Experimental Video Research Articles

Characters and Historical Facts: An Aesthetic Analysis of the Modern Chinese Historical Television Drama the Age of Awakening

Characters and Historical Facts: An Aesthetic Analysis of the Modern Chinese Historical Television Drama the Age of Awakening

Women’s Television Histories: Locating Women’s Role in Emerging and Developing International Television

This special issue aims to take steps towards the internationalisation of scholarship on women’s television by drawing together articles on different national contexts of television and detailing the experiences of women in various national and historical television ecologies and economies. This is, of course, merely a step, since no one issue can attend to the breadth of women’s experiences in the many national television organisations and roles. Scholarship in anglophone, Global North and Western countries has been enabled because of the confluence of various factors including: fairly stable employment prospects for academics comparable, for example, to Global South scholars; the availability of funding for such scholars to undertake travel to conferences and network with scholars; the availability of research on the topic of women’s media histories because it is in English language and universities have the library resources. Therefore, the history of women’s work in these national contexts has begun to be told but there is a pressing need for attention to, and recognition of, scholarship beyond the limited context of anglophone territories.

The (im)possibility of communication with nonhuman beings: with digital screen printing of luminous bacteria

In the current media environment, John Durham Peters emphasizes the importance of non-verbal communication and notes that underpinned by digital technology, “media” is returning to its original meaning as the milieu that surrounds living beings. To concretize and critically discuss this idea, this paper examines the artworks created by the authors, which incorporate microorganisms into digital technology. These works applied luminous bacteria as ink to digitally screen print text and images. The first work, A Medium for Images or Luminous Bacteria (2022), prints Japanese text with luminous bacteria ink. The second work, ‘イ(I)’ (1926) by BioLuminescent Bacteria (2024), recreates the first image in the history of Japanese television, ‘イ(I)’, with luminous bacteria. This paper compares and analyzes these practices in light of classical media theory, including the work of William Ivins Jr. and Marshall McLuhan. The paper introduces another work, Grow.|Glow. (2023), to further expand the discussion to contemporary digital media. Finally, drawing on the recent arguments of Anna Tsing and Antonio Damasio, we elucidate the critical implications that the works of luminous bacteria bring to the current media environment.

Mass media exposure and sociodemographic factors associated with malaria vaccine awareness among women of childbearing age in Ghana

BackgroundThe development, approval and adoption of the malaria vaccine has provided effective supplemental protection against malaria for children in Ghana. However, heightened awareness of the new vaccine will play a critical role in its mass deployment and acceptance among potential recipients. This study therefore determined the sociodemographic characteristics associated with malaria vaccine awareness and ascertained the influence of traditional media exposure on awareness in Ghana.MethodsThe study used the Demographic and Health Survey 2019 Malaria Indicator Survey Data. After necessary recoding, chi-square and complex survey bivariate/multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed using STATA 18.0.ResultsAmong the participants, 35.65% (95% CI: 33.83%–37.51%) had heard about the malaria vaccine. Positive predictors of awareness included higher education attainment (AOR = 1.92, 95% CI: 1.28–2.88), rural residency (AOR = 1.28, 95% CI: 1.05–1.56) and being in the northern part of the country (AOR 1.54, 95% CI: 1.14–2.07). Other positive predictors of awareness were Guan ethnicity (AOR = 1.75, 95% CI: 1.09–2.81), malaria health education (AOR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.45–2.07) and radio set ownership (AOR = 1.39, 95% CI: 1.19–1.62). Television ownership (AOR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.69–1.01) showed no significant relationship with awareness.ConclusionThe general nationwide awareness has not yet reached a desirable level. This study suggests that, the awareness drive, preferably through radio campaigns, must target individuals with less than tertiary education and urban communities. Awareness campaigns on televisions should be evaluated and possibly redesigned for effectiveness.

‘Fully authenticated by respected scientists’: fact, fiction, and the roots of paranormal reality shows in American television history

ABSTRACT Paranormal reality shows have been a ubiquitous presence on American television since its inception, though they have not been widely studied in scholarship on reality TV and television history more broadly. This essay sets out to highlight how two of the earliest paranormal reality programs, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond and In Search Of…, adopted various elements of documentary style and direct audience address in order to create a sense of realism and immediacy for viewers. The essay also illustrates how these early paranormal reality shows expose the tension between fact and fiction at the heart of the reality show genre by exploring it directly rather than obliquely. In addition to putting these shows into conversation with existing scholarship on reality television style and the concept of televisual realism, the essay also contributes to what might be considered a lost history of paranormal reality programming in the U.S., arguing that these shows should be studied as key elements of reality TV’s history.

