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Television (TV) series have emerged as the quintessential entertainment product in popular culture, amplifying their potential for affecting stereotypical representations. However, how stereotypes are embedded and transformed through media has been overlooked. This study investigates repetitions, an essential feature of serial narratives that plays a key role in stereotyping through the construction of characters in TV series. Through a literary deconstructionist analysis of Phoebe Buffay, one of the main characters from the neo-cult TV series Friends, we offer a typology of different repetitions – namely, reproduction, layering and evolution – and show how they contribute to cementing the stereotypes of morally desirable yet deviant behaviours, such as sustainable consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author seeks to provide a fresh perspective on the British crime series Unforgotten (2015-present, ITV, 5 seasons) by employing the motif of loss of happiness, which defines the past and present of all secondary characters introduced in each season. These characters have a significant connection to the murders investigated by DCI Stuart and DI Khan. The loss of happiness is a harrowing experience for all involved in every case, even if it does not stem directly from the violent crime; rather, it develops over time, fuelled by the secrets buried within each character – secrets that, when revealed, could potentially destroy their lives once again. By offering a bottom-up perspective on serious socio-moral issues, the series also addresses the banality of cruelty, framing the loss of happiness among individuals as a societal issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper locates audience engagement in the act of content creation and considers the levels of engagement that content creation could engender. It explicates the different types of content creators defined in the literature and examines motivating factors for the production of content in a Chinese context. It argues that while some content creators seek to draw attention to the series they support, in other cases the engagement with the international television series is not fully motivated by a desire to interact with the international content and direct audiences to it. Rather, content creators are motivated by a desire to gain exposure for their own craft or to develop transferable skills that help them move between the different categories of content creators. In doing so, we argue that international series can tap into these 'cultural intermediaries' (Hutchinson 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically reflects on a television trend that remains poorly documented, namely that of representing male virginity as being caused by a form of neurodivergence. As part of an interdisciplinary research project on sexually inexperienced emerging adults (SIEA) in North American films and TV series, a textual analysis has been conducted for four TV series portraying sexually inexperienced men on the spectrum (The Good Doctor, Atypical, The Big Bang Theory, L’Heure bleue). Our research shows that this tendency to associate men’s sexual inexperience with autism is an important issue that reveals the persistence of gender and ableist norms in TV series. For instance, TV series contribute to the reproduction of the stereotype that a man on the spectrum is de facto sexually inexperienced, and then prioritize a “virginity loss” narrative. Characters also acquire maturity after their first sexual encounter, resulting in increased masculine capital. Considering that such series seek to represent neurodiversity, the lack of diversity when it comes to representing sexual inexperience is questioning. The fact that narratives invariably allow neurodivergent men to gain sexual experience seems to reinforce the cultural norm that sexual activity is mandatory, especially for adult men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2022 Canal+/PBS/BBC series Marie Antoinette not only comes as evidence of the enduring mystique around the eighteenth-century queen of France, but illustrates her appropriation by contemporary creators who want to deal with twenty-first century issues. Under the guise of delivering a biopic, the writing team explores the condition of women through a Marie Antoinette who is neither a historical figure nor a fictional character, but someone with whom younger viewers can empathize. Paradoxically, however, this updated Marie Antoinette appears both as a model of female resilience and necessary self-care in a persistently misogynistic and patriarchal society, and as the ultimate exemplar of the pampered, self-indulgent one-percenter. Setting aside obvious anachronism, we have to wonder what the series' creators aim to accomplish by revisiting history in such an ambiguous manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Netflix’s Black Mirror (2011–present) is often compared to The Twilight Zone (1959–1964) for its thoughtful science fiction (SF) commentary on contemporary society. Yet, as Joanne Morreale shows in her excellent study of The Outer Limits (1963–1965), it might be with that less well-known SF series that Black Mirror should be compared. The confusion that often occurs between episodes from The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits highlights the many similarities between the two series, with the former’s success paving the way for the latter. Morreale’s concise book, the latest in the TV Milestones series by Wayne State University Press, can only help bring back into the spotlight a series which over the decades has been unfairly living in the shadow of The Twilight Zone.

