Prime-time Television Research Articles

Dying on television versus dying in intensive care units following withdrawal of life support: how normative frames may traumatise the bereaved.

While treatment is often withdrawn from patients in intensive care units (ICUs), few people outside the healthcare profession have witnessed a death under such circumstances. Family members who have made the decision to withdraw treatment may have expectations about the dying process, what constitutes a good death and how they should behave in an ICU based on popular prime-time television series. An inductive comparative thematic coding strategy is therefore used to examine how death following treatment withdrawal as depicted in a US medical drama (Grey's Anatomy) differs from realities observed for 6months fieldwork at an ICU in Canada. Three common frames (privacy, emotional control and memorialising) help patients' intimates normalise the unfamiliar experience and guide their behaviour during the event. However, discrepancies between media representations and experiences in the ICU, especially around the frames of timing of death and the physicality of the unbounded body (incontinence and agonal breathing), can traumatise them. The bereaved may be left viewing ventilator withdrawal and dying as chaotic processes and believing their loved one suffered through a bad death. Understanding these normative and discrepant frames should help healthcare professionals better prepare the public to witness death.

Teaching leadership theory with television: Useful lessons from Game of Thrones

ABSTRACT There has been a rise in scholarship on using prime-time television as an educational tool for teaching opportunities that link theory to practice in a Master of Public Administration (MPA) classroom. However, one topic that has not been explored but would benefit from using television is leadership. This article explores the use of HBO’s Game of Thrones as a source of teaching content ripe with useful lessons in leadership. Content analysis of the series’ 73 episodes identified 89 leadership scenarios that can be used as examples or case studies in which leadership theories and models can be identified, applied, and generate classroom discussion. Four specific examples on the utility of leadership case studies are presented in this article to highlight a select number of leadership theories and models commonly taught in an MPA leadership curriculum. They include the skills approach to leadership, authentic and transformational leadership, and gender and leadership.

Female “Lone Wolves”: The Anti‐Social Heroine in Recent Television Series

Female “Lone Wolves”: The Anti‐Social Heroine in Recent Television Series

Media Ownership and Regulation Influencing Production of Prime-Time Television News Bulletins in Pakistan

With the challenges of shifting technology and the rise of social media, the television news industry is struggling, yet news media in Pakistan is still relevant. Nevertheless, audiences are still unaware of the agenda-setting involved. Therefore, this article attempts to study the impact of certain factors on news performance and rundown production of primetime television news bulletins in Pakistan. Through mixed methodology, survey technique was used on a specialized sample of 150 staff from the top fifteen news channels. Through literature review, three independent factors were identified and to predict their impact, the dependent variable of bulletin performance review was formulated. Results were derived from the quantitative and qualitative method. Survey data was inserted in SPSS and test of regression applied. Results predicted Channel Owners and PEMRA significantly impact news in Pakistan, while Government guidelines have no impact. With the exclusivity of newsrooms and restricted public access, this study gives a rare Sneek peek into Pakistani newsrooms.

Representación de género en las series generalistas de televisión españolas emitidas en prime time (2017-2018)

This research analyses the current state of gender representation in Spanish prime time television series broadcast by the main generalist channels. For this purpose, an analysis of the content of 21 television series produced in Spain in the second half of 2017 and 2018, of 514 characters (n = 514), has been carried out in order to determine whether there is an unequal representation of male, female and non-binary characters. The main findings indicate that there is an under-representation of women; non-heterosexual sexual orientations are under-represented, as are non-traditional gender identities; women continue to be associated with less qualified professional occupations and, in particular, with domestic work; there is a statistically significant relationship between female characters and less ambitious, more personal work objectives and personalities associated with the world of emotions and motherhood. However, no statistical link was found between gender and narrative weight, gender and hypersexualization, or gender and violence.

Public Versus Private Employees: A Perspective on the Characteristics and Implications

'You’re fired!' Infamous words spoken by Donald Trump from prime-time television to the White House. Trump, businessman turned politician, has carried over his characteristics from the private sector to the public sector. Are Americans experiencing the Trump effect or is this a result of the businessman turned politician effect? From work motivation to demographics, this commentary highlights key characteristics and associated implications about the public sector and the private sector employees by discussing the following questions: What are the characteristics of the public and private sector employees? What are the implications of these characteristics? Specifically, public service motivation, organizational, commitment, level of effort, intrinsic factors, job content, pay, job security, and work-life balance are discussed. Review of the literature suggests that while similarities do exist between the public sector and private sector employees, there are sufficient characteristic differences that warrant supporting Appleby’s (1945) doctrine that government employees are indeed different.

