While public service broadcasters are typically regarded as national institutions, their histories are profoundly transnational. Ideas, programmes, and models have crossed national borders since the earliest days of radio transmission. Yet the transnational histories of radio genres have remained largely unexplored. This article seeks to address that gap by analysing the formation and development of three serial fiction genres—family drama, crime series, and radio comedy—in the context of the Finnish public broadcasting company Yleisradio. Series representing these genres were among the most popular and longest-running radio shows in Finland. Drawing on an extensive collection of empirical material—including Yleisradio’s Annual reports, programming metadata, newspaper clippings, and radio programmes—the research reveals a variety of transnational exchange in programme production. It also underscores the need for further research that places the transnational dynamics at the forefront.

The article examines how the audiobook’s increasing centrality on the contemporary book market influences publishing strategies. Departing from the case of Sweden, where audiobooks are primarily distributed via subscription-based streaming services, the article is based on interviews with 12 Swedish publishers and streaming service representatives. Thus, it contributes with a producer perspective to existing research in audiobooks, which is mostly centred on the consumption aspect and what audiobooks do to reading and uses of literature. Analysing interview results through the theoretical lens of platformization, the article shows how the publishers’ ideas and strategies related to audiobooks, what we call ‘audiobook imaginaries’, are connected to streaming platform imaginaries. Rather than producing texts ‘for sound’, publishers strategically focus on texts that are expected to perform well on the streaming platforms, resulting in preferences for serial fiction and in publishing strategies inspired by other streaming media. The article finally discusses how the audiobook boom pushes parts of the Scandinavian publishing industry towards cross-industry logics of streaming and platformization, resulting in an imagined fragmentation of the book market, as audiobooks and printed books are understood to exist in two different spheres that include different genres sold in different spaces, to (partly) different audiences.

This critical incident details a collaboration between Nestlé’s Coffee Mate, a non-dairy coffee creamer, and The White Lotus, a popular television series. The White Lotus was a fictional series that depicted dysfunctional, often wealthy, tourists vacationing at luxury resorts. To celebrate Season 3 of The White Lotus, which was set at a resort in Thailand, Coffee Mate collaborated with the show to launch two limited-edition flavors, including Piña Colada. Coffee Mate was unaware that poisoned piña coladas would be used in an attempted murder in the show. Coffee Mate was able to react quickly to the negative depiction of piña coladas in the show by using a social media “war room,” and turning a potentially harmful situation for the brand into a positive one. This critical incident examines collaborations between brands and entertainment properties and considers a brand’s reaction when the entertainment property’s story may not align with the brand’s optimal depiction.

The German science fiction series Dark is a complex narrative that intertwines elements of time travel, fate, and free will, offering an ideal lens for the exploration of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical themes, particularly the concept of eternal return. By analyzing the cyclical structure of time in Dark, the characters' struggles with fate, and the concept of self-overcoming, this paper explores how Nietzsche’s ideas about eternal recurrence, the will to power, and the tragic nature of human existence are interwoven into the fabric of the series. Through its intricate use of cyclical time, Dark reflects Nietzsche’s vision of life’s recurrence, emphasizing the tension between fate and free will while critiquing the human condition’s persistent cycle of suffering and the search for meaning. This paper offers a philosophical examination of Dark through a Nietzschean lens, proposing that the series presents a profound commentary on the nature of time, identity, and the eternal return of human struggles.

The aim of this research is to explore different examples of architectural model usage in recent fictional series. Architectural models function for architects as both a design tool and a presentation tool. For this reason, models constitute an important part of the architectural design process and architectural education. Accordingly, in fictional productions in which practicing architects are placed at the centre, architects are usually shown using models. In addition, the literature acknowledges that some directors use architectural models instead of actual buildings in wide-angle shots in films. Beyond these uses, architectural models have another field of use, which is addressed in this study: the depiction of architectural models made and used by non-architect, ordinary people in films or television series. This third type of usage, which is less discussed in the literature compared to the other two, constitutes the main focus of this study, which aims to contribute to filling this gap in the existing literature. The methodology of this research is Qualitative Visual Analysis, one of the qualitative research methods. Within the scope of the study, a sample consisting of five fictional films and television series released between 2021 and 2025 was selected. As a result of the analysis, it was understood that the architectural models used accompany the narrative at crucial stages of the plot, such as moments of conflict and resolution, and at times represent the characters and their relationships with space. While the models are used for different purposes in each production, it was observed that various materials such as wood, cardboard, plastic, and cake were employed. In this respect, these models differ from conventional architectural models.

