Brennan, E. 2000. 'On Cultural and Structural Change in RTÉ Television Drama'. Irish Communications Review. Vol. 8, pp.1-13. (original) (raw)
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2022
This document describes a research project that was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (grant RG/14351) and ran from September 2002 until June 2005. It combined analytical and archival study of British TV drama programmes with generic, institutional and cultural study of the professional context of British TV drama output. Research addressed the theoretical and methodological questions arising from the study of 'popular' television drama forms and established how distinctions between 'popular' British TV drama and flagship 'serious' drama were dependent on institutional forces and conflicts within and between television institutions, including the regional organisation of TV production, changes in policy and regulation, and the detail of production practices. In the course of this work, the project team analysed how a body of canonical texts and received histories have been established in previous studies of British Television Drama, evaluating this process and questioning its methods, theoretical assumptions, and inclusions and exclusions. Results of the research were disseminated by means of publication for academic audiences in the form of journal articles, book chapters, monographs and an edited collection of essays. In addition, four one-day symposia were held at which members of the project team, academic speakers and television producers and directors presented new academic research and (in the case of TV professionals) reflected on their working practices and experience in the television industry.
Producing British Television Drama : Local Production in a Global Era
2019
This book focuses on the specific experiences and structure of local production and considers its relationship to global markets and domestic players such as PSBs. This leads us to conclude the book with a call for urgent and profound attention to power and sustainability. Power within the TV industry remains consolidated to a few key players and issues relating to the prominence and discoverability of content testify to the ongoing struggles and imbalances that characterise the television production landscape. We also critique the ubiquitous concept of sustainability as one which emphasises economic growth as the only view of progress or innovation. We propose the necessary conditions for creating a truly sustainable local production ecology and we argue for reinvigorating notions of television drama as a public good.
This paper identifies and critiques a dominant narrative in the history of Irish television, which is too often passed off for, or accepted as, the history of television in Ireland. The his- tory of television in Ireland has been written within an institutional framework and depends on the cultural binary of tradition and modernity, ‘old Ireland’ and ‘new Ireland’. This dom- inant narrative fails to interrogate television as a medium. It provides an account of the Irish broadcaster RTÉ rather than an account of the arrival of a new medium. Ironically this nar- rative which hinges on the role of television in opening up Irish society is itself quite closed in terms of the stories it tells and the questions it asks. The prevalence of this narrative can be explained by an academic dependence on institutional sources and in flawed ideas on the relationship between media and society. It will be argued that it is necessary to turn to non- institutional sources to complement and balance the factual and ideological blindspots in the dominant narrative.
This article discusses the working lives of individuals working in the British independent television production sector. It focuses on the material reality of their individualised, precarious working environment, investigating the disjuncture between the precarious, insecure nature of creative labour within this industry, which engenders stress and anxiety, and the intense emotional pleasure associated with such work. While the tension between 'pleasure' and 'pain' within creative occupations has been well documented (e.g. , this article argues that in order to fully understand the subjective responses to creative work we need to look beyond the dominant post-Foucauldian approach in this field and attempt to understand cultural work as a site for moral work .
Review: Popular television drama: critical perspectives
European Journal of Communication, 2006
What makes eleven essays by eleven different authors cohere in a way that makes sense to present them together as a book? Whatever that is, I do not quite find it in this collection. The editors assert that the various contributions function as an organic whole and indeed they strive arduously to make connections in a general introduction, section introductions and an afterword. Nevertheless, I am left with a sense of irreducible bittiness.
Popular Television Drama: Critical Perspectives
2005
What makes eleven essays by eleven different authors cohere in a way that makes sense to present them together as a book? Whatever that is, I do not quite find it in this collection. The editors assert that the various contributions function as an organic whole and indeed they strive arduously to make connections in a general introduction, section introductions and an afterword. Nevertheless, I am left with a sense of irreducible bittiness. There is a section on situation comedy, which includes Barry Langford on The Office and Robin Nelson on Dad's Army. There are several essays on children's programmes, such as Maire Messenger Davies on The Demon Headmaster and Jonathan Bignell on Doctor Who. Another section deals with programmes considered somehow 'other', for example, Mark Bould on The Prisoner and Peter Billingham on Queer as Folk.
The field of television production: Genesis, structure and position-takings
Poetics, 2020
As a leading scholar of the social conditions of cultural production, Pierre Bourdieu had little to say about large-scale media production. This study, however, brings the theoretical-empirical program that underpins studies of fields of cultural production within the Bourdieusian tradition to bear upon the Swedish field of television production. Two research questions are posed. First, what is the structure of the field of television production-what are the main hierarchies that divide agents in the field? Second, how do positions in the field correspond to agents' ways of orienting themselves-how are various position-takings distributed in the field? These questions are answered with a multiple correspondence analysis with agents in the Swedish field of television production (n = 378). The field of television production is structured, first, along an incumbent-challenger axis; and second, according to an axis separating public service broadcasters and journalists rich on cultural capital from commercial broadcasters involved in drama and entertainment production. These dynamics, along with the position-takings assumed by agents in the field, are discussed. Indeed, Bourdieu's only book on media was the televised lecture Sur la télévision, broadcasted in 1996 and later translated to English and published in book format. This work did not, however, share the characteristic empirical rigor and depth that characterized Bourdieu's studies of other fields of cultural production (Hovden, 2008: 36), including the academic field (Bourdieu, 1988) and the literary field (Bourdieu, 1999). The existing body of research on television production tends, furthermore, to not focus on the field as a whole, but on selected sectors such as public service or commercial broadcasting, specific television genres, professional categories (
Between December 2000 and February 2001 the Irish soap opera Fair City ran an unprecedented, risky and controversial abortion storyline. This came before a looming referendum on the legality of abortion. Here, Fair City was not just offering entertainment, but provoking debate and discussion on a divisive issue in Irish society. In this case, and many others, it appears that soap opera, by promoting such discussion, may contribute to the formation of public opinion in contemporary civil society. Heretofore, most academic studies have overlooked the possible consequences of soap opera for civil society, public opinion and the democratic process. This study breaks with this by using Habermas's concept of the public sphere to describe and explore the ways in which soap opera may affect social and political life. In a further departure from former studies that have studied audiences or soap operas texts, this work offers an in-depth investigation of Fair City's production process. It explores the programme's potential contribution to public life by uncovering how its production system shapes what social issues it can and cannot address and how it may address them. Habermas offers an underlying conceptual structure for the study. Production research, however, necessitates a conceptual model that can explain everyday production work and decisions within a complex globalised broadcasting environment. To this end, the study employs a Bourdieuian perspective as a middle-range theory. This allows Fair City to be understood as the emergent product of numerous struggles to define the show's form and content.