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Event Media: Television Production Crossing Media Boundaries
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“Event media” are media companies that produce events in order to serve their own purposes, whether these are commercial, public-service oriented, or both. For the television industry, creating big program events with a strong sense of unfolding here and now has become increasingly important – and this thesis asks why and how. It thereby examines a broad program trend, which reality-tv entertainment is a marked exponent of with programs like Big brother and Idols, but which also is represented in more educational and informative programs like Test your vote and Great X. These programs bring three industry shifts to the fore. First, their production is crossing the borders between nations, industry sectors and companies. Second, they fuel the transition of broadcasters into full-fledged media houses. Third, they turn audiences into participants on a large scale. The evolving practices on these areas are keys to the future of television, both in industrial and public life terms.
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... The term 'liveness' is often used theoretically to describe the way in which 'live television seeks to present itself as something natural and immediately given' (Ytreberg 2009: 477)-that is, as an event which seems to unfold via an immediate, 'here-and-now' logic (Feuer 1983). Several scholars have also applied the term to online and digital platforms to describe how multiplatform formats such as Big Brother and Pop Idol give viewers a sense of watching an instantaneous event and construct a 'temporal co-presence' with them (Ytreberg 2009: 479; see also Couldry 2002;Kjus 2009). Similarly, studies of K-pop fandoms have shown how the daily, mediated interaction between K-pop idols and their fans creates a powerful 'experience of liveness' (King-O'Riain 2020: 2) which intensifies these fans' emotions. ...
... The final publishing strategy involves creating television drama as an event. It seeks to attract an audience across time and place but also in great numbers, thus creating the feeling of something out of the ordinary (see also Hepp and Couldry 2010;Kjus 2009;Ytreberg 2009). This approach to television drama builds on the concept of the 'media event' originally presented by Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz (1994)-in which they define the media event as an 'interruption of routine'. ...
... Others have argued for more neutral terms; Espen Ytreberg (forthcoming) suggests 'media-generated events', while Anders Hepp and Nick Couldry (2010) suggest 'popular media events' instead: Popular media events break with the everyday but in a much more routine way, they do not monopolize the media coverage in total, but in a certain segment ('tabloid', 'boulevard'), they do not happen 'live' but in a continuous development (quite often also of marketing and branding), they are mostly organized by the media themselves not just as pre-planned but as completely commercialized, they are less celebratory and more pleasureoriented, often they polarize and generate the attention of certain 'cultural segments' (scenes, youth cultures, etc.) where popular media events have an outstanding role. (Hepp and Couldry 2010: 8) Taking digital and online media platforms into consideration as well, Yngvar Kjus (2009) introduces the term 'event media' to describe the specific type of television programme (typically an entertainment or reality show) which presents as an event programme and uses online media platforms to engage the audience in various ways. Such efforts create the feeling of an event but are created to serve the needs and interests of the industry-Ytreberg (2009) describes them as 'designed for eventfulness' and notes that they 'tend to reach their audience with a strong sense of the eventfulness surrounding them ' (2009: 473, 474). ...
This chapter discusses how streaming impacts television publishing—that is, how online and on-demand television contest the traditional publishing strategies of linear ‘flow’ television, and how the industry responds by developing new ways to present, contextualise and distribute drama content. This chapter is organised according to three key publishing strategies for television drama: to reinvent ‘flow’ and ‘liveness’, to create transmedia universes and to present events. This chapter demonstrates how these publishing strategies increasingly explore new ways of telling stories, and distribute and promote drama series, while adding layers of meaning for the audience to explore. This chapter uses Lilyhammer, SKAM and blank to illustrate the key tendencies and arguments.
... Examples include fieldwork in Hollywood (Powdermaker, 1950;Rosten, 1941) and in smaller production companies (Zoellner, 2015)Pride, Critique: Professional Identity in Independent Factual Television Production in Great Britain and Germany</title><secondary-title>Production Studies, the Sequel! Cultural Studies of Global Media Industries</secondary-title></titles><pages>150-163</ pages><dates><year>2015</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><-publisher>Routledge</publisher><isbn>1138831697</isbn><urls></urls></record></ Cite></EndNote>; observation in the BBC and the American television industry (Born, 2004;Gitlin, 2000); studies of productions (Kjus, 2009;Levine, 2009;Redvall, 2013); studies of texts that are circulated by production personnel (Caldwell, 2009); case studies of film production in a historical and political context (Szczepanik, 2013); and policy document analysis and interviews with people working in the regional film business . ...
... American anthropologist Clifford Geertz has influenced production studies researchers, who use interpretation to investigate production cultures within the culture industry (see, for example, , Kjus (2009)). Geertz (1973, p. 9) describes data in this way: 'What we call data are really our own constructions of other people's constructions of what they and their copatriots are up to'. ...