The paper examines how the return to Westeros demonstrates the audiences' desire for "repetition with a difference," focusing on the political underpinnings of worldbuilding and storytelling presented in House of the Dragon (2022–). A prequel to Game of Thrones, HOTD repeats the setting and many crucial figures, dynamics, and plot points of the original. Seemingly in response to fan criticism of the politics of representation in terms of race, gender, and sexuality in GOT, though, HOTD envisions a past of Westeros that strangely seems more progressive than its storyworld's "future." We argue that these temporal shifts can be read productively through the concept of queer temporality, challenging linear notions of time and progress. HOTD presents a seemingly progressive narrative that locates queerness and racial diversity in the past; in this vision, any potential progress thus becomes confined to the past, disappearing from the future of this fantasy storyworld. We argue that attending to the slight shifts in emphasis between GOT and HOTD provides an opportunity to identify changes in audiences' expectations. We ask: what kind of queer pleasures are mobilized when audiences are invited to revisit a familiar world, but also to re-memory GOT, the original text, with the knowledge of its diverse past as depicted in HOTD? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of OPUS Journal of Society Research is the property of OPUS - International Journal of Society Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines references to romantic relationships, gender and sexuality (RRGS) in popular teen drama, specifically focusing on the series Sex Education, Euphoria, Thirteen Reasons Why, and Elite. A lexicometric analysis was applied to the transcribed subtitles of these four series. While previous research has identified sexual health messages in subscribing video on demand platforms, their completeness, accuracy, and alignment with prosocial or antisocial behaviours must be questioned. Romantic relationships, gender and sexuality are three dimensions related to sexual health issues tackled in recent TV series. We analysed what specific terms are used to refer to RRGS; and what are the other themes linked to it, in order to determine whether the references convey prosocial or antisocial references, regarding sexual health recommendations. The findings of the study demonstrate RRGS are intricately woven into the overall narrative and are interconnected with various other themes like violence and adolescents' daily lives. However, TV series often depict a concerning image of sexuality and intimate relationships, indicating a prevalence of antisocial messages in their verbal discourses. Moreover, TV series employs a nuanced and strategic combination of language levels, to establish a sense of legitimacy and proximity with the audience. The study highlights the need for a more balanced approach between prosocial and antisocial presentations of RRGS, in TV series verbal discourses to foster potentially empowering messages in line with sexual health recommendations and entertainment education theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Francaise d'Etudes Americaines is the property of Editions Belin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in creating TV series based on video games. They are based on the audiovisual aesthetics of popular games and turn them into television shows. This paper examines the interaction between the two types of screen narratives through a comparative analysis of genre, development of main characters, and plot in three examples. ‘Halo’ (2022) draws inspiration from the main storylines in the popular game but adds new ones and makes changes to the characters' features, making the story more understandable for the TV audience. This is required by the genre of the video game, which relies on fight scenes and limits the possibilities for interpretation. ‘The Last of Us’ (2023) is an example of a successful video game adaptation, as the series not only preserves the visual aesthetic of the source material, but also faithfully recreates the main characters, their features and relationships. ‘The Witcher’ (2019) is an adaptation of both books and games. As the plot develops, the episodes move away from the essence and the source material, which negatively affects the viewer's perception. The examples in this article indicate that there is no one universal method to adapting a videogame into a television production, and the particular approach is chosen depends on both the creators of the series, the specifics of the videogame and the extent to which it is suitable for adaptation. However, all three case studies highlight the importance of the visual code of the source material for its truthful adaptation into a TV series.