Patient-centered Communication Behaviors on Primetime Television

Previous research suggests that television programming may influence viewers’ health-related knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors but has yet to examine patient–provider interactions on the most popular primetime television programs. We aimed to characterize the frequency and nature of patient-centered communication (PCC) behaviors on these programs, as cultivation and social cognitive theories suggest that these depictions may influence viewers’ expectations of real-life health-care experiences. We examined 203 patient–provider interactions across 84 episodes of 22 primetime television programs—both medical and non-medical—that aired during the spring of 2016 and spring of 2017. Each interaction was analyzed for the presence of 21 optimal PCC behaviors. This study found that the most frequently observed PCC behaviors focused on the provider making good eye contact and displaying good manners. However, PCC behaviors related to managing patient uncertainty and self-management were rare. Overall, providers in medical programs were significantly more likely to exhibit certain PCC behaviors, such as asking a patient questions, having good manners, and self-disclosing personal information, compared to providers in non-medical programs. Implications of these findings include the potential for such depictions to influence patient expectations of real-life experiences and health outcomes. Future research is needed to examine these potential influences.

The birth of a Soviet ‘fourth cinema’ on prime time television: Iurii Rytkheu and The Most Beautiful Ships

ABSTRACTBased on a case study of the television film The Most Beautiful Ships (Samye krasivye korabli, 1972), directed by Anatolii Nitochkin and scripted by Chukchi writer Iurii Rytkheu, this article investigates the possibility of a ‘fourth cinema’, the cinema of indigenous peoples, in the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982). It examines the history of this particular film through a threefold approach that combines the film’s genesis with an aesthetic analysis and reception study. The article aims to find a place for television films in the history of cinema, and to extend the map, still under construction, of a ‘fourth cinema’ by advocating the inclusion of the USSR in its scope.

Arab Labor, Jewish Humor: Memory, Identity, and Creative Resistance on Israeli Prime-Time Television

Arab Labor, Jewish Humor: Memory, Identity, and Creative Resistance on Israeli Prime-Time Television

A content analysis of violence on turkish primetime television shows

Objective: Violence has a great impact on society, as is often the case with television programs. This study aims to assess how the violence is portrayed on television channels that reach a large audience of children, adolescents, and adults in Turkey. Method: This study is a media content analysis (28 television shows and 84 episodes) of the six most popular Turkish primetime television shows aired between November 18, 2019, and December 8, 2019. The violence types have been classified into one of the following five categories: verbal, physical, psychological, social, and economic. Besides, some vulnerable special groups, such as children and healthcare workers, have also been evaluated. Results: Our findings indicate that each show has at least one violent behavior. Contrary to the perception in society, men are exposed to violence more than women (56.6% vs. 27.6%). The number of psychological violence content in television shows (median:16.5) was significantly higher than the number of physical (median:11.0) and verbal (median:13.0) violent content (p<0.05). Conclusion: Our findings have significant consequences as exposure to popular media affect the behaviors and perceptions of the entire society, not just children.. Our study has the potential to shed light on the need to create new content in television shows watched by the Turkish society with educational messages on the risks and consequences of violent behavior.

The Heterosexual Script on Tween, Teen, and Young-Adult Television Programs: A Content Analytic Update and Extension

ABSTRACT In a well-cited 2007 paper in Journal of Sex Research, Kim and colleagues proposed and documented a heterosexual script on primetime television. In the present study, we provide a 15-year update on the portrayal of the heterosexual script, and we further examine how it relates to three contextual variables: target age of the audience, age of the characters, and relational context of the script. Drawing from a 2016 sample of television programs that featured tween, teen, or young-adult characters, we documented three complementary sexual scripts: the sexual double standard (sexuality is equated with masculinity, women’s virtue is tied to their sexuality), commitment (men avoid commitment, women seek it), and homophobia (men must avoid homosexuality, female homosexuality is voyeuristically appealing to men). Like the Kim et al. study, the dominant heterosexual script was sex as masculinity; this script was equally represented in tween, teen, and young-adult shows. The second most common script was that men prioritize sex over commitment, followed by the notion that women’s virtue is tied to their sexuality. The commitment scripts were most often invoked by young-adult and adult characters, while the sexual double standard scripts were more pronounced in hookups than in committed relationships.

