gas and electricity, to construct an idealized comfortable home. This relationship was promoted in lifestyle magazines, advertisements, design publications and exhibitions. I will argue that from this relationship an idealized television lifestyle emerged, based around comfort and leisure, which was used to promote the consumption of gas and electricity, thus embedding television’s material form in consumer culture. In this way, the article will position the history of television in relation to the other utilities which shaped the home in this period, namely gas and electricity.

Understanding the Cinemagoing Experience in Cultural Life

The new cinema history approach asserts the importance of investigating the historical reception of films. In the past two decades, empirical research on film audiences has significantly developed methodologies and questions related to film and memory. Some of these studies concentrate on a period of time in which cinema was an essential leisure activity for millions, before the arrival of television, multiplexes, videos and home cinema. Combining ethnographic audience study with cultural and cinema history has allowed new insights into the historical reception of films and confirmed the vital role of oral history for a better understanding of cinema audiences. Italian Cinema Audiences (2013–2016) – an AHRC-funded inter-institutional research project – sits precisely within this new body of research and responds to the urge of using a bottom-up approach to shed new light on the cultural history of a country in a particular historical moment. This article will make use of the findings of the Italian Cinema Audiences research project to explore the role of oral history in the process of understanding cinemagoing as a cultural practice and to better comprehend how this type of research can enrich our understanding of the cinemagoing experience in particular and film cultures more broadly. It will also reflect on the process of remembering what I will define as ‘memories of pleasure’.

Exploiting Indonesia: From Primitives to Outraged Fugitives

Indonesian exploitation films emerged from a particular political economy of the New Order and its film industry. From Primitif (1979) to Without Mercy (Outraged Fugitive) (1995), about 50 of these exploitation films were produced. Seen within the dominant paradigm of the time, these films were exploitative and contributed nothing to national development or national culture. However, the producers and filmmakers behind these films pioneered new transnational connections as they tried to tap into global film markets and networks. This article explores the historical and structural background to the Indonesian exploitation films, and the aspirations behind their production. By tapping into global film markets, and following genre trends, Indonesian producers hoped to emulate the success of exploitation films globally. By the mid-1990, just as the domestic film market collapsed and the arrival of television, Indonesian film producers had put Indonesia on the map of global cinema. Today Indonesian films of the period have begun to take on cult status as fans and others rediscover this colourful cinematic past.

Glimpsing La Dolce Vita: Cultural Change and Modernity in the 1960s English Cabaret Club

Although the arrival of television in 1950s Britain weakened some traditions of live entertainment, an active culture of live performance developed in the 1960s in the clubs of the English north and midlands. Focusing on the commercial “cabaret” or “theatre” clubs offering “mainstream” entertainment for largely working- and lower-middle class audiences, this study begins by examining the clubs’ origins within the context of the new “affluence,” structural change within the entertainment industry and liberalizing government legislation relating to gambling and late-night drinking. It then explores the clubs’ cultural significance. It argues that eating out, gambling, and enjoying physical proximity to star entertainers provided ways for patrons to feel “modern” and to experience activities previously associated with more privileged social groups. At the same time, however, clubs were skillful in maintaining a balance between tradition and modernity by establishing notions of restraint and ensuring that club culture remained tied to some degree to previous cultural habits. This tension demonstrates the problems inherent in attempts, common amongst historians studying the 1960s, to weigh cultural “changes” against “continuities”’ and to assess the level and nature of social and cultural change. The essay suggests that clubs, if hardly transgressive, offered a quiet permissiveness, an undermining of aspects of the 1950s moral consensus from within the culture of “ordinary” people.

Deportistas olvidadas. Mujer y deporte en los noticiarios cinematográficos italianos (1945-1953)

The sportswomen’s image during the first post war years is analyzed, from 1945 until the arrival of television (1954) as shown in the Italian cinematographic news reels. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the news featuring sportswomen is made, and the types of sporties activities which are normally linked to them and they way they are portrayed are established.

