importance of diversity television programme
158210874
Children of the world on British television: national and transnational representations
This article analyses comparative representations of childhood in British television programmes shortly after 1968, focusing on transnational broadcasting and international co productions. Television played a relatively conservative role, limited to programmes associated with pedagogical, public service aims. However, programmes engaged with adults' insight into the importance of listening to children and attributing them with greater agency and voice, recognition of diversity in children's culture, and the need to communicate with both adults and children about social problems, not least of which were problems affecting children themselves. Comparative representations of British childhoods had already been made for British television, the most celebrated being the documentary series 7 Up (1964 It follows the life stories of the same seven year old children from different social classes and geographical locations around the UK, for a new programme every seven years. In the 1971 edition the children were asked their views about politics, race and sex, implicitly critiquing British class privilege and opportunity, and expressing a desire for social change linked with experiences of childhood. However, transnational projects representing and comparing British childhoods with those in other nations rarely appeared on British television. The live broadcast Children of the World (1971) hosted by US actor and UNICEF representative Danny Kaye, representing children's lives in 45 countries, fitted a model for upbeat global simulcasts exemplified by Our World (1967) and was produced by an international consortium including the BBC in Britain, but it was not screened within Britain. Programmes made for children did investigate and compare childhoods in different countries, however. The 1971 BBC television series If You Were Me, an international co production, showed boys and girls from different countries swapping lives with each other, foregrounding similarity and difference. The British commercial ITV channel used a 1971 French film to launch an educational series for adults, Children to Children (1973) addressing childhood as experienced in various national contexts. Its short documentaries of widely differing styles were part of an outward looking agenda preceding Britain's entry into the Common Market. With reference to these examples, the article assesses the significance of the internationalization and universalization associated with 1968, inasmuch as it underlay television representations of childhood.
Jonathan Bignell
10705612
The Importance of Service and Genre in Recommendations for Online Radio and Television Programmes
The BBC iPlayer is an online delivery system for both radio and television content [1] One of the unique features of the iPlayer is that programming is based around a seven day "catch up" window. This paper documents some early investigations into features that may be used to produce quality recommendations for that system. The two features explored here, services and genre, are partly unique to BBC metadata, and are available for all programmes in the schedule. Services are roughly equivalent to channels or stations, while genres are editorially assigned categorisations of media content. Results of genre service based diversity are presented, as well as some simple recommenders based on there, and additional discussion of the topic and results.
Ian Knopke
144145518
Unity in diversity: Inculcating the concept of 1Malaysia through local television programmes
1Malaysia concept is a vision to create a harmonious Malaysian society, which is vital for Malaysia to attain a successful and developed country status. The concept stresses on the acceptance and inclusion of other cultures within the Malaysian realm and unity is vital for a country with plural society like Malaysia. Prime Minister Mohd Najib Tun Razak asserted that the 1Malaysia concept is unique as it celebrates the diversity of cultures grounded within a unique potpourri of living patterns that is steeped in traditions yet able to accommodate and withstand the winds of change without losing her local cultural balance. Siapera (2010) opined that it is without doubt that the media is an important tool which ensures diverse cultures in a country are equally represented without neglecting the universal and common values practised by everyone. The 1Malaysia concept places importance on both celebrating the diversity of cultures and inculcating common values amongst its citizen. This is where mass media, especially television, can play a big role. Syed Hussin (2008: 171) commented that mass communication has not been used to its full effect to promote a better understanding of people of different cultures and values. How true is this notion? This paper will shed some light into these issues: how the culturally diverse society and the concept of 1Malaysia are being represented on television and how audiences make meanings from these representations. The methodology employed in this research is twofold, comprising content analysis and focus group discussion. The objective of content analysis is to analyse how the concept of 1Malaysia is being represented on local television programmes. The focus group discussion, meanwhile, discovers how adolescents negotiate the television text in the process of understanding the 1Malaysia concept.
Sabariah Mohamed Salleh
156130900
European Television Programming
When, in the 1980s and early 1990s, private commercial television was introduced in the majority of European countries, old fears about the hegemony of American popular culture resurfaced. However, concerns that the attendant influx of American programmes would weaken national cultures and diminish Europe's cultural diversity soon eased. Domestic programmes mostly seemed to draw higher audience figures, and from the mid 1990s national production sectors and output were growing. In academia, this led to the quickly cemented and widespread belief that audiences per se prefer local to imported programmes the appeal of the latter diminished by a "cultural discount" (Hoskins and Mirus, 1988) and most media scholars came to agree that national television markets would remain strong, followed in importance by geo linguistic or geo cultural markets offering close "cultural proximity" (Straubhaar, 1991, 2007; Sinclair et al. 1996; Keane et al. 2007) Television's internationalization, they opined, was confined by entrenched cultural difference and resilience.
