Television Competition Research Articles

“We’re all human/existential fish:” Fans Making Sense of Adore Leaving RuPaul’s Drag Race

ABSTRACT Our essay explores sensemaking in a subreddit called “r/rupaulsdragrace.” Specifically, we analyzed how fans made sense through online discussions after a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 2 (a reality television competition with drag queens) left the show early. Findings revealed that fans made sense of the events through enacting past frameworks, selecting specific messages to explain Adore (a contestant) leaving, and retaining messages over time. The implications of our findings show ways that fans make sense in online discussion boards and how both online platforms and celebrities can reduce the stigma around mental health.

Familiarity and Race Bias: Evidence from a Television Competition (and the Case for More Women Judges?)

Abstract While social interaction is claimed to help reduce racial bias, the evidence is mixed. We argue that not only interaction, but familiarity among agents may help reduce race bias. We use new data from MasterChef, a nationally syndicated television competition that cover 10 years. We find that familiarity does not help reduce race bias. When judges are all Caucasian they appear to favor Caucasian contestants and set back minority contestants in the final placements. Interestingly, we find an analogous finding with minority judges. Female judges are the only ones who show no bias.

Media Ecology: The Competition of Local Private Television on Seizing Audiences for Broadcasting Sustainability in South Kalimantan, Indonesia

Media ecology examined the interrelationships between the media and their supporting environment. This research article aimed to determine the category of life-support sources (niche breadth) and to measure the level of competition (niche overlap) of local private television in South Kalimantan in seizing for viewers. This research used a quantitative approach. Target audience data, as the main data, was obtained by data collection techniques in the form of a log book survey results or management estimates from each television. The collected data was processed using the niche breadth formula to determine the category of each television media, and the niche overlap formula to determine the level of television competition in seizing for its viewers. The findings showed that Duta TV was in the generalist category and Prima TV was in the specialist category. The niche overlap scores differed between a number of target audience types, where the level of competition in seizing for viewers between the two televisions was quite high in the gender category compared to the other four types of target audiences, namely age group, socioeconomic status, recent education, and occupation.

Drag Race to the Bottom?

Abstract RuPaul's Drag Race (RPDR) is a reality television competition program for drag queens that has continued to expand its popularity, both in the LGBT population and in wider audiences. Drag queens and their highlighting of performativity have long been notable for scholars of gender, while RPDR itself has steadily gained scholarly attention. Much of the literature, while acknowledging the potential for subversiveness, takes issue with its reproduction of hegemonic stereotypes. I review season 7, as well as the show's relation to some of the political economic elements of the drag industry, and suggest that the “policing” of drag, identified by Sarah Tucker Jenkins, may be eroding. In essence, RPDR has shown a decisive trend toward more stylistic liberty. This includes the liberty to break previously established rules around gender norms in performance. The show's greater popularity and profitability may enable this liberty.

Evaluation and expertise: The discourse of reality television competition scores

This paper examines the use of numbers as evaluatory systems in scoring the different types of performances found in reality TV competition formats. Conventionally, evaluation generally requires some form of expertise on the part of the evaluator, so to score a performance is to engage in a process of knowledgeable judgement, which is expressed numerically but also justified discursively. As evaluation becomes an increasingly pervasive social practice, no longer necessarily tied to specific domains of expertise, can any similarities be observed between the way that different categories of participants (those who are positioned as ‘experts’ and those positioned as ‘non-experts’), attribute discursive value to numbers when judging a performance in a competition reality show? How are these values articulated and framed across the different contexts for participation in each programme, as well as across different cultural contexts for the same TV format? In this paper, based on data from selected broadcasts from the UK and France, each with a different competitive environment (Strictly Come Dancing, Four in a Bed and Come Dine with Me/Un diner presque parfait), I argue that an understanding of relative values does seem to be shared across different contexts and among evaluators of different status, while being shaped by the specific mediated context of the scoring activity.

