Television Documentary Series Research Articles

Observing weight stigma in the editing of UK factual welfare programming

ABSTRACT Media representations of fat and weight play a central role in the circulation of weight stigma. However, the production practices involved have received little attention. This paper focuses on the editing techniques deployed in a UK reality television documentary series, On Benefits. Our analysis of cutaway shots suggests a quantitative and qualitative difference between an episode featuring “obese” people claiming welfare, compared to the rest in our sample. We examine the cutaways to show how weight stigma intersects with welfare stigma on the grounds of self-control. We conclude that images of bodies, food, and medical aides mobilize weight stigma to overdetermine welfare claimants as underserving while casting suspicion about the purpose of state welfare in the UK.

“Dear Professor”: Exploring Lay Comments to Milton Friedman

While previous research on the rise of neoliberalism has focused on elite networks of economists, politicians, journalists, and business leaders, this article investigates the attractiveness of Milton Friedman's ideas at the time of the neoliberal breakthrough from a bottom-up perspective. A close reading of mostly favorable letters by two hundred viewers in response to the 1980 television documentary series Free to Choose indicates that neoliberalism's popular legitimacy was based on a broad yet fragile coalition. Four different and in many ways contradictory viewer narratives can be distilled from the letters: (i) a conservative narrative, (ii) a reactionary narrative, (iii) a left libertarian narrative, and (iv) a populist narrative. Although in 1980 Friedman was, and today still is, perceived as a conservative economist, the letters show that under the surface of public debate his reach as a public intellectual far exceeded the realms of postwar conservatism as Friedman was supported by people who were situated further to the right and the left. Perhaps more than the elite sources of the neoliberal project, Friedman's lay reception thus highlights neoliberalism's complex and contradictory history in a plastic manner.

Multimedia auteurism in early television documentary: Japan Unmasked and Non-Fiction Theatre

ABSTRACT With the rise of television in late 1950s and 1960s Japan, television documentary became the focus of multiple debates as a fledgling genre. This article examines two television documentary series, Japan Unmasked (Nihon no sugao) and Non-Fiction Theatre (Non-fikushon gekijō), and the discourse surrounding them, particularly the Japan Unmasked debate. In the debate, Hani Susumu emphasized that the political significance of television documentary lies in amateurs’ attempts to capture their experiences using the unfamiliar camera and microphone. This emphasis on amateurism, however, involved problems: the growth of amateurs into professionals and their loss of an autonomous position within the corporate structure. Calling upon the legacy of left-wing political avant-garde work, Ushiyama Jun’ichi, the father of Non-Fiction Theatre, responded to the issue by inviting filmmakers with political voices such as Ōshima Nagisa to television documentary. The debates, from amateurism in Japan Unmasked to auteurism in Non-Fiction Theatre, sought the political possibility of television documentary as a changing force on people’s views towards the everyday world. This article argues that the resulting implementation of multimedia auteurism, television documentary made by a political auteur, was integral to continuing audio-visual experimentation in the new-born genre, which was in danger of being lost in the development of the television industry.

True victims: men’s privilege, class, and violence against women in Making a Murderer and The Jinx

ABSTRACT Portrayals of accused men in the true crime television (TV) documentary series Making a Murderer (2015) and The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (2015) mark a key historical moment for voiceless female murder victims. We mark this moment by considering how class politics plays out for Steven Avery and Robert Durst when it is part of the relative storytelling privilege they enjoy. Our study emphasises this privilege as an acute form of entitlement that is assured for men across the intersections of class, gender, and whiteness. To do this, we see Avery and Durst portrayed as underdogs in the American criminal justice system and observe their worlds-apart socioeconomic status coalescing with gendered justice. Our argument extends existing scholarship on the series, and true crime TV about men’s violence against women, by insisting that screen and social agency for accused men is a particular privilege afforded by mediated culture. Its creation of men as symbolic victims risks excusing violence against women by focusing on perpetrating men’s troubled lives as explanations for their crimes.