Andrea Marlen Esser
116502005
Television after TV? Broadcasting in the Digital and Mobile Age
Media environments are nowadays characterized by an almost all encompassing digitalization and mobilization. In particular television as the (former) leading medium seems to be under an enormous change and adjustment pressure under these conditions. Ever since the beginning of the digital expansion in the noughties the age of television 'as we know it' has been declared to be over with definition attempts such as "television after tv" (Spigel Ollson, 2004) ,post broadcast era" (Turner Tay, 2009) or ,post network era" (Lotz, 2009) Other actors, such as Norbert Schneider, a former director of the Media Authority in North Rhine Westphalia in Germany, calls the process of digitalization a silent revolution being as slow as a snail (2008, p. 27) In fact, much has been written (and also speculated) about the future of broadcasting and its social role. As an example, Geser (2012) reveals three essential changes in the transition of linear, analogue, 1.0 television to digital network media companies (2.0 television) (1) an expansion of channel and program diversity, (2) an increase of quality in transmission (HD and 3D) and (3) an inclusion of network media to allocate media content. Moreover, Groebel (2014) highlights structural changes in form of a growing importance of pay TV and web players. Undoubtedly, streaming providers, such as Netflix, Hulu, Maxdome and Amazon Prime gained relevance. They turned from pure content aggregators into data driven producers and thus define new success recipes and standards in the market. Broadcasters behaved in these market changes more as passive spectators than active participants; they argued mostly with the different and more comfortable usage situation (namely in front of the TV set) and relied on their strong market position. But with the market pervasion of internet enabled television devices (i.e.Smart TV, connected TV) traditional broadcasters and streaming providers are in direct competition: Being on one platform at the TV screen, the user has the choice to either watch linear television or to click on the respective app by Netflix, Amazon Prime etc. So the question arises, which challenges broadcasters are facing in these transformations. First the acquisition and management of massive amounts of audience information Big Data enable media companies to produce tailored and specialized content and to deliver advertising messages to individuals based on what they've bought, what they've browsed, what they've clicked on in an email, what they've shared on Facebook and so on. But while Big Data strategies are a standard for streaming providers long ago, traditional broadcasters seem to still rely on audience research they did in the last decades. Second Netflix and Co have the big advantage of being able to use audience information for a cross device targeting due to the need for users to log in with an account in order to use the service. Broadcasters do not have this possibility, but developed 'lash up' products for advertisers such as TVsynch advertising, a form of advertising that recognizes television advertising and places online ads synchronously. Third at the media use level the transition of 'passive couch potatoes' towards (more or less) active users has been extensively discussed: Time shifting and parallel media use practices (media meshing) are aspects broadcasters are increasingly facing. Traditional broadcasters thus need to offer valuable services on top of their programme to be still attractive for their audiences. So broadcasters have to provide more services, but they do not necessarily gain more advertising revenues through these services. In my presentation I will focus on the question, how viewers use different television offers (i.e. traditional broadcasting, video on demand, pay tv) and what consequences this has for ad financed broadcasters. First, a theoretical framework for the transition of the television market from 1.0 tv towards 2.0 tv will be introduced. Based on this framework and its dimensions a market overview will be provided specifically focusing on (1) the supply side with the coopetitive tension between broadcasters, streaming providers and pay tv, and (2) the audience side with current media use trends. Furthermore, the results of an empirical study will be presented that focused on the multiscreen use of video content in Austria (n 1,000, 15 65 years, representative for the internet population in Austria) An online survey has been conducted that included different aspects, such as the kind and number of different screens/devices in a household, the use of these devices, of different content offers (e.g. fee based video on demand services, pay tv) the extent of synchronous media use, the content that is used parallel to television and the attitude towards advertising at the different screens. A specific focus has been put on the group of the Millenials (15 29 years) as they reflect relevant trends in media usage patterns. The results of the study will allow for managerial implications for broadcasters in the digital and mobile era.