This thesis is a study of how regional film and television companies in Norway manage
to survive and achieve their goals in the context of a larger film and television business
that is centralised, economically fragile, and subsidy dependent. Interest in production
studies has boomed in recent years, but little of this research addresses regional film
and television companies. This thesis employs a production studies approach and
incorporates theory on place and work on the creative industries. It contributes to the
limited amount of research that accounts for both structural framework—in particular,
the impact of film policy and dependence on public funding on these companies—
and agency in terms of the intrinsic value of regional film and television production in
a local, national and global context. Using multiple perspectives, this thesis presents an
in-depth exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of being a regional film and
television company.
The case study is its principal methodological approach, including interviews with
film workers at four companies and employees at six regional film agencies, as well as
policy documents, websites, newspapers and productions. The thesis focuses on four
well-established regional film and television companies that have produced critically
acclaimed films. All are located outside Oslo, the hub of film production in Norway.
The four companies are Original Film in Tromsø, Northern Norway, Flimmer Film
in Bergen, Western Norway, Mer Film in Tromsø/Bergen, Northern/Western Norway,
and Filmbin in Lillehammer, central Eastern Norway.
This thesis argues that one of the greatest challenges to these regional companies (and
the government that supports them) is how to develop strong, sustainable regional
film milieus among a scattered populace like Norway’s. The regions suffer from low
production volume and brain drain and the research shows that these companies rely
on human resources to deal with this challenge. Policy development indicates that the
public funding of regional film is mostly based on regional and economic, but also
cultural, arguments—regional film, that is, should contribute to regional development,
economic growth and diversity. I argue that the economic and rural political rationale
for support of this business tends to undermine the cultivation of the cultural value of
regional film, as well as its quality and professionalism. However, the companies have
managed to produce critically acclaimed films and the thesis reveals how the peripheral
location can be a creative and economic advantage.
... I den første fasen ble det ikke gjort så mange produksjonsstudier (Klausen 1986;Puijk 1990;Ytreberg 1999), men etter århundreskiftet er det en rekke produksjonsstudier som handler om relasjonene mellom tradisjonelle og nye medier. Noen av disse konsentrerer seg om nye produksjonsformer innen fjernsynet (Enli 2007;Kjus 2009b;Sundet 2012), mens andre tar utgangspunkt i (nyhets)journalistikk (Erdal 2008;Krumsvik 2009;Steensen 2010;Sjøvaag 2011;Barland 2012a). ...
The introduction of a new medium leads to adaptation of the existing media, but the relation between the new and the old changes over time. Following different phases in the development of a health and lifestyle programme (PULS), this article analyses changes that have taken place in the relationship between television and the internet in the past decade. While the possibilities of the internet were used in the first phase to enhance the television concept, the internet has gained more independence in the recent phase. Online health and lifestyle journalists are no longer integrated in Puls’s television activity, but with NRK’s general online activity focusing on their front page. This development changes the hierarchical relation between these media that has become more equal.
... Of course, young people are also represented on television outside of the televisual spaces labelled (or overtly branded) as 'youth' (Ross and Stein, 2008a: 5). Furthermore, many of the television shows reaching the highest number of youths are not 'youth television' at all but international drama series, larger sport and entertainment programmes and examples of 'event media' (Kjus, 2009). A commercial (and analytical) category of youth television made by, with or for youth is nevertheless essential, as it highlights the ambitions of these shows and the domain to which they belong (Davison et al., 2020: 7). ...
This article explores the ‘youthification’ of television through real-time storytelling. It draws on a study of the online youth drama blank (2018–2019), NRK’s first follow-up after the hit show SKAM (2015–2017). It finds that real-time drama brings unique opportunities to broadcasters aiming to reconnect with younger audiences, but also
substantial challenges. This insight is essential, as previous studies have highlighted the format’s advantages while downplaying its problems and dilemmas. Furthermore, the article emphasises the continuous need for innovation in youth storytelling, especially at
public service broadcasters with the mandate and ability to do so.
... Investigadores como Scolari, Jiménez y Guerrero (2012) se refieren a la narrativa transmedia como un objeto de estudio difícil de situar académicamente por su carácter multidisciplinar, poco delimitado y en permanente transformación. En su esfuerzo por distinguir las fronteras entre ambos, algunas veces se ha entendido la comunicación cross-media como un tipo de estrategia de diversificación propia de las empresas de telecomunicaciones para aprovechar las ventajas competitivas de la distribución multiplataforma (Aarseth, 2006;Bechmann, 2007;Erdal, 2008;Kjus, 2008;Pavlik, 2005;Villa, 2011) porque está claro que la convergencia de medios facilita la promoción a través de fórmulas de adaptación y reutilización del contenido para diferentes medios (Dailey et al., 2005). Para distinguirse de la comunicación cross-media, Jenkins (2006) declara como condición indispensable de la comunicación transmedia la presentación de elementos únicos en cada plataforma que contribuyan a la construcción de un producto final unificado. ...