Hospitality training as a means of independence for young adults with learning disabilities

Hospitality training as a means of independence for young adults with learning disabilities

Mediatizing neoliberalism: the discursive construction of education’s ‘future’

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses how the chronotopic nature of media representations serves as an important site for naturalizing a neoliberal vision of the future. Through an analysis of two media texts—first, the Korean television documentary series Myeonggyeon Manli, and second, a promotional video for a student career center at a Singaporean university—it shows how they both rely on a representation of the future as a time-space that radically breaks from the present, and how this distinct future chronotope works to rationalize neoliberal transformations of education that are taking place in the here and now.

WILD WILD COUNTRY. Six‐part television documentary series. Created by Chapman and Maclain Way. Produced by Netflix, 2018.

WILD WILD COUNTRY. Six‐part television documentary series. Created by Chapman and Maclain Way. Produced by Netflix, 2018.

Representations of hospitality at The Special Needs Hotel

Norms of ‘professionalism’ expected by the hospitality industry may create unrealistic and problematic expectations for employing people with learning disabilities. This study provides a first consideration of hospitality training for young people with learning difficulties. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the popular television documentary series The Special Needs Hotel, generating two key themes: hospitality as achieving independence; and hospitality as expectations. Hospitality training is seen as a means of enabling ‘independence’ for young people with learning disabilities with strategies used to ensure the trainees meet the necessary ‘expectations’ and requirements of hospitality work. However, this positive representation contrasts with the struggles, fear and realities of independence and hospitality work for the trainees themselves. Contributing to discourses of representation and notions of inclusion and exclusion in hospitality, this study provides an opportunity to review and vary what is expected of hospitality work to increase employment for people with disabilities.

Aging effects on voice features used in forensic speaker comparison

This article assesses the impact of long-term non-contemporaneity between recordings on the strength of forensic voice evidence and provides recommendations for casework. Analyses of longitudinal recordings from a British television documentary series illustrate the effects of aging on forensically useful acoustic parameters. Recordings from eight speakers span five seven-year intervals, between ages 21 and 49. The frequency of the first three formants of nine monophthongs and two diphthongs decrease over time. Strength of evidence estimates for non-contemporaneous comparisons are calculated from these data using a likelihood ratio approach. Longer delays predictably result in weaker and fewer correct LRs. The effect of aging on the performance of an ASR system (BATVOX) is tested; performance varies between speakers, but deteriorates considerably in longer delays for all speakers. Findings from this and similar studies should be considered when carrying out formant- or ASR-based comparisons across long delays, and in selecting age-appropriate reference data.

London trust enjoys boost in job applicants thanks to television documentary series.

A major London hospital trust that was the subject of a hit TV documentary series has seen a surge in nurses and other staff applying to work there.

JUGONOSTALGIJA U TELEVIZIJSKOJ DOKUMENTARNOJ SERIJI „SFRJ ZA POČETNIKE”

Cilj istraživanja u ovom radu bio je da se kroz analizu diskursa upotrebe sećanja i rekonstrukcije slika u oblikovanju narativnih obrazaca u televizijskoj dokumentarno-zabavnoj seriji „SFRJ za početnike” istraži na koji način se u ovoj vrsti medijskog sadržaja predstavlja jugonostalgija. Da li je u pitanju jeftina i banalizovana prodaja jugoslovenskog sentimenta i utopijska projekcija nečega što nije bilo, da li se lične emocije učesnika i osećaji nadnacionalnog identiteta neminovno izjednačavaju sa komunističkom ideologijom ili sećanja protagonista na proživljeno iskustvo, kao i na celokupan sistem vrednosti na čijim temeljima su sagledavali svet oko sebe, ipak, nosi značenjske odrednice jugonostalgije kao produktivne kategorije. Rezultati istraživanja pokazuju da analizirana televizijska serija, uprkos zabavnom i humorističkom, ima jasno izražen i diskurs kritičkih kontranarativa koji povrđuju tezu o ispravnosti posmatranja jugonostalgije kao strategije otpora nacionalizmu i kritike urušenog sistema vrednosti u tranzicijskim postjugoslovenskim društvima. Kao važan edukativni medijski sadržaj „SFRJ za početnke” predstavlja poveznicu sa zajedničkim kulturnim nasleđem socijalističke Jugoslavije i nadogradnju terapijskom procesu dekontaminacije sećanja čija konfiskacija je izvršena devedesetih godina pred naletom nacionalističke ideologije u novoosnovanim državama na Zapadnom Balkanu.