The psychosocial portrayals of immigrants in Spanish prime time television fiction (2016-2017)

The present research shows the results of an analysis of Spanish entertainment television aired in prime time between 2016 and the first semester of 2017 by the leading Spanish TV networks. The aim is to draw a comparison between immigrants and the natives in violent and health behaviours, personality traits, and also the number of conversation topics used by immigrants compared to the natives. Content research was used for this analysis, where a sample of 723 characters (n723) was taken. The final result shows there are different tendency patterns in the index of victims of violent behaviour being the native the ones with the highest score. No significant statistical differences in other indexes were observed. However, other variables are statistically related to immigrants/ foreigners, such as drug abuse, topics regarding health or politics, and furthermore, immigrants are also prone to have personality traits such as ‘unfair’, ‘seductive’ or ‘perverse’.

Gender and violence: Rape as a spectacle on prime-time television

This article focuses on the representation of rape on prime-time Turkish television and its context, where the industry, marketing and politics intersect, to investigate how the representation of rape on television serials functions. Since 2010, the prime-time episodic television of Turkey has used images of beautiful young girls and women who have been raped as a motif. A large number of TV serials have featured male violence against women as a central narrative concern, while there has been a rising trend featuring female characters as victims of rape. Often an episode in a television serial that features the act of rape is the most-viewed one in the series. The eroticization of violence against women through rape and gang rape scenes demonstrates that media, especially television, plays a key role in the construction of a violent masculinity that works according to the motto ‘I hurt therefore I am’. However, the television serial that give rape a central place in their narrative open a new space for public discussion about rape and other issues related to violence against women, and could encourage public outcry and defeat the government’s proposals based on traditional norms unfavorable to victims of sexual violence. While this article accepts the potential of television serials in bringing about social change, it does not forget the function of television series as entertainment and their active role in strengthening hegemonic masculinity. This article aims to shed light on the complex relations between gender, violence and television, as well as how gender relations are reproduced at a time when politics, media and economy interact and interlace.

Fauda: the Israeli occupation on a Prime Time Television Drama;or, the melodrama of the enemy

ABSTRACT The Israeli television drama Fauda (Arabic for ‘chaos’) has attracted wide and unprecedented interest in Israel and worldwide. It is an action series about Israeli undercover soldiers (mista’arvim) operating in the occupied territories that charts new ground by revealing the human dimensions of the men and women who grease the war machine in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In contrast to successful Israeli television dramas such as In Treatment (Betipul, Hagai Levy, 2005–2008) and Hostages (Bnei Aruba, Rotem Shamir and Omri Givon, 2010–2012), the plot of Fauda is set far from Israel’s recognizable landscapes, venturing into the territories known to Israeli audiences only from news coverage. Looking for ways to re-humanize the enemy, scriptwriters Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff turn to melodrama. This article contends that although Fauda may be seen as radical because of its bold dramatic choices, the melodramatic infrastructure tones the show down and imposes a certain aura of conservativeness. As film historian Thomas Elsaesser has observed, ‘the persistence of melodrama might indicate the ways in which popular culture has not only taken note of social crises, but […] has also resolutely refused to understand social change in other than private contexts and emotional terms’.

The psychosocial portrayals of immigrants in Spanish prime time television fiction (2016-2017)

espanolEn el presente articulo se muestran los resultados de una investigacion en la que se han analizado las series de television espanolas emitidas en prime time entre 2016 y el primer semestre 2017 por las principales cadenas generalistas con el objetivo de conocer que comportamientos violentos y de salud, que atributos de personalidad y que grado de riqueza conversacional manifestaban sus personajes inmigrantes/extranjeros en comparacion con los autoctonos. El metodo utilizado en la investigacion fue el analisis de contenido en una muestra de un total de 723 personajes (n= 723). Se concluye que existen diferencias tendenciales en el indice de victima de comportamientos violentos siendo los autoctonos los que mayor puntuacion presentan. En el resto de indices no se aprecian diferencias estadisticamente significativas. No obstante, se observa que variables individuales como “consumir drogas”, abordar temas de conversacion como salud o politica y tener rasgos de personalidad como “injusto”, “seductor” o “perverso” estan estadisticamente relacionados con la condicion de inmigrante/extranjero. EnglishThe present research shows the results of an analysis of Spanish entertainment television aired in prime time between 2016 and the first semester of 2017 by the leading Spanish TV networks. The aim is to draw a comparison between immigrants and the natives in violent and health behaviours, personality traits, and also the number of conversation topics used by immigrants compared to the natives. Content research was used for this analysis, where a sample of 723 characters (n723) was taken. The final result shows there are different tendency patterns in the index of victims of violent behaviour being the native the ones with the highest score. No significant statistical differences in other indexes were observed. However, other variables are statistically related to immigrants/ foreigners, such as drug abuse, topics regarding health or politics, and furthermore, immigrants are also prone to have personality traits such as ‘unfair’, ‘seductive’ or ‘perverse’.