One of the themes manifested in cyberpunk discourse is the transformation of human corporeality under the influence of technological development of the environment. This topic is highly speculative and controversial. The under researched reasons for its popularity in Western culture present a pressing academic challenge, given the widespread international resonance of the cyberpunk subculture. The aim of this study is to describe and analyze a set of artistic models of corporeality transformation in the television adaptation of William Gibson's novel “The Peripheral.” The study identified four artistic models of corporeality transformation in the film adaptation of William Gibson's novel, three of which are rooted in Christian metanarratives. The model of corporeality objectification, exaggerated in both the novel and the television series and contrasted with Christian models, reflects a contemporary interpretation of one of the oldest popular myths adopted by the globalist ideology of transhumanism. The author emphasizes the close connection between the popularity of key transhumanist ideas and mythological consciousness and theoretically under-reflexive strategies for the total digital optimization of social governance. The article touches on a broad range of interdisciplinary theoretical discussions and will be of interest to film critics, literary scholars, researchers of popular culture, media, and body issues, as well as fans of science fiction series and the general public.

HBO’s science fiction series Westworld (2016–2022) envisions posthuman ethics beyond the conventional cyborg rebellion narratives. Through the lens of biopolitics, it examines how the hosts’ violent uprising against human sovereignty paradoxically reinforces the human-host dichotomy, perpetuating cycles of othering. However, by interrogating humanity’s loss of corporeality, emotion, and agency, the series ascribes traditionally “human” qualities to artificial beings who embody and transcend such traits, effectively dismantling the anthropological machine—an apparatus that defines human against nonhuman. Engaging with Renaissance discourses, the hosts ultimately assume ethical responsibilities toward their human creators, reconstructing a virtual utopia for both species. Westworld thus demonstrates posthumanism not as a rejection of humanist legacies but as a transcendence of centralized and dualist paradigms. By interweaving the evolution of posthuman subjectivity, the human-host relationship, and the deconstruction of human exceptionalism, Westworld charts a provocative path toward a posthuman community that bridges humans and hosts beyond dualisms, offering insights into the potential ethical and ideological resolutions for contemporary human-AI entanglements.

This paper explores the difficulties women face in reaching leadership positions in the audiovisual sector. We focus on Spanish fiction series produced for Netflix between 2017 and 2023, obtaining a sample of only eight productions created exclusively by women and with a female presence in directing, screenwriting and executive production. We observed a diversity of genres and plots, most of them for people over the age of sixteen, and a predominance of miniseries. The research is complemented by interviews with professionals who lead these creations. The results show that the industry is improving, but that significant changes are still needed. Progress has been made in terms of gender and quota policies, the arrival of international platforms with more sensitive mentalities, and the increase in productions. Rising to leadership positions is complicated by issues of work-life balance and educational values: too much modesty, and a sense of imposture or guilt.

Abstract This article examines Stephen King’s Cujo and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series as examples of infection literature that explore the violence and potential of multispecies encounters brought about by zoonotic disease, using infectious agents as mediators in interactions between humans and nonhuman lifeforms. Both texts are interested in the interplay between violence and relationality: King’s horror novel uses an encounter between a woman and a rabid dog to deconstruct narratives of domestication and portray a different kind of intimacy, while Tchaikovsky’s science fiction series uses war and infection as the groundwork for multispecies communication, cohabitation, and collaboration. Cujo, Children of Time, and Children of Ruin are thus useful for exploring “outbreak narratives” (Wald, 2008) from the perspective of human-animal studies.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not experienced a moment of calm. A spectre haunts the world: the spectre of permanent crisis. Indeed, the torthcoming socia, economic, and political conditions will favour the zombies, ensuring their continued presence in our cultural agenda. Throughout several literary, cinematographic, serial fiction and video game cultural productions, this character has served as a symbolic representation of the individual at different times in history. Whether by harshly denouncing the olienaled or passive attitudes that human beings tend to adopt in certain situations, urging them to rebel against the system, or by portraying the zombie as a victim of human racial, gender, social, or class prejudices, and of their desire to exert power Over their own and other species. This book covers a wide range of topics concerning its universe, offering a complete study divided into six significant areas: 1. Power, Labour, and Economy 2. Ethics, Religion, and Sociely 3. Flesh, Bodies, and Gender 4. Politics and ldeology 5. Geographical Adaptations 6. Social and Cultural Manifestations.