This paper focuses on sex-related metaphors in two TV series, Sex and the City (1998-2004) and Sex Education (2019-2023). Although there are major differences between the two series, both are popular and successful TV series and were, at the time they were released, considered as transgressive and progressive when tackling the taboo topic of sex. Although it has been receding, it nevertheless remains a partially taboo topic that characters speak of by means of X-phemisms (Allan and Burridge 1991; 2006). After a brief study of the use of literal language (using WMatrix5, Rayson 2009), this paper focuses on metaphorical X-phemisms, as metaphor arguably is the most prominent mechanism of lexical semantic change and is a particularly productive tool when creating new euphemisms to mention taboo topics (Crespo Fernández 2006a; 2008; 2015). The study seeks to determine whether the conceptual sex metaphors in Sex and the City and Sex Education reflect the perceived differences in the conceptualisation of sex in the two series, since Sex Education has been argued to be more inclusive. 66 occurrences were collected in the first two seasons of Sex and the City and 68 in the first two seasons of Sex Education (MIP, see Pragglejaz group 2007. The metaphorical expressions were then classified according to the source domain with which the correspondences are established (CMT, see Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The results are similar in the two TV series. The main conclusions that can be drawn are that even if there is some evolution in the language of sex in general, the source domains used for sex-related conceptual metaphors are so deeply anchored in our cognitive systems that dysphemistic, violent, dehumanising metaphors undergo very slow change.

The representation of the LGBTIQ+ community in TV series has received major attention from academia, mostly from textual and reception perspectives. However, the creative and industrial processes behind the production of media content, including the writers' views and experiences, remain under-explored, especially outside of the United States and Northern Europe. Drawing on Queer Production Studies, this research seeks to fill this gap in Queer Media Studies by examining Spanish screenwriters' experiences and conceptions regarding the creation of fictional LGBTIQ+ characters for TV shows, and observes how the broadcasting industry influences this process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 Spanish screenwriters. Following thematic analysis informed by grounded theory, the main results show that normalization guides the creation of LGBTIQ+ characters, although there are differences in the way screenwriters define this concept. Moreover, the narrative exposition of the intimate lives of LGBTIQ+ characters emerges as the main dilemma in that normalization. Likewise, scriptwriters perceive ambivalent attitudes from the TV industry: Whereas the inclusion of LGBTIQ+ characters seems mandatory these days, there are fears that this might lead to low viewing figures or of reputations being tarnished by negative criticism. The results of this investigation further our understanding of how the concept of normalization shapes the creation of LGBTIQ+ media representations as perceived by professionals who play significant roles in their production. These findings contribute to the advancement of knowledge within LGBTIQ+ media studies and the construction of queer media representations. They also expand the scope of the under-explored field of Production Studies and diversify its geographical area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkish Journal of Film Studies / Türkiye Film Araştırmaları Derneği is the property of Turkish Journal of Film Studies / Turkiye Film Arastirmalari Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Necmettin Erbakan University Journal of the Faculty of Political Science / Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi is the property of Necmettin Erbakan University Journal of The Faculty of Political Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, we examine the television series about global surveillance Person of Interest (POI) (aired on CBS, 2011–2016) to reflect on popular understandings of surveillance and account for its representation of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic surveillance. Drawing on television, media, and surveillance studies, we focus on the power of representations of social relations and diegetic technologies in possible and imagined futures to explore the role of cultural representations in shaping social order. Through the character of the AI Machine representing algorithmic surveillance, we evaluate the show's critique of algorithmic autonomy and contend that, as a media technology of surveillance, the show participates in the hype of big data as a panacea while banalizing surveillance. We argue that POI could facilitate a comprehensive analysis of the politics of algorithmic surveillance but fails to do so due to its uncritical representation of artificial intelligence agencies in detecting security risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the real and the virtual is increasingly central in defining narrative worlds in contemporary culture. On one hand, the rise of digital and immersive technologies seems to reignite easy apocalyptic temptations in critical thought; on the other, it offers new modes of writing and techniques for the