Cannibalism as Method

Abstract Tian yu di 天與地 (When Heaven Burns, 2011), a primetime television series that was screened in Hong Kong from November 2011 to January 2012, tells the story of a young rock band struggling with the memory of having eaten a fellow bandmate in order to survive a mountaineering accident. Cannibalism not only bewildered the mainstream TV audience, but it was also viewed as an allusion to the June Fourth crackdown on the Tiananmen student movement. This essay explores cannibalism as a method that questions the assimilation of Hong Kong into the national body politic of China. Its argument is twofold. First, cannibalism in this drama disrupts the bourgeois consciousness of a healthy subject, exploring a shattered but renewed life that questions the dissolution of food in the making of a healthy subject. Second, by challenging the bourgeois model of a reconciled body, this drama series throws critical light on Hong Kong's coerced “swallowing” of a China excessive in its material aggrandizement, restoring the power of imagination of possible futures not dictated by Hong Kong's increasing integration with China. Finally, this essay suggests that cannibalism, viewed through the Tiananmen legacy, may function as a method to explore modes of relationality between Hong Kong and Mainland China.

Narrative conventions: What contribute to competitive prime time television News Discussions?

Television News has been a resorted platform for Indian viewers over the past decades. A majority of Indian viewers are known to trust this platform for its highly expected one-stop, credible, professionally opinionated sense of reporting. News channels have become platforms for celebrity journalists and anchors to exercise their authority. News organisations have become backbones of information and public opinion and journalists and their organisational agenda have taken this forward. With bold and competitive strategies used to enable news presentations, it is essential to examine and recognize existing Television news narrative conventions and practices that have gained momentum in recent years. Through a qualitative analytical approach taken for this research study, it is clear that narrative conventions exist and modify, thus producing fashionable and modernized forms of presentation techniques during prime time. With a clear organisational norm and genre of discourse shared by Indian English television channels today, the paper highlights persisting organisational norms, unconventional discourses, rhetoric (audio and visual) and music – a contributing element as existing contributors of narrative conventions.

Prime-Time Television’s First White, Female U.S. President: Gender and Race Discourses of a Feminist Media Artifact

Commander in Chief is the first prime-time television drama to have a protagonist and an entire plot dedicated to a female U.S. president. Through a transversal discourse analysis, we explain how the series is a feminist artifact that valuably contributes to contemporary discourses of gender—but also of race. First, the study unpacks the show’s publicity that exaggerates essentialist views of White femininity. Second, the study considers ways that Commander in Chief offers protean but insufficiently intersectional representations. Third, the study examines how President Allen provides a third-wave feminist account of women.

Laughing at the Law: A Socio-semiotic Analysis of Legal Comedy on Japanese Prime-Time Television

This article highlights the growing mainstream preoccupation with law, lawyers and litigation on Japanese prime-time television. Specifically, the article focuses on the recent shift from the dramatic and serious in 1990s productions to the more comic (in both on scripted shows and infotainment law-themed shows) in the 2000s and beyond. Linking the semiotics of humour, sociolegal studies and socio-semiotics more broadly, the article argues that an analysis of law-themed comic scenes and skits highlights Japanese society’s heightened interest in the law (mirroring twenty first century legal system reforms) and yet an enduring social sense that the law, especially legal resolution of conflict, is something incongruous and unrelated to people’s lived realities (which reflects ongoing low rates of litigation). Despite Ramseyer’s thesis that “rational” Japanese avoid the law because they bargain in its shadow, this article concludes that the Japanese draw on their emotional intelligence to accept the possibilities of the law for achieving social justice but acknowledge its limits for resolving satisfactorily everyday disputes.

Laughing at the Law: A Socio-semiotic Analysis of Legal Comedy on Japanese Prime-Time Television

Laughing at the Law: A Socio-semiotic Analysis of Legal Comedy on Japanese Prime-Time Television