Bad Television Research Articles

Tiffany Pollard GIFs and nostalgia for the negative

ABSTRACT This essay asks how the nostalgic attachments to particular Black women’s performances on reality television inform current uses of those images through internet GIFs and memes. Examining the usage and exchange of files depicting the mid-2000s reality television star Tiffany Pollard on Twitter, I compare appropriation of black women’s humour within digital spaces alongside appreciation of ‘bad television’ [McCoy, C.A., and Scarborough, R.C., 2014. Watching “bad” television: ironic consumption, camp, and guilty pleasures. Poetics, 47, 41–59] and the useful potentials of ‘negative’ representation [Gates, R.J., 2018. Double negative: The black image and popular culture. Duke University Press]. Debates about representational politics are complicated when circulating digital images and files that invoke nostalgic response through racialized gendered performances. What does circulation of these GIFs and memes say about nostalgia for a unique moment in reality television where ‘ratchet’ behaviour [Brock, A., 2020. Distributed blackness. New York University Press] was encouraged and the limits of respectability politics were experimented with? Examining how some have labelled exchange of these GIFs as perpetuating ‘digital blackface’ [Jackson, L.M., 2017. We need to talk about digital blackface in reaction GIFs. Teen vogue, 2], I theorize how contemporary accusations of exploiting stereotypical depictions of Black people in order to gain online social capital mirrors the history of American minstrelsy’s purported nostalgia for ‘authentic’ Black performance. As the majority of popular GIFs of Pollard present ‘ugly feelings’ [Ngai, S., 2005. Ugly Feelings. Harvard University Press] such as irritation, resentment and disgust, the relationship between nostalgia for so-called better times, and desire for a recent moment in cable television’s past in which the boundaries of ‘good representation’ were pushed and disregarded become entangled. By looking to animation of disembodied digital images in the use of GIFs as moving image files that are looped, refigured and circulated, I draw attention to new sites of digital racialization, popular culture criticism and examination of digital affect as it corresponds with Black diasporic cultural production.

The Effect of Information Literacy on Maize Production: Case study of small-scale farmers in Inonge Village, Kazungula District of Zambia

The study aimed at exploring the impact of information literacy on maize production and focused on a case study of small-scale farmers in Inonge village of Kanzungula District in Southern Province, Zambia. Besides the review of relevant literature, the study conducted a questionnaire-based case study on 20 small-scale farmers and conducted an in-depth interview with one agriculturalist from the Ministry of Agriculture. The analysis of the study showed that farmers need information for various purposes to enhance their agricultural activities, and they use different sources and media to access such information. Many of the farmers, however, are not well aware of modern techniques of agriculture and they seldom use such techniques for farming. Due to some problems such as high rate of illiteracy, inadequate contact with agricultural extension officers, language barrier and bad television and radio reception, farmers are not satisfied in getting agricultural information. The paper concludes that information literacy has an effect on maize production and certain recommendations for policy, practice and further research have been provided for the improvement of information literacy of the farmers in Inonge village. These include government to reconsider public agricultural policy reforms on one hand and for the local communities and their leaderships to reorganize themselves and tackle the information challenges facing them on the other. More focused research was still needed to understand and contextualize Inonge village agricultural challenges and prospects.

Bad television, unhealthy computers? Children’s mapping of health, fun and morality

ABSTRACT The article aims to examine the meanings that Polish children (age 8–11) attribute to computers, television, or smartphones, in the context of health. Basing on childhood studies literature and the concept of healthscape I show how children include electronic media, as material and symbolic objects, in health discourses. In children’s worldviews these objects meet with healthy food and fit culture, as elements of healthscapes. The healthscape infrastructure allows children to simultaneously adopt different viewpoints and moral orders in the field of health. It could seem that the ‘perfect’ child would be a self-controlling child who never watches television or plays computer games, and who eats only healthy food. But this expectation contradicts another one, according to which children should be wild, free, and disobedient. Children need to navigate between contradictory viewpoints, and they need to find balance and a way to create their own identity therein.

A Review of Individual Change and Motivation: A Case Study Based on AMC Breaking Bad TV Series

Breaking Bad is an American television series which was telecasted during the year 2008 to 2013. The drama was release by AMC and it was well popular among the fans around the world as the most controversial television drama series in the previous decade and also it received numerous awards and nominations. Mr. Walter White is a functional character and the central character of Breaking Bad. Initially, he was a school chemistry teacher and part time cashier in a car wash center. Later he became a crime lord and prominent drug dealer also known as Heisenberg. This paper is basically focused in reviewing the need theory of motivation and behavioral change theory of Lewin’s plan change approach through critically analyzing the behavior of Mr. Walter White’s character in Breaking Bad television series. Qualitative analysis techniques based on the character observation was the primary technique that was used to analysis the case and at the same time the results from the analysis are carefully plotted with the basic theory to get the conclusions. The study is very significant to anyone who is interest in learning the nature of need theory of motivation and behavioral change theory including Lewin’s plan change model.

Becoming Badass: Teaching Katz’s “Ways of the Badass” using the Breaking Bad Television Series

Becoming badass is a phenomenological process where meaningful social interactions develop one’s sense of authority over others. Some of the key features of this process, according to Katz, include an ability to transcend moral injunctions, ability to intimate aggression, an inability to be influenced by others, development and display of an ominous character, a strong disregard for self-preservation, and the development of an alien identity. The main character in the Breaking Bad television series is used as a conduit to exemplify these key elements of becoming badass. Examples from the series illustrate the sensual appeal of criminal involvement from the perspective of the one doing crime.

Made in Like Chelsea

It would be easy to write off Made in Chelsea as very bad television, the embarrassed and embarrassing exposure of the empty days of a bunch of spoilt metropolitan brats – what Amber, a 19-year old Chelsea socialite, describes as ‘the whole like Chelsea socialite thing’. It is indeed very bad television – crass, vulgar, inept and shameless. It is a kind of anti-psychoanalysis, doing for the haute bourgeoisie what Jeremy Kyle does for the lumpen proletariat. But it may be worth a closer look for what it tells us about contemporary British society and about the beneficiaries of neo-liberalism – those important people whose lives are untouched by the experience of austerity imposed on the rest of us. This article was written in March 2013: the series may well change and continue to change after the time of writing.

Physician Self-Disclosure and Patient Counseling

As I looked at the monitor, my eyes filled with tears: cervix measurement—6 mm. I knew what that meant because I had been here before. That time, I had been 18 weeks pregnant with a short cervix and it was a sad ending. This time things looked worse. My cervix was shorter and I was carrying twin A and twin B. My blur of tears was interrupted only by the nurse taking vital signs and bad television. "No, I don't want visitors." "No, I am not interested in a support group."

Facing up to health and safety - or not?

Like taxes and bad television game-shows, the importance of managers‘ health and safety responsibilities never ends. This article provides an overview and reminder of the legal duties of health care professionals at all levels to keep up to date with this issue.

Children’s Interpretations of Good and Bad Television Characters

AbstractWhile there has been much concern over television’s influence on children, few studies have investigated the way young children and adults differ in their ability to distinguish the behaviour of “good” and “bad” television characters. The present study investigated the extent to which preschool children, primary school students, and adults differed in their interpretations of the actions of a stereotypically good and a stereotypically bad character. An edited television drama programme was examined for comprehension and for the extent to which children and adults differed in their belief that the characters in the programme were real. Preschool children were found to evaluate characters similarly to adults, although significant differences were evident in their comprehension of the programme and their judgement of the reality of the television content.