Kati Forster
16229248
What's on TV: A large scale quantitative characterisation of modern broadcast video content
Video databases, used for benchmarking and evaluating the performance of new video technologies, should represent the full breadth of consumer video content. The parameterisation of video databases using low level features has proven to be an effective way of quantifying the diversity within a database. However, without a comprehensive understanding of the importance and relative frequency and of these features in the content people actually consume, the utility of such information is limited. Here, we present a large scale analysis of programming on BBC One and CBeebies, the most popular television channels in the United Kingdom for adults and children, respectively. Twenty video features are extracted from almost three thousand television programmes shown throughout 2015 before principal components analysis is used to identify just five factors representing the most variation. The meaning and relative significance of these five factors together with the shape of their frequency distributions represent highly valuable information for researchers wanting to model the diversity of modern consumer content in representative video databases.
2016 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP)
Felix Mercer Moss Fan Zhang Roland J Baddeley David R Bull
157532912
Cultural Globalization and the Convention
The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Diversity of Cultural Expressions can be viewed as safeguarding group identities as understood through cultural expressions. Equally, the Convention protects the economic interests of member states in commercially produced cultural expressions such as film and television programmes. This dichotomy has led to vociferous trade versus culture debates in international cultural policy making; but, seen as a facet of global deliberation, this may be an enduring contribution from UNESCO to global norm formation. Despite the importance of cultural issues within UNESCO, until the 2005 Convention culture had remained relatively marginalized from discussions among post Second World War global institutions. The emergent global issues of culture, cultural identity, and cultural expressions therefore, need some historical context. Without this context, the vocabulary of the UNESCO Convention seems technocratic, limited to debates between commerce versus culture, and devoid of connections to historical trends.
J P Singh
153840024
Whose finger on the button? british television and the politics of cultural control
'The study of television' John Corner suggests, 'has suffered from a lack of historical studies' This was 'a particular problem in Britain' where studies of television were prone to 'privileging questions of policy and organisation' rather than obtaining a sense of the power of television as a medium, assessing its cultural content and reception by viewers or the status and meaning of the medium, the television set and activity of watching it. Corner's own work on television history has broached such matters, but exceptions like Tim O'Sullivan's exploration through audience research and oral testimony of cultures of televiewing (in everyday life and as civic ritual around national events) in a Corner edited volume apart, has not induced many others to do so.1 Corner has hit upon a broader debate about the predilections of post 1945 British history that necessarily impacts upon writing about television more than radio, since television only became a mass activity in the mid 1950s. Critics charge that contemporary British history has too readily reproduced the categories used by its subjects (particularly political, social elites) and resisted integrating its own sub disciplinary boundaries (of the political, social, cultural, economic).2 Thus, there are studies of the magnitude of Asa Briggs' and Bernard Sendall's history of broadcasting authoritative accounts of personnel, policy and structures, but in which programming itself is less prominent. Des Freedman charts the Labour Party's oscillating television policies, but is less able to capture the mien of the television viewer.3 Television has featured as an adjunct of press and media histories,4 but has not received the sort of treatment that film or inter war radio has. Yet there seem grounds (popularity above all) for regarding television as more intimate to Britons than either film or radio.5 Programme content, meanings and reception have been more cultural studies' terrain. Many historians would concur with Dominic Strinati and Stephen Wagg that 'whereas popular culture was once dismissed as mass culture now its importance is such that, on occasion, it may be taken too seriously' What historians consider the interpretive and contextual abandon of cultural studies in its postmodernist forms at least has not encouraged them to stray into this territory. Yet that disserves the majority experience of television (which is as viewers) and its diversity as a genre and impact on everyday life. Might a history of television move beyond discussing it chiefly as an institutional mode of communication to the exclusion of its cultural forms; contemplate it visually and as something not only produced but also consumed? The extent to which it has not done so betrays historians' biases, since what was produced was (somewhat) easier to know. It suggests the degree to which historians have shared in classing television as culturally corrosive rather than attempting to account for its popularity. As historian Peter Mandler has it, whilst 'suspicion of television' was widespread at its 1950s outset, 'it lingered among academics, and among historians more than most'.6 Historians, in short, might prosper from spending more time watching television and less time sitting in judgement on it. Janet Thumim's recent collection attempts something like this, broaching programme content (for instance the penchant for nostalgia programming, repeats of vintage, retro classics) gendering viewers and attending to the television set as a technology requiring expert maintenance. Whilst always cognisant of the fluidity of meaning of a programme amongst individuals and across time and thus the 'difficulties of 'knowing' the historical audience' its essays attend to 'what audiences do with the 'texts' they consume' The text analogy might seem more useful to literary than historical scholars, but does flag up the numerous meanings television and its