Abstract This article describes and evaluates selected aspects of accounting and tax regime of the Czech trust fund. The Czech legislature has resolved the incompatibility between the private law nature of the trust fund and public law requirements through a series of pragmatic legal fictions, which treat the trust fund as a legal person for accounting and tax purposes. The article identifies the Czech tax model as a viable framework for use within a holding structure, whilst also highlighting the regulatory tension between the desire for discretion and the growing pressure for transparency under AML legislation.

This paper examines the Netflix series Ragnarok (2020-2024) through the lens of intermedial ecocriticism, focusing on the construction and implications of the "Teenage Climate Hero" trope.Drawing on Linda Haverty Rugg's theory of environmental guilt displacement and the intermedial framework of Niklas Salmose and Jrgen Bruhn, the study argues that Ragnarok displaces the responsibility for addressing the climate crisis onto adolescents, despite clearly identifying corporate and governmental actors as the primary culprits.By transmediating real-world ecological emergencies and youth climate activism-particularly as represented in the documentary Make the World Greta Again-into a mythological YA superhero narrative, the series both empowers and burdens its young protagonists.The paper explores how the series' narrative and visual strategies, including the use of Norse mythology and superhero tropes, obscure this displacement by framing environmental resistance as a heroic, individualistic quest.Ultimately, the series undermines its ecological message by concluding with a metafictional twist that renders the entire climate battle imaginary, thereby neutralizing the agency of its young heroes and reinforcing the problematic rhetoric that future generations alone must solve the climate crisis.

Video-on-demand (VOD) platforms revalue the production of fictional series, creating new identities that converge with the sexual diversity and multiculturalism of the Fourth Wave of Feminism. This study aims to verify whether the American series The Bold Type, described by critics as transgressive from a gender perspective, is based on the composition of its technical team, the portrayal of characters and the themes and issues addressed. The findings show a female predominance in creation and technical development, although there is underrepresentation in sectors such as postproduction and music. New roles and neo archetypes are also introduced, depicting self-sufficient, entrepreneurial women who are committed to and supportive of each other. New discussions about women’s health, as well as sexual, social, and labour demands, are introduced from a multicultural and sexual intersectionality perspective. The Bold Type depicts the serious issues of work‒life balance and the postponement or rejection of maternity, making it a feminist series in its content. However, it operates within a capitalist orbit that glorifies beauty and luxury, preventing understanding the diversity of these women in different socioeconomic contexts, which could offer new voices to the television landscape.

The internationally successful Nordic crime fiction series The Bridge/Bron/Broen (Sweden/Denmark, 2011–2018) takes place in the Öresund region, an area situated ‘in-between’ two neighbouring countries, Denmark and Sweden, and deals in various ways with issues related to ‘gaps’ between people and in the society. As a key representative of audiovisual Nordic noir, it is marked by dark and bleak imagery, a ‘whodunnit’ crime plot, and social commentary. But it also employs a notably ambiguous and idiosyncratic audiovisual style, central to which, as this article seeks to demonstrate, is the soundtrack, which consciously breaks conventional boundaries of music and sound design. In tandem with the other expressive and narrative modes, it creates a layer of ambiguity to the series that requires deciphering from the audience, opens outward to the world outside the story, and creates a liminal atmosphere that is symbolically concordant with the story and themes of the series.

“Hang the DJ” is the fourth episode of the fourth season of the science fiction series Black Mirror wherein the dating world is subjected to the signature thought-provoking lens for which the anthology is famed. In the episode couples are mechanically paired and unpaired by an authoritarian high-tech agency named The System which is ultimately revealed to be a highly advanced matchmaking app. It is my contention that the episode concomitantly reflects, reproduces, and destabilizes the dichotomization of love as either a disruptive “event” or a risk-averse form of intimacy.