Pasta, Pizza and Propaganda: A Political History of Italian Food TV, Francesco Buscemi (2022)

Review of: Pasta, Pizza and Propaganda: A Political History of Italian Food TV, Francesco Buscemi (2022) Bristol: Intellect, 170 pp., ISBN 978-1-78938-406-2, h/bk, £85.00

Russian regional television: formation and development of the national TV channel “Sakha”

RELEVANCE. The study examined the processes of formation and development of the national television channel “Sakha” (broadcasting territory – the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)). Based on materials from regulatory documents and publications in periodicals, the author systematizes the creation and functioning of a national regional television channel. The chronological scope of the study (from 2002 to 2012) is determined by the following factors: 2002 – the opening of the republican television broadcasting channel in the region, 2012 – the beginning of the formation of a new infrastructure of Russian television in connection with the transition to digital broadcasting. Purpose of the study: to analyze and record the stages of formation of the national television channel in Yakutia in the period from creation to the transition to digital broadcasting.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The empirical base of the study consists of periodicals stored in the National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) named after A.S. Pushkin, which reflect the events of the period under study, as well as materials from regulatory documents. The study used comparative historical analysis and a systematic method.RESULT AND DISCUSSION. The analysis made it possible to reveal that the state policy of the region actively contributed to the development of regional television of the period under study by updating and expanding its material and technical base, which led to an improvement in indicators at various levels - an increase in broadcasting volumes, an increase in the number of television programs in the Yakut language, as well as the creation of a fundamentally different from the post-Soviet model of the TV channel concept.CONCLUSION. The results of the study may be useful for further study of the history of television in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the context of the overall development of the modern media system of the region and the country as a whole.

Television, Animals, and History: The Early Years of the BBC

Animals have been a part of television’s offerings since its inception. Yet animals are largely absent in television’s histories; indeed, animals are largely absent in most histories, with history itself a practice that reproduces anthropocentrism. But animal histories remain methodologically problematic, given the kinds of records usually understood as historical evidence are not those produced by non-humans. And recent attempts to widen television’s histories have adopted methods – such as oral histories – that inadvertently reinforce animal exclusion, given non-humans lack of access to human-centred notions of communication and speech. This paper begins rectifying this omission, through analysis of the BBC’s early output and the purposes to which animals were put during this period. It captures how animals were enmeshed within that early experimental broadcasting, when programme-makers were still conceptualising what television was for and what attractions it could offer its viewers. That animals were drawn on as part of this process indicates how non-humans are enmeshed in anthropocentric representational strategies: and that television histories have usually all but ignored animals indicates how history as a process functions to legitimise anthropocentrism.

Locating Medical Television

Medical television programmes, across their history, have had specific relationships to places and spaces. On one level, they have represented medical and health places, such as, consulting rooms, hospitals, the home, community spaces, public health infrastructures, etc. Television producers have represented these places, in line with the capabilities of television technologies and grammars. Moreover, producers have borrowed their images of medical and health places from other media (film, photographs, museum displays, etc.) and integrated, adjusted and reformulated them into their work. But medical television has also worked spatially in the political sense of being broadcast internationally, nationally, and locally; therein interacting with differing regimes and polities. This facet includes regional and local broadcasting, as well as public-private divides, including pay television, advertisement and audience measurement. On both levels, medical television programmes have served to represent familiar and unfamiliar locations and medical modes to patients and medical or health practitioners. This issue of Media History on medical television follows the conference of the same title, Locating Medical Television, organised in the framework of the ERC funded BodyCapital project and the Science Museum London. It intends to locate medical television more precisely; to engage (medical) TV history with recent questions concerning the relevance of space within and beyond national borders.

Pause and Rewind: Forgotten Histories of Television

Pause and Rewind: Forgotten Histories of Television

The pioneers, historical pages and golden pillars of the silver screen

The article provides a review of the monograph “Tatarstan televideniese: telefottan alyp tsifly tehnologiyalerge” (Television of Tatarstan: From Telephot to Digital Technologies) by Kazan Federal University Professor R. Dautova and KNRTU-KAI Researcher M. Shleimovich. The monograph, dedicated to the history of Tatarstan television, conducts a detailed analysis of the television in terms of its creative and technological development. The review notes that the book widely covers the activities of the people who made a huge contribution to the emergence of television, but whose names are still little known.

The Strawpeople of Russian, Eastern European, and Soviet History in English-Language TV and Film

Abstract This special issue features historical scholars of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union analyzing representations of Russian and East European characters and history in contemporary Anglophone television and films, such as The Americans, Black Widow, The Great, For All Mankind, and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. They identify several tropes that shore up Anglosphere conceptions of progressiveness, liberalism, feminism, and even whiteness in ways that put pressure on geopolitics today, which some have characterized as a second Cold War. Gender and sexuality are dominant themes through which difference between the West and Eastern Europe is commonly staged onscreen. Debate emerges on whether this is a return to twentieth-century thinking or a new vision of Russian and East European otherness.