The Listener's Voice: Early Radio and the American Public

The thesis of The Listener's Voice is that radio listeners “participated in the formation of radio” in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. The book offers a different emphasis in American radio history. It goes beyond business and legal histories, and also audience histories, to show how the latter affected the former previously overlooked ways, perhaps precisely because they were informal and unorganized and thus not explicitly documented. Even so, Elena Razlogova has found them by reading numerous listener letters in a new light. The book documents a range of ways audiences affected the shape of radio in these decades. Razlogova effectively shows that large corporations did not have their way unimpeded. Instead, she describes multiple ways listeners at first countered the concentrated power of radio corporations and networks, as well as the Federal Radio Commission, in efforts to influence radio development. In the 1910s and 1920s audiences provided feedback to experimental broadcasters to help them develop better technologies. In the 1920s local stations welcomed and responded to listener letters about their programs. When the 1927 Radio Act reallocated broadcast frequencies and licenses from small to large stations and networks, listeners wrote to support local stations and protest the changes. Radio magazines for radio amateurs in the 1920s, like local radio stations, forged a mutual relationship with their readers. Eventually, they were displaced in the 1930s by fan magazines published by large “pulp” houses, more interested in leading than listening to readers. Still they retained letter-to-the-editor columns where listeners could voice their opinions. Radio serial writers attended to listener letters and drew from them ideas for scripts. However, Razlogova finds that by the late 1930s radio's moral economy broke down as network concentration and audience measurement took hold. But the story did not end there. After the war, the arrival of television, and the decline of network radio, there was a revival of listeners' voices and of local stations listening to those voices.

Puppets and adult entertainment in South Africa: a tale of a tentative start, evolving prejudices, new and lost opportunities, and a fresh momentum

Puppetry in South Africa, most probably the one country in the whole of Africa with the most diversified application of this art form, is largely a colonial heritage which dates back to the nineteenth century. Puppetry started as adult entertainment at the Cape settlement, but became predominantly children's entertainment in its pioneering phase and with the arrival of television in 1976, a position which it still retains. Puppets, however, feature in some of the most prominent multimedia stage productions in the post-apartheid era and this presence has developed a strong momentum which has changed the face of contemporary adult puppetry in South Africa.

Sin presencia ni gloria. El trabajo femenino en la información cinematográfica italiana (1945-1954)

The working women’s image during the first post war years is analyzed, from 1945 until the arrival of television (1954) as shown in the Italian cinematographic news reels. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the news featuring working women is made, and the types of professional activities which are normally linked to them and they way they are portrayed are established. This visual representation is contextualized in the legal framework related to the working situation, created by the government of the chosen period. This way, we can compare the image offered by the cinematographic news with the reality of the working Italian women. It is shown that the period’s cinema offered an idealized vision of the women’s working conditions and granted women a secondary role inside the news‘s priorities.

Britain's First Live Televised Party Leaders' Debate: From the News Cycle to the Political Information Cycle

Britains first ever live, televised, party leaders’ debate took place on 15 April 2010, during one of the most intriguing and closely fought general election campaigns in living memory. Arguably the most important single development in the medias treatment of politics since the arrival of television during the 1959 campaign, the leaders’ debate and its aftermath provide a unique window on the political communication environment of contemporary Britain. This article focuses on the surrounding processes of mediation before, during and after the event, particularly the interactions between broadcasting, press and online media, including citizen opinion expressed and coordinated through online social network sites. A narrative reconstruction of journalists’, political parties’ and online activists’ behaviour raises the question of whether traditional understandings of the ‘news cycle’ should now be replaced by a broader concern with what I term ‘political information cycles’: assemblages of personnel, practices, genres and temporalities in which supposedly ‘new’ online media are increasingly integrated with supposedly ‘old’ broadcast and press media.

Out of the dark: a history of radio and rural America

In the 1920s, the USDA asked farmers about the impact the new medium of radio was having on their lives. One farmer summed it up this way: 'Radio brought me out of the dark'. Out of the Dark is a study of radio's impact on rural America in the three decades between its inception and the arrival of television. The coming of radio broadcasting had a profound impact on the lives of many Americans, but none more so than those who lived in rural America. Radio provided isolated families with something they had never known before - an instantaneous connection with news, entertainment, and the rapidly evolving lifestyles and mores of the entire nation. Drawing upon both new historical sources and contemporary scholarship, Out of the Dark presents a comprehensive picture of rural radio and its audience in the United States during the three decades when its influence was at its peak. This study documents the social changes radio helped bring about, such as the effects of advertising and entertainment in creating a more uniform set of values across the nation and, consequently, a stronger national identity. Out of the Dark also addresses the political and economic impact the rural audience had on the development of the broadcasting industry and its regulation; the role played by the USDA in the promotion and development of rural radio; and an analysis of how radio entertainment and advertising contributed to the growing demand for consumer goods among rural families, thus speeding their entry into the modern American lifestyle.