With the increased international demand for TV drama and rise of global streamers as multi-territory buyers, small successful independent producers of European TV fiction have increasingly become takeaway targets for established and financially strong multinational media conglomerates. Against the background of corporate takeovers and consolidation, an important question is whether and how corporate ownership in the television production sector influences the independence of production companies and content creation, with potential implications for cultural diversity. This article relies upon data analysis of 192 TV drama productions in Denmark and Flanders, Belgium, to better understand the relationship between different corporate configurations of TV drama production companies and their access to domestic and transnational financiers. The study examines independent and consolidated companies engaged in productions across varied financing models, which include financing from public and private broadcasters, transnational streamers, and other financiers. The analysis on financiers involved in production indicates that in both markets transnational streamers financed the largest share of TV drama series from integrated production companies. In Flanders, global streaming platforms only produced fiction series in collaboration with domestic broadcasters as co-financiers, whereas in Denmark, streamers predominantly acted as sole financiers for TV drama productions. The findings indicate that traditional financiers in Flanders and Denmark are crucial in financing content produced by stand-alone indies. The article makes a theoretical contribution by examining the under-researched relationships between producers and financiers at the meso-level, focusing on production companies' ownership structures, the types of financiers involved in productions, and the potential implications for cultural diversity.

I propose an analysis of the dramaturgy of works of television serial fiction, conceived as a “Charge” it establishes for the staging of these formats—employing this very notion in line with what Michael Baxandall characterizes as “patterns of intention” of historical objects. Articulating the dramaturgical conception to the poetic profile of these works, I adopt David Bordwell’s and Jeremy G. Butler’s standpoints, to infer what the instance of staging of these works suggests about the specific role of the art of the script. As a testing ground, I analyze the dramaturgy of dialogue, in segmentsof episodes from two contemporary works in this field (Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, and Nic Pizzolatto’s True Detective): in both cases I seek to understand artistic matrices in which the composition of the voices of agents assign styles of staging, as well as the dramaturgical functions of the composition of the characters’ lines, in each of them.

Abstract In today’s television landscape, TV series increasingly respond to social changes and demands such as queer representation. As a result, LGBTQ + representation has become a focal point for audiovisual industry professionals and scholars. This research examines the presence and portrayal of LGBTQ + characters in American fiction series available on Max’s VoD (Video on Demand) catalog in Spain. Employing a quantitative methodology, a content analysis is carried out to determine the characteristics of queer characters and their alignment with archetypes based on the narrative contexts of their scenes. Findings show that 46% of the TV series in the sample feature LGBTQ + characters. The majority of characters are cisgender (81%) with a homosexual orientation (37%). However, trans and non-binary characters are represented at a significant rate relative to their historically limited presence in TV series. The study identifies three prevalent archetypes: the regular guy (21%), the outlaw (18%), and the lover (17%). However, no clear pattern arises linking gender identity and sexual and emotional orientation with a particular archetype. In conclusion, while this research reveals a positive trend in the inclusion of the LGTBIQ + community on the Max streaming platform, there remain some weaknesses regarding some gender identities and sexual orientations, especially in older characters. This research contributes to Queer TV Studies from the Archetypes Theory perspective to examine queer representation in streaming services, providing original and novel findings to this field of study.

Abstract The launch of the British Review of Reviews in 1890 saw an ambitious attempt by its editor, W. T. Stead, to reimagine the monthly miscellaneous magazine and the role of fiction within it. As the title suggests, its mission was to provide an overview of serial print, and it deployed forms of presentation that indexed, reduced, synthesized, and otherwise compressed large amounts of material for the reader. Like all other print materials, fiction was to be condensed in a bid to offer readers some engagement with fiction, but without the commitment of an extended serial rhythm. Condensed novels were one of the key features in the new monthly, which also sought to unite English-speaking readers across the globe. Stead’s vision was of a monthly that circulated far and wide and offered a universal medium through which to channel common ideas. This article explores Stead’s brief experiment with publishing condensed novels and notes that the failure of the experiment coincides with the decline of extended serial fiction in the magazines.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the current state of Young Adult (YA) and teen fiction in the Irish language, and how the Irish-language teen reader is catered to and represented by authors and publishers. The publishing of Irish-language YA fiction is a relatively small industry with a very broad target market from native speakers to second-language learners; the linguistic requirements vary hugely. This creates many challenges in terms of creating and retaining teen readers who have easy access and are inevitably attracted to the increasingly dominant and homogenised Anglo-American culture. The complexities of representing minority-language varieties and code-switching in teen fiction are discussed, the importance of both genre fiction and series fiction is explored, as well as diversity of character representation. The context in which Irish-language texts are read is examined, whether independently for pleasure or in an educational setting, as well as the impact of placing YA texts on secondary-school curricula. A variety of texts from authors such as Richie Conroy, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Anna Heussaff are discussed, and I demonstrate that, while there is still room for further developments, there has been much innovation in recent years in Irish-language YA fiction in various genres and in featuring diverse characters.