materialization and dissemination of narrative worlds. In this interview, Mirko Lino, Associate Professor of Cinema, Television, and Photography at the University of L'Aquila, provides an overview and brief assessment of the dialectic between the real and the virtual. Ranging across various fields of artistic and media production (cinema, serials, literature, video games, comics), he describes some transmedia strategies for constructing storyworlds, while also exploring contemporary imagination's obsessions, such as illusion, dreams, and spectrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how Danish news media and popular culture represent war veterans and how the dominant form of representation can be linked to a general process of militarization in a Danish context. Focusing on the narratives and representations of Danish veterans allow for a study of how the veteran emerges as culturally significant figure in a Nordic welfare state without a well-established tradition for international military engagement. By reading across a set of newspaper articles and two popular TV series, Ride upon the storm and Warrior, a dominant pathologizing discourse focusing on the veteran-victim is identified and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consolidation of digital television via subscription video on demand (SVOD) services has created an unprecedented increase in the consumption of serialised TV shows, which has had direct consequences on the content production sector. Faced with an increasingly demanding, hyperconnected and discerning audience and a supply of content never previously seen, television production and distribution strategies are involved in a process of change and adaptation. This paper seeks to analyse the production of Spanish television series created to be distributed on SVOD platforms. The aim is to know the role that production companies play in the creation of television series for SVOD so as to identify strategies and cooperative alliances between production companies and platforms and to detect possible patterns and trends in the operations of the audiovisual market. Using a mixed methodology that combines quantitative study with qualitative data analysis, the 88 Spanish TV series and miniseries that premiered on SVOD platforms from 2016 to 2021 are analysed, taking as a starting point the year in which these platforms began operating in Spain. The results confirm a trend towards cooperation between independent production companies and the platforms themselves, while no presence of in-house production is observed. Likewise, the atomisation of the role of production companies in the context of SVOD is shown, a phenomenon that already existed in generalist television production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Saúde e Sociedade is the property of Universidade de Sao Paulo, Faculdade de Saude Publica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art & Communication is the property of Turkish Online Journal of Design, Art & Communication and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study aims to investigate the attitudes of individuals living in Serbia toward Turks by looking at how contact with Turkish individuals and watching Turkish TV series have affected Serbian individuals’ stereotyping. Furthermore, the study examines Serbians’ tendency to donate 2,000 Serbian Dinars in an imaginary scenario. The sample consists of 492 adults living in Serbia, and the findings show watching Turkish TV series to be related to more positive feelings toward Turks, higher levels of feeling pleasant about contact, and willingness to have a Turkish friend, colleague, and neighbor. Moreover, having contact with Turks and the frequency of contact are related to having more positive feelings toward Turks. Surprisingly, the Serbs who are more populous and have more frequent contact with Turks were found to feel less pleasant and respected and more nervous and looked down upon. In general, while watching Turkish TV series might have positive associations with Serbs’ positive feelings toward Turks, their contact with Turks seems to relate to more ambivalent feelings. Moreover, when participants were asked to donate money between Bosnians and Turks, most participants divided the money equally while donating the most money to their in-group when it was added. The study also discusses the findings and their implications.

The quest for content differentiation and audience engagement is paramount in the competitive landscape of Video-on-Demand (VOD) platforms. The paper proposes a system investigating VOD platform series data to recommend actors and themes to VOD vendors. To achieve this, we analyzed the storylines of 72 VOD movie series to extract keywords. Using these keywords, we generated a network using Social Network Analysis. By examining the network, we identified content gaps. After semantic clustering, we utilized TOPSIS to determine keywords with high centrality scores. These are a foundation for connecting peripheral keywords and generating new content. The paper’s findings suggest that the proposed content-based recommender system can help VOD platforms create innovative storylines by leveraging structural holes in a TV series content keyword graph. The study also suggests that successful directors take risks by combining different keywords from various network parts. This approach allows them to attract a wider range of audiences and increase their chances of success.