La distinción entre transmedia y cross-media con frecuencia resulta confusa en los estudios sobre la comunicación. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo revisar el uso de ambos conceptos en la literatura científica publicada en Web of Science y SciELO Citation Index. La investigación parte de una muestra de 895 artículos a los que se les aplica un análisis bibliométrico y un análisis de redes para descubrir las relaciones entre textos. Los resultados del estudio son útiles para conocer la configuración del campo de conocimiento desde una perspectiva que integra las diversas disciplinas implicadas y abren el espectro para entender la comunicación transmedia y cross-media como objetos de estudio afines que deben ser estudiados de forma interdisciplinar.
Several studies illustrate the ways in which industry perceptions guide decision-making in times of change and advocate for the importance of identifying such notions. This chapter uncovers key perceptions of television streaming and addresses, in particular, how television executives envision the impact of streaming when making drama shows. It finds that streaming is thought to redefine the competitive landscape while transforming it from national to international in scope. It also identifies four related challenges: retaining the audience in an increasingly globalised television landscape, creating ‘world-class content’ to compete with internationally oriented productions, gaining visibility amid an abundance of high-quality series and securing long-term and flexible content rights when the conditions become a ‘global battlefield’.
I SKAM-klippet «Tenker det du føler» sier Isak til Even at det er bare han som kan føle det han føler, før Even hvisker tilbake at slik som dette har han aldri følt før. Men tar han ikke feil? For er det ikke slik at også mange SKAM-seere har følt med Isak gjennom sesong 3? Kommentarfeltet som følger dette og andre SKAM-klipp vitner om mange seere med sterk emosjonell investering til seriens univers og karakterer. Men hva er det som gjør SKAM til en dramaserie så mange føler så sterkt rundt?
The English-language research tradition of studying media events is widely considered to have started with Dayan and Katz’ Media Events. This seminal work is characterised by an emphasis on liveness and broadcast technology as conditions of eventfulness. The German-language tradition of research on historical media events provides a very different approach to studying media events, starting from the 16th-century advent of mechanical production and distribution. Bringing together these strands of research, the article argues for a deepening of the historical dimension in conceiving of media events. After a critical review of the English-language tradition and an overview of key media-historical research contributions particularly from Germany, it discusses three main themes: the role of temporal acceleration over time by means of media technologies; the role of premeditation in events and the tradition of discussing media-generated events as ‘pseudo-events’, and the historically shifting relationships between mediated and non-mediated communication in the event. By way of conclusion, the article relates a historical perspective on media events to recent research and discussion around mediatisation.
| © universitetsforlaget| norsk medietidsskrift|årg. 14|nr. 2| 126–154
Abstract
Since the mid-1990s, mediainstitutions have been exper-imenting with new forms of audience participation.Based on interviews withNorwegian media leaders,this article gives some insightinto how media executivesthink strategically about au-dience input, as well as theseven most important rea-sons why they arrange for au-dience participation. Whatdoes this imply for the role of the media in society?
Television, the author argues, responds to two powerful desires of our age: it makes us witnesses of often traumatic events and it tries - and fails - to provide us with narratives that make sense of the world. The author makes sense of modern television, both by exploring its processes and in terms of its dynamic relationships with the cultures that provide it with raw material. Television, he proposes, offers us multiple ways of understanding the world, yet does not arbitrate between them. He explores this process as one of "working through", whereby television news takes in the chaos and conflict of the world and subsequent programmes of all kinds offer diverse ways of unravelling its confusions, from the psychobabble of talk shows to the open narratives of soaps, documentaries and dramas. By means of this working through, problems are exhausted rather than resolved. The author demonstrates how television's function in its new era is no longer that of building consensus; rather it uses all the means at its disposal, including sophisticated computer graphics, to mediate etween conflicting approaches to our age of uncertainty.
Jonathan Bignell presents a wide-ranging analysis of the television phenomenon of the early twenty-first century: Reality TV, exploring its cultural and political meanings, explaining the genesis of the form and its relationship to contemporary television production, and considering how it connects with, and breaks away from, factual and fictional conventions in television. Relationships with surveillance, celebrity and media culture are examined, leading to an appraisal of the directions that television culture is taking in the new century. His highly-readable style is accessible to readers at all levels of Culture and Media studies.
The emergence of a relatively new genre, ‘reality television’, has helped to break down the division between text and audience in significant ways, and this presents us with interesting questions for cultural studies. In this article we consider one such text, the enormously successful ‘reality gameshow’ Big Brother, and explore the extent to which it challenges or helps to reconfigure current conceptualizations of the audience and the ‘television text'. We outline some of the issues involved in analyzing Big Brother and situate the program within the context of the complex history of cultural studies’ attempts to ‘think the audience’ for popular media.