Sitcom as refuge, sitcom as prison: Nostalgia, anti‐nostalgia, and the embedded multi‐camera sitcom inWandaVisionandKevin Can F**k Himself

AbstractThis article claims that the recent trend in television and web streaming drama series to feature segments shot in the style of a multi‐camera sitcom, a phenomenon which is termed “embedded sitcom,” reflects the current popularity of nostalgia in popular culture. Situating the sitcom in the context of television history and theories of nostalgia, the article argues that embedded sitcom reveals the nostalgic quality of the sitcom genre as well as of the medium of television, and negotiates a larger cultural conflict between the lucrative potency of nostalgia for past media formats and a wariness of nostalgia as politically regressive.

Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in Saudi Arabia and Its Association with Socioeconomic Status and Depression.

Background and Objectives: Several RCTs have reported significant reductions in depression symptoms with the Mediterranean diet (MedDiet), but observational studies have reported inconsistent findings. Moreover, studies have rarely investigated the mediating role of socioeconomic status (SES), including objective material status, in adherence to the MedDiet and its impact on depressive symptoms in the same population. Therefore, this cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between adherence to the MedDiet, socioeconomic factors, and depression severity. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted between June and December 2022 across Saudia Arabia. The snowball sampling technique was used to recruit participants aged ≥18 years. Mediterranean diet adherence screener (MEDAS) and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) were used to assess adherence to the MedDiet and depression severity. An SES index, validated in the Saudi Arabian context, was used to assess SES. The data were analyzed using the Chi-square and Pearson's correlation tests. Results: Only 21% of our study population (n = 467) was MedDiet adherent. Adherence was significantly associated with education (p = 0.014) but not employment status among traditional SES indicators. Similarly, only television ownership (p = 0.009) was associated with MedDiet adherence among the 20 objective material possessions investigated. Nonetheless, the MedDiet-adherent group had a significantly lower PHQ-9 score than the non-adherent group (6.16 ± 0.68 vs. 8.35 ± 0.31, p = 0.002). A moderate but significantly negative correlation between MEDAS and PHQ-9 scores (r = -0.16, p = 0.001) was noted. Conclusions: MedDiet adherence was associated with lower depression severity scores. In addition to education and television ownership, adherence was not associated with any objective indicators of SES.

Era of the Individual Viewer? Taste, Value, and Creative Media Work in India’s Streaming Industries

How do key players in Bombay’s screen industries—producers, directors, writers, and business developers—understand, imagine, and navigate the dizzying new world of streaming platforms in India? Tracking the emergence of symbiotic relationships between new streaming platforms and established media professionals, I discuss how a restructuring of industry dynamics is elemental to the processes of cultural legitimation of new streaming tastes and the reconfigurations of the relationships between texts, industries, and audiences. Through case studies of a few prominent creative professionals associated in various capacities with global and local streaming platforms, I sketch the multiple linkages between contemporary streaming cultures and the structural histories of both film and television in the subcontinent. Ultimately, this article argues that media workers’ self-reflexivity and theorizations about the industry-in-digital transit help us not only grasp the heterogeneity of this moment, but also trace notions of value and taste in Bombay’s emerging digital media ecologies.

Constructing the Sony Watchman Pocket Television: Personalization, Spatial Agency, and the Conundrum of the Mobile Idler

ABSTRACT: In this article, I detail a material history of the Sony Watchman pocket television (released in 1982), demonstrating that the competition between Sony and other manufacturers to create viable miniaturized displays during the 1980s and early 1990s was catalytic for the development of television technology. I then analyze how the Watchman was made meaningful through ad campaigns. By incorporating some of the lifestylizing tactics of the Sony Walk-man music player while, somewhat disjunctively, negotiating the low-brow cultural status of television and its most dedicated viewers, marketing for the Watchman entailed a negotiation of the broader cultural disposition toward television as a medium.