The study explores the nature of adaptations made on an experiential product, a TV series, that enters a foreign market, and investigates the perceptions of foreign consumers concerning the adapted experiential product in two parts. The first part content analyses the nature of adaptations based on comparisons of the contents of the original and adapted versions of the TV series, while the second part content analyses consumers' perceptions of the adapted TV series based on their social media entries. The first part reveals three broad categories of adaptations, namely contextual, cultural, and competitive. The second part indicates that the familiarity with the original TV series and the distinct genre were influential on consumers' evaluation of and satisfaction with the adapted TV series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In one of the few articles published on El hipnotizador (HBO 2015, 2017), Ada Cristina Machado da Silveira highlights the show's cross-border nature by suggesting that the series exemplifies the feeling of unbelonging central to the migrant experience of the Latino diaspora in transnational contexts, posing that it then participates in the construction of a supposed Latino viewing community (318). For her, the symbolic nature of El hipnotizador finds in the chronotope, heteroglossia, and space-time hybridity an innovative way of approaching an imaginary pan-Latin community (322). This essay suggests that the series can also be read from the perspective of the national through a detailed reading of the signs, symbols and allegories that point to a critical reflection of Argentine history. While the co-production and bilingual nature of the fiction suggest a latinoamericanidad, a careful analysis of the repeated presence of recognizable cultural codes and the intentional aesthetic artificiality of the composition encourages an allegorical reading that calls for reflection of the ideological bases of historical milestones in the country, such as its nineteenth-century national foundation and the most recent Proceso de Reorganización Nacional of the last Argentine military dictatorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral features are essential components of TV series, helping the audience to engage with the story, exploring themes beyond sheer entertainment, reflecting current social issues, and leaving a long-lasting impact on the viewers. Their presence shows through the language employed in the plot description. Their detection helps regarding understanding the series writers' underlying message. In this paper, we propose an approach to detect moral features in TV series. We rely on the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) framework to classify moral features and use the associated MFT dictionary to identify the words expressing those features. Our approach combines that dictionary with word embedding and similarity analysis through a deep learning SBERT (Sentence-Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) architecture to quantify the comparative prominence of moral features. We validate the approach by applying it to the definition of the MFT moral feature labels as appearing in general authoritative dictionaries. We apply our technique to the summaries of a selection of TV series representative of several genres and relate the results to the actual content of each series, showing the consistency of results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital age, online video platforms have revolutionised the way in which we consume entertainment. YouTube and Twitch, two of the most popular platforms, have undergone a significant evolution since their inception, becoming containers for stories and narratives that go beyond simple improvised amateur content. The hypothesis is that the fundamentals and structures for storytelling are maintained, but we wish to ascertain specifically what endures through the different formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The brothers Jorge and Alberto Sanchez-Cabezudo have a very important role in the leap in quality taken by Spanish series in the second decade of the twenty-first century. With referents such as The Sopranos (1999–2007) and The Wire (2002–08), they adapted film language and narrative style to television series with Crematorio (2011) and La Zona (The Zone) (2017–18). In this interview we talk specifically about Crematorio as a social and political critique of contemporary Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are currently more trans characters than ever in television series, while at the same time scrutiny of trans people is intensifying in social and public debate, and the correspondence between this increased presence in the media and improvements in the trans community's rights is in dispute. This research aims to find out how trans audiences relate to their portrayal in TV series, to learn about their perceptions and opinions, and to understand how these depictions affect their everyday lives. A qualitative analysis was conducted of 19 trans people in two focus groups and nine semi-structured interviews. The findings show that the participants perceive a clear distance between their realities and the most popular narratives about trans lives. They identify cispassing as a transversal element that drives the production, creation, and distribution of media narratives, leading to a transnormative