programmes might generate, both at the time and over time (as select television programmes become seen as representative sources for a certain period, understandings of them often shift dramatically) Nor does it preclude researching what another media historian John Ellis describes as 'the temporary meaningfulness of programmes at their initial broadcast' from which 'can be extrapolated much about the material culture of the time'.7 Rather than reflecting or fashioning society and values, this article provides evidence of a more interactive, dynamic relationship between television and its viewers in the imagining of both by politicians, cultural commentators [from the New Left to Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners' Association (VALA) and educational pressure groups] and television critics. Debates about television as it became a, if not the, popular leisure and cultural activity amongst Britons in the 1950s and 1960s, were fixated with the content of programmes, their impact on audiences and the act of televiewing. In this were disclosed assumptions and readings of cultural quality and perceptions of television's audience. Television's textuality entails both the content and reception of programming and the social setting and meanings put by televiewing. It illustrates this through debates at commercial television's inception in 1955 and the government commissioned Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting (1960 1962) and its legacy debates it argues have since been rehearsed repeatedly. It assesses television's impact on politics as a medium and how the main parties viewed it. Labour was critical of Independent (commercial) Television (ITV) broadcasting and paternalist in traditional British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, the public broadcaster) style towards audiences, but the Conservatives cannot be reduced to cheerleaders of ITV, pandering to audience tastes. Their suspicions of its social effects co existed uneasily with a belief that competition would improve programming, resulting in Pilkington and by the later 1960s in Whitehouse's campaign to 'clean up' television. Both parties then are better understood as relating uneasily to television. Socially (or in taste terms) both were closer to (although hardly uncritical of) the BBC's content; politically the Conservatives took the credit for ITV and its popularity at the risk of alienating its middle class vote; Labour's opposition put it at odds with its traditional supporters. This provides a good example of how a political party does not automatically reflect their electorate. Both were reluctant to hand over to popular, remote control of television and Labour especially protective, doubting the audience's ability to handle their newfound and prized choice gainfully. But television's popularity limited party control of it. As important was that as a medium television was changing how politics was performed and (in both its popularity and content) disturbing politics' claim to inform cultural life and politics' authority per se.
Lawrence Black
191255856
Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion
This book, edited by Cheang with G. Biddle Perry offers the first thorough examination of the social importance of the expressive, representational and material possibilities of human hair. The presentation, manipulation and daily experience of human hair are situated within the processes of inscribing cultural meaning, through a complex network of normalising standards and discursive practices. Approaching a diversity of contexts, from classical ballet to television sitcoms, and from India to the East End, this collection examines hair across age, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. In addition to co editing the collection, Cheang co authored wrote the substantial introductory and concluding essays, which offer an original synthesis of cultural studies and anthropological approaches to the study of hair. Cheang also wrote the chapter 'Roots: Hair and Race' a 6,000 word essay that analyses museum collections of hair in relation to constructions of 'race' (pp.27 42) In particular, Cheang worked with medical, anthropological and natural history collections that include both samples of human hair and photographs. These primary sources are analysed in the context of a critical reading of 19th century literature that attempted to explain 'racial difference' Extending this research, Cheang and Biddle Perry co wrote a new 10,000 word entry on 'Hair' for the November 2011 online update to the Berg Encylopedia of World Dress and Fashion. Other closely related activities included the organisation and moderation by Cheang and Biddle Perry of the international symposium 'Hair Stories: Practice, Theory, Culture' at the V&A Museum (2009) Following publication of Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, Cheang was invited to comment on the meaning of hair collecting and beauty styling in the popular media, including Vogue (2011) The Stylist (2011) Observer Magazine (2013) Elle Canada website (2013) and in the television series programme Taboo (National Geographic Channel)
Sarah Cheang
151037431
Broadcasting in the new Ireland
The inward migration of the late 1990s and 2000s has changed the fabric of society in Ireland. It altered the composition of media audiences for Irish broadcasters, and raised questions as to how broadcasters discuss migration and related issues; incorporate new audiences into their programming; and deal with questions of media representation and production. Investigating the significance of media in a changing society demands a multi layered approach to research. This two year research project involved research interviews and surveys with media producers in public, commercial and community radio and television; in depth qualitative research with Nigerian, Chinese and Polish research participants nationwide; and an analysis of media policy nationally and comparatively in Europe. Irish media channels in all sectors have responded to this changed social context through programming and a range of initiatives concerning multiculturalism, interculturalism, and diversity. Part 1 of this report discusses the background to these ideas in media policy, media theory and wider public debate, and provides a basis for interpreting and evaluating their use and significance in Ireland. It illustrates how these ideas must be understood as relatively open discourses shaped by their use in