‘Long live the friendship between the Soviet Union and Finland!’ Irony, nostalgia, and melodrama in Finnish historical television drama and documentary series

In critical studies on historical television programmes, the affective qualities of televisual memory have been discussed mainly in terms of nostalgia. This article argues that conceptualizing the affective modes of relating to the past in more varied ways can help us to better understand the politics of memory on television. As a case study, the article analyses Finnish Broadcasting Company Yleisradio’s historical drama and documentary series that deal with the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union. The article identifies three affective modes in the programmes: irony, nostalgia and melodrama. Each of these modes offers different possibilities for critiquing, understanding and justifying the past. By studying televisual memories of the Soviet Union in a non-socialist country with important political, economic and cultural ties with the socialist bloc, the article moreover questions a clear East–West binary in studies on post-socialist memory.

"Once upon a Time in … ethnocratic Australia: migration, refugees, diversity and contested discourses of inclusion "

To what extent can Australia be analysed as an ‘ethnocracy’, a term usually reserved for ostensibly democratic societies in which an ethnic group or groups control the life opportunities of a more widely ethnically diverse population? Australia adopted its first refugee policy in 1977 having been forced to address the humanitarian claims of Asian and Middle Eastern refugees. Only a few years after abandoning the White Australia policy of three generations, the public discourse about refugees was framed by the ethnic origins of these groups (primarily Vietnamese and Lebanese). Over the decades a utopian light has come to be cast on the Indo Chinese as a success story in settlement, while the Middle Eastern peoples have been shaded as a settlement failure. Yet the counter narratives developed in the SBS television documentary series “Once Upon a Time...” demonstrate how ethnocratic framing can be challenged and more nuanced and analytical discourses introduced into the public sphere.

Documentary incursions into New Zealand’s multiculturalism: The case of Here to Stay

Abstract This article examines the New Zealand television documentary series Here to Stay (2007–2008) and its construction of Pacific, Chinese and Indian identities in the context of New Zealand’s multiculturalism. It argues that the series introduces new ways of looking at the country’s multicultural make-up, which appear to suggest a shift from previous documentary productions, but eventually makes a number of slippages in its presentation of such communities that continue to reinforce similar notions of national identity. I consider three aspects in particular: the contradictions between the celebratory and the critical contents of the narrative; the simultaneous construction of Chinese, Pacific or Indian identities as both diverse and homogeneous; and the tensions between the series’ superficial construction of multiculturalism and the narrative’s explicit or implicit critique of such constructions. Whereas these ambivalences seem to reflect official approaches to the management of multiculturalism, revealing the unresolved tensions between the requirements of commercial television and the role of documentary in the formation of national identity, I argue that they can nevertheless serve to engage viewers in a critical revision of superficial constructions of the multicultural.

‘If this was a human…’

The television documentary series The Supervet (Channel 4, 2014–) follows the eponymous Noel Fitzpatrick as he carries out experimental surgery on animals seemingly beyond help. This article examines the series in order to explore how this programme depicts animal medicine. Drawing on animal studies approaches, it argues that the programme foregrounds the humans rather than the animals, and, in its focus on surgery, legitimizes humans’ dominance of other species. In doing so, it argues that television’s representational strategies struggle with offering depictions that are not human centred.