El cine durante la primera competencia televisiva española (1990-1994)

<p>Esta investigación analiza la programación cinematográfica emitida durante el inicio y primer desarrollo de la competencia televisiva (1990-1994) de ámbito nacional. Para ello, se toma en consideración la programación de las televisiones públicas, en las cadenas privadas y en los operadores de pago. Se tienen en cuenta los largometrajes emitidos en términos de su género, nacionalidad, inserción dentro de la rejilla; los ciclos programados y los programas cinematográficos más representativos, con el fin de observar su evolución, contenidos, características y su relación con la competencia.</p><p> </p>

THE MOJO IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

Digital technology has revolutionized the journalist's toolkit with affordable miniaturized still and video cameras for producing high-quality multimedia, and connection equipment enabling that content to be transmitted via satellite from almost anywhere on the globe for publication on the Internet. Two results have been the advent of news production by an innovative type of lone, multimedia reporter, known as a “mojo” (mobile journalist) or “sojo” (solo journalist), and an increasing focus on “hyper-local” news on media websites. In an era of heightened newspaper and television competition driven by steadily declining North American readership and viewer numbers, many media managers have embraced with enthusiasm the solo journalist—able to move fast and travel light, at lower cost than traditional news teams. This paper surveys the impact that developments in multimedia publishing have had on the news produced by such solo journalists. It finds evidence of degradation of the genre in some, but not all, cases and concludes that since the Pandora's box of mojo journalism has been opened, if used judiciously by journalists with sufficient experience, there is some hope that the new modalities may result in responsible journalism enriched with multifaceted storytelling.

Popular ‘Series’ Drama in Tv's Multichannel Age

Devised to introduce the themed section of this MIA issue and the ‘popular’ area of TV drama that is its focus, this paper examines the contemporary drama series form and outlines some key institutional and cultural conditions for its production in non-American countries.1 Interested in the commercial pressures being brought to bear on drama by intensifying prime-time competition and increasing audience fragmentation, the paper looks at how the series, in particular, has adapted to these. It assesses the contribution of three pervasive approaches to this area of drama: ‘recombination’ (Gitlin, 1994), ‘flexi-narrative’ (Nelson, 1997) and ‘must see-TV’ (Jankovich and Lyons, 2003). To foreground some specific challenges for locally produced drama in the emerging era of television ‘plenty’, a case study of New Zealand TV drama follows. Although its domestic TV drama has a 40-year tradition, New Zealand's efforts to maintain profile and diversity in this meta-genre have been frustrated by its position as a small, English-speaking country for whom leading American and British imports have been popular, affordable and available. Risky and commercially fragile in comparison with these imports, the position of New Zealand TV drama has never been guaranteed to the extent that it is reliant on the support and supply of public funding. Since the mid-1990s, these problems have combined with the challenges of multi-channel competition in television. While the resulting pressures have left some forms of local TV drama as ‘endangered species’, it is the popular, long-form genres — the drama series, soaps and sitcoms — that have shown the greatest resilience.

Television Reporters' Perceptions of How Television and Newspaper Competition Affects City Hall Coverage

A national sample of 303 television reporters found variations across markets in their perceptions of the effects of television competition on city hall coverage. However, respondents were nearly equally divided about whether television competition increased the number of city hall stories they produced, made it more difficult to find time to provide in-depth coverage of the beat, and caused them to report municipal government stories they otherwise might have missed. Competition from daily newspapers was believed to have more impact on certain facets of their city hall reporting than television competition.

Religion vs. television: competitors in cultural context

Competition Between Religion and Television: Basic Issues and Concerns Competition Between Religion and Television: Motives and Strategies Religious Television Competition Between Religion and Television: Competing Forms of Experience and Culture Bibliography Index

Economic Forces behind Newspapers' Increasing Use of Color and Graphics

A national random sample of 114 daily newspapers probed how economic factors, such as competition and ownership, affect the use of new technology for color and graphics. Regression analysis showed newspaper competition had a significant impact on newspapers' use of color and graphics. Television competition had no impact. The number of newspapers in a group had a limited relationship to the use of graphics and color.

Monopoly and Competition in Television: Some Policy Issues1

Monopoly and Competition in Television: Some Policy Issues¹