different contexts, rather than as set ideas or policy frameworks. The regular media use of Nigerian, Chinese and Polish participants discussed in Part 2 integrates local, Irish national, home country national, diasporic and transnational channels. This daily integration is facilitated and limited by a range of material factors, notably newspaper circulation, access to terrestrial Irish media, and Internet access. This integration is an ongoing process influenced by language proficiency, length of time living in Ireland, orientations towards past experiences and future horizons, and cultural capital. Integrated media use involves relational viewing and engagement, in which Irish media and other sources are compared and contrasted, and organized in relation to each other according to different needs, political readings, and pleasures. A feature of daily, integrated media use is a fluid understanding of local/national/international media. International news featuring issues/ contexts of interest is often intimately evaluated, and frequently seen as being as consequential as representations of migrants in Ireland. The presence of UK based media in the public sphere in Ireland relativizes what is understood as Irish media. For participants from countries as relatively large and regionally complex as Nigeria, China and Poland, the national horizons of Irish news were often understood as local or parochial, and the scope of international news as being similarly limited; Media monitoring and evaluation is more pronounced among Nigerian participants, however all focus groups discussed the assumed consequentiality of representations of migrants for their acceptance in Ireland. As well as having a responsibility to provide fair and accurate representation, many participants commented on the need for an increased plurality of sources, perspectives and foci in Irish media. This increased plurality was discussed in relation to news, and also the spectrum of general programming available on television. This understanding of diversity contrasted with the institutional idea of diversity underpinning some public service broadcasting. Programming dealing with multiculturalism though frequently not primarily aimed at migrant audiences was often not received and interpreted as such. This understanding of diversity does not preclude the importance attached by many discussants to seeing increased diversity of people on Irish television. Both mainstream Irish media and media aimed at national migrant populations in Ireland were felt not to represent the internal diversity and differences of migrant populations. Diasporic and transnational media are centrally important for many participants across the focus group streams, but not in obvious or predictable ways. News, lifestyle and fictional programming on these services are watched relationally and critically, and discussed according to a range of aesthetic, affective and political criteria. Much television use has migrated to Internet platforms, almost to the same extent as newspaper use. This shift is a part of the pervasive importance of Internet use for many participants. This viewing and listening was integrated into a range of other multimedia and communicative practices online. However Internet use is restricted for many by cost and opportunity, and for those with the means, by widely criticized connection speeds and coverage. RTE has engaged consistently with the need to develop relevant programming and institutional policies. Part 3 documents the development of policy; the shift in radio programming away from first wave programmes mainly aimed at representing migrant lives and experiences to a mainstream Irish audience to a still evolving emphasis on integrating diversity into programming; the shift in television programming towards a reliance on hybrid reality formats to normalize multiculturalism for a national public audience Community radio has been an important medium and space for the development of migrant produced programming, however the quantity and scope of this programming has declined in 2009, for a variety of reasons. Community television currently offers significant possibilities for both migrant led programming and for the integration of a broad spectrum of perspectives and voices in media production TV3 and TG4 regard specific policies in this area as overly rigid and potentially counter productive, and instead argue for an idea of diversity emerging organically from the scope and focus of their programmes on society in Ireland. The commercial radio sector is open to ideas and initiatives, however pragmatic concerns regarding economies of scale and the relationship between investment and return has meant that few such initiatives or radio programmes have been developed. Exceptions to this general trend are discussed in Part 3. International, comparative research would suggest that broadcasting in Ireland, particularly public service broadcasting, has reached a point where first wave programming primarily aimed at mainstream audience understanding is no longer relevant, but where the challenge of developing more integrated approaches to programme development and media production under the rubric of diversity is only beginning to take shape. The overarching conclusion of this report suggests that this challenge involves a fundamental shift in considering how audiences, and the public, are composed. The recommendations of this report discuss different aspects of this challenge by building on issues raised in the audience research. In particular, the research emphasizes the need to focus as much on the diversity of genres, programmes, and perspectives broadcast as the more conventional idea of diversity as involving the representation of diverse identities. This important difference in emphasis raises critical questions concerning the current shift to frameworks of diversity as they are currently understood and practiced in the different broadcast institutions. The conclusions draw attention to the current and future importance of training and the active inclusion of minorities in programme development and production. While cognizant of the difficulties, pitfalls and political controversies surrounding such issues, research suggests a basic, if complex, relationship between the plurality of media workers and a plurality of perspectives. The recommendations aimed at broadcasters draw attention to a variety of ways that this could be done.
Gavan Titley Aphra Kerr Rebecca King O'Riain