Making The war that changed us: Notes from the frontline of history, television and military remembrance

The war that changed us, produced by Electric Pictures, directed by Don Featherstone, and co-written by Don Featherstone and Clare Wright, aired on ABC1 in July 2014. This essay reflects on the role of the professional historian in the process of developing and writing a four-part television documentary series to commemorate the centenary of World War I. It explores the conflicts and collaborations required to bring to the small screen an enormous story with huge implications for current political debates about remembrance, patriotism and the function of the national broadcaster.

Koreanizing Marriage Migrant Women: A Critical Review of Damunhwa Gobuyeoljeon

During the first decade of the 21st century, the increase of interethnic marriages between Korean men and Southeast Asian women was a sensational phenomenon in Korea, where there was a strong sentiment of ethnic nationalism. Instantly, these so-called “multicultural families” — damunhwa gajok in Korean — have represented the multiculturalism of Korea, and they received nationwide attention. Recently, the pre-existing images of marriage migrant women have changed into more complex images on television. The documentary series on Korea’s Education Broadcasting System (EBS), titled Damunhwa Gobuyeoljeon, illustrate those shifting images. The paper critically examines this television documentary series following the principal concepts of discursive psychology. As a result, the program’s demographic features show that the program has reinforced the representation of multicultural families in terms of gender, class, and ethnicity. Shifting representations of marriage migrant women in each episode reflect the ways in which the show creates, negotiates, and represents an idealistic standard of the foreign daughter-in-law. The paper argues that hyo (filial piety) ideology has predominantly influenced the ways that the program interprets participants’ characteristics and behaviors throughout the episodes.

Valuing Architecture: Taste, Aesthetics and the Cultural Mediation of Architecture through Television

In this paper we examine how architecture has been mediated and framed by two television documentary series: Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark (1969) and Grand Designs (1999–present). Both are examples of authored documentary', and both also attempt the education of public taste: in Civilisation through the structured admiration of great civic buildings framed as monumental art, and in Grand Designs through desirable domestic buildings framed as instruments for the art of living. In the paper we examine how the series can be both linked and distinguished through practices of valuation.

From politics to nostalgia – and back to politics: Tracing the shifts in the filmic depiction of the Greek 'long 1960s' over time

<p>A number of Greek feature films in the 1990s and early 2000s – from <em>End of an Era </em>to <em>Uranya</em> – created a standard depiction of the Colonels’ dictatorship as an era filled with bittersweet adolescent memories. <em>The Comedy of the Junta: The Light Side of a Dark Era</em>, a recent documentary produced in April 2010 by Elias Kanellis, presented it as a laughable farce. More importantly, even, this period was treated as distant and definitely over. Almost from the onset of the economic crisis, we may say that there is a change of paradigm regarding the use of the junta and a radical departure from both the grotesque and the nostalgic view. Rather, its more brutal aspects began to be stressed in a thinly veiled attempt to highlight the continuities between past and present, the police violence and authoritarian practices of the 1967–74 era and that of the 2010–12 one – best encompassed in the popular slogan of the Indignados “The Junta did not end in ’73”. Typical examples are Fotos Lambrinos’ television documentary series <em>It's just a junta, will it pass?</em> and Alinda Dimitrious’s documentary<em> The Girls of the Rain</em> (2011). This article traces this shift and its poetics, focusing on various representative examples of both tendencies and the ways in which they sought to create a certain form of public memory.</p>

A Personal View

The following article is a personal reminiscence of the planning and making of the 24-part television documentary series Cold War (CNN, 1998–9). It reveals the vision of TV mogul Ted Turner in getting a series made on what many felt to be an unpopular subject, the influence of the award-winning British television documentary series The World at War (1973–4), and the contribution of the producer Jeremy Issacs, who was behind both series. Cold War was able to take advantage of recent access to former Eastern bloc archives and drew on the expertise and authority of young Cold War historians. The article considers the initial broadcasting of the series and its impact.