Empirical evidence for economic viability of direct seeded rice in peninsular India: An action-based research

PurposeThis study identified critical constraints in technology adoption for Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) compared with puddled transplanted rice (PTR) practices. We present the impact of DSR technology adoption on paddy yield, income generation, and cost incurred on various farm operations. Furthermore, the study investigates whether a dry DSR practice provides more economic and production benefits than a wet DSR. MethodologyWe used a multi-stage sampling (from state to district-to-village-to-farmers) and conducted a face-to-face questionnaire survey to collect primary farm-level data. We collected 669 farm and household-level data and analyzed the impact of DSR and dry DSR adoption over PTR and wet DSR, respectively. Initially, the study employed probit regression analysis to identify the DSR adoption determinants. Subsequently, using the Propensity Score Matching approach, the study measures the impact of DSR adoption over PTR in terms of yield, income, and cost management. Finally, using the PSM approach, the study estimated the impact of dry DSR adoption over wet DSR. FindingsProbit estimates suggest that variables like education, membership in farmers' organizations, farm experience, institutional credit, crop insurance, off-farm income, and smartphone and television ownership positively regulate DSR adoption. The impact assessment analysis reveals that the adoption of DSR over PTR results in marginal yield improvement. However, the cost of irrigation, land preparation, and fertilization is significantly lower in DSR, resulting in an additional income of ₹5192/acre for DSR adopters. Moreover, a comparative analysis between dry DSR and wet DSR indicates that farmers can achieve ₹2467/acre by adopting dry DSR. Practical implicationsOur research findings designate the necessity for implementing policies and strategies to promote the adoption of DSR among non-adopters. Besides economic benefits, adopting the DSR method can yield environmental benefits, improve soil health, mitigate soil erosion, and decrease water use.

Smartphones and attitudes to intimate partner violence: Evidence from Africa

AbstractThis paper, using data from the Afrobarometer surveys, examines the potential for smartphones to influence attitudes to intimate partner violence (IPV). Controlling for ownership of television and radio, we find that those living in areas with a higher incidence of smartphone ownership are more likely to state that it is never justifiable for a man to beat his wife. This is the case for both male and female respondents. We find that the strength of the association between regional smartphone proliferation and attitudes to IPV is similar for those who frequently get news from social media and those who get news from elsewhere. This suggests that our results are not driven entirely by personal social media use. Finally, we only find a statistically significant relationship for those who are socially conservative.

COVID-19 and child education outcomes in Southern Ghana

This study analyses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on child education outcomes by providing evidence on the gendered dimension, determinants and coping measures of informal households in Southern Ghana. We rely on a face-to-face interview undertaken in January 2022 (i.e., approximately 2 years after the beginning of the pandemic) involving 761 students across basic and secondary schools from 10 metropolitan, municipality and district assemblies (MMDAs) in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. We document several disruptions to child education outcomes such as learning practices, school attendance, class participation and academic performance. The results also showed that per child education expenditure incurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic by the informal households was GHS305 (US$ 49). Additionally, we assess the correlates of the negative effects on academic performance and COVID-19 related education expenditure as a result of coping measures. Our results from Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) show strong association between participation in online classes, age of students, ownership of television and district of residence on COVID-19 related education expenditure. Results from Logit models show that self-reported negative effects of COVID-19 pandemic on academic performance are affected by gender and age of student, distance to market and location of residence. Interestingly, we also found considerable gendered heterogeneity for the predictors of the COVID-19 pandemic on child education outcomes. We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated countermeasures had negative effects on child education outcomes, and that informal households incurred considerable costs in attempting to address the associated education challenges in Southern Ghana. The findings have implications on the design and implementation of educational policies and programs to address the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on child education outcomes in developing countries.

Examining Digital Divide in Secondary and Primary Education Online Content Users Based in Tanzania

This paper determined the digital divide among secondary and primary education online platforms in Tanzania. The study addressed three key aspects: first, it determined the contribution of facilitating conditions in the digital divide among secondary and primary school learners. Secondly, it determined how the quality of existing secondary and primary education digital platforms defines the current status of the digital divide. Lastly, the study provides steps to be taken by stakeholders of education in addressing the digital divide in the context of secondary and primary education. The study used the qualitative approach. First, it used government reports and other organisational publications to obtain statistical information on facilitating conditions for educational digital services. Secondly, it studied 302 online reviews by users of seven (7) digital platforms for secondary and primary education contents in Tanzania. In the first set of results facilitating conditions such as ownership of smartphones, computers, Televisions, and access to the Internet still contribute to the digital divide among users of secondary and primary education platforms. In the second set of reviews, the study observed the following nature of reviews submitted by users to studied online platforms. The first category had a positive view of digital platforms. This is a positive view submitted to the platform on its usefulness. In all platforms, users were of the view that the platforms were useful. Another category was that of poor technical quality. This view reflects the perception of viewers that the quality of the accessed platform was poor. In this category, users were more uncomfortable with the inability of the platform to launch appropriately. The third category was about the quality of the contents. In all platforms, users suggested that the contents were inadequate. With the guidance of policies, all stakeholders need to engage together in addressing observed issues of the digital divide.