Colour by Stencil: Germaine Berger and Pathécolor

In a 1984 interview, Germaine Berger describes her work as a film colourist for Pathé, where she was hired at the age of fourteen in 1911. Creating the stencil-coloured prints was delicate work for which only women were hired. Working conditions in the factory are described. When Pathé's colouring operation ceased in 1927, Berger continued to work in the industry until the arrival of television.

TELEVISION'S ARRIVAL IN THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS OF THE USA

Through the use of oral histories, this study looks at the social impact of television's arrival in the Appalachian Mountains of the USA. Given the oral traditions of rural Appalachia, oral history is particularly well suited for this topic. Despite electrification delays and reception problems, the arrival of television, like radio before it, reinforced the community ties of many of the participants and families in this study. Most of the participants spoke about their memories of TV from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. However, few programmes during that period included characters or performers that spoke to the Appalachian culture, leaving mountain residents seemingly marginalized from ‘mainstream’ TV audiences. Yet early television's underrepresentation or misrepresentation of Appalachia did not exclude these interviewees from participating in TV's arrival, nor did marginalization make their experiences insignificant. Participants’ oral histories give enthusiastic voice to their communities’ welcoming of television, and at the same time reveal their own individual agency and personal reflection in creating Appalachian TV audiences.

‘Just the Same Part of the United Kingdom as Your County Sussex’: the BBC and the Arrival of Television in Northern Ireland in the 1950s

‘Just the Same Part of the United Kingdom as Your County Sussex’: the BBC and the Arrival of Television in Northern Ireland in the 1950s

Much More Than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball since 1921

Power struggles off the field To most Americans, baseball is just a sport; but to those who own baseball teams - and to those who play on them - our national pastime is much more than a game. In this book, Robert Burk traces the turbulent labor history of American baseball since 1921. His comprehensive, readable account details the many battles between owners and players that irrevocably altered the business of baseball. During what Burk calls the paternalistic era, from 1921 to the early 1960s, baseball's management rigidly maintained racial segregation, established a network of southern-based farm teams to serve as a captive source of cheap replacement labor, and crushed attempts by players to create collective bargaining institutions. In the 1960s, however, the paternal order crumbled, eroded in part by the civil rights movement and the arrival of television. As a consequence, in the inflationary era that followed, both players and umpires established effective unions that successfully pressed for higher pay, pensions, and greater occupational mobility - and then fought increasingly bitter struggles to hold on to these hard-won gains.

Shaping a Regional Identity

Stories, anecdotes, and descriptive articles were the earliest publications, following the main wave of colonisation in the 1860s, to bring Queensland north and west of Proserpine to the attention of the national and international community. Such publications were also the main vehicle of an internal mythology: they shaped the identity of the inhabitants, diversified following settlement, and their sense of the region. The late date of settlement compared with south-eastern Australia meant that frontier experience continued both as a lived reality and as mythology well into the twentieth century. The self-containment of the region as actual and exemplary frontier was breached only with the arrival of television and university culture in the 1950s and 1960s.

‘It Wasn't Exactly a Miracle’: The Arrival of Television in Dutch Family Life

Quel fut l'impact de l'introduction de la television dans la sphere domestique hollandaise au milieu des annees 1950 ? Si pour certains, il ne s'agit pas a proprement parler d'un miracle, les changements occasionnes semblent suffisamment importants pour donner lieu a cette recherche, qui considere cet evenement comme une phase critique. L'acquisition d'un poste de television marquait une nouvelle epoque dans la vie routiniere des familles, une progression sociale. Cette etude doit aider a une meilleure comprehension des technologies de communication dans leurs relations avec les contextes industriel, institutionnel, culturel et domestique