representation. Consequently, the trans audience demands the inclusion of trans people in the (audiovisual) cultural circuit in order to combat the 'cis gaze' and to create more diverse narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The language of written fantasy has been amply studied, with extensive research on authors such as JRR Tolkien, Robert E Howard, or Aldous Huxley. The study of television language, on the other hand, is attracting increasing attention, even though the scope of such research often encompasses a single TV show rather than whole genres. Given the renewed interest in all things fantasy, this study seeks to analyze the language of fantasy TV series from a corpus-stylistic perspective to open new paths for linguistic inquiry. First, I depart from a theoretical distinction that relies on Mandala's (2012) overview of the field and James and Mendlesohn's (2012) definitions of fantasy as a genre; I consider some of the traits they associate with written fantasy and propose a taxonomy of the different types of fantasy worlds in television. On the basis of this, I design my own TV fantasy corpus by sampling three episodes from fifteen American fantasy TV shows (2011–2021) and compare it against Davies' TV Corpus (2021). Using a corpus-based approach, I implement a POS (part-of-speech) and semantic analysis of the corpus and consider whether, and if so how, the language of fantasy in television reflects the same characteristics scholars have identified in written fantasy and general television discourse. In doing so, I aim to contribute to the understanding of the style of fantasy as a genre and assess whether fantasy TV series are characterized by particular linguistic features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perception of forensic evidence is greatly influenced by crime TV series. The analysis of the human voice is no exception. However, unlike fingerprints—with which fiction and popular beliefs draw an incorrect parallel—the human voice varies according to many factors, can be altered deliberately, and its potential uniqueness has yet to be proven. Starting with a cursory examination of landmarks in forensic voice analysis that exemplify how the voiceprint fallacy came about and why people think they can recognize people's voices, we then provide a thorough inspection of over 100 excerpts from TV series. Through this analysis, we seek to characterize the narrative and aesthetic processes that fashion our perception of scientific evidence when it comes to identifying somebody based on voice analysis. These processes converge to exaggerate the reliability of forensic voice analysis. We complement our examination with plausibility ratings of a subset of excerpts. We claim that these biased representations have led to a situation where, even today, one of the main challenges faced by forensic voice specialists is to convince trial jurors, judges, lawyers, and police officers that forensic voice comparison can by no means give the sort of straightforward answers that fingerprints or DNA permit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the relevance of the Borgia family, a black legend has been attached to them for five hundred years. The vision of Rodrigo Borgia and his children, notably Cesare and Lucrezia, has tended to be negative in the various works inspired by their history. This work analyses three audio-visual products of different kinds (a film, a series and a video game) from the early twenty-first century to determine which conception of the Borgia family has been transmitted to the millions of people who have used them. This enables us to see if a new Borgia idea is offered or if the one given by their black legend is still maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video game has been recognized by having an intrinsic serial quality since it became a dynamic matter of study, over twenty years ago. According to some authors as Murray, Juul, Denson and Jahn-Sudmann, video game is based on the mechanism of repetition and variation that characterizes each gaming session, an aspect that is common with other not-digital media, such as serial literature, movie serial or television series. As video games recently became a mainstream media, that media became attractive for various forms of adaptation, especially cinematographic ones. Hollywood adaptations based on video games have been around for three decades now. However, with a few small exceptions, the transposition from video game to cinema has not always produced good results. What is the reason why video games have faced difficulties in being adapted into movies? And what is the best media that can adapt a video game? The aim of this work is to investigate the reasons why TV series inspired by video games have proven more incisive with both audiences and critics than Hollywood adaptations. The idea from which we move is the fact that the episodic format itself, common to video games and TV series, guarantees more effective use of video game content in its television adaptation. This is possible thanks to the expansion of the lore of the game, or by exploring aspects such as the psychology of the characters, or their relational dynamics. In other words, the format of the TV series remains consistent with the original video game because it uses the same mechanisms of repetition and variation we can find in the game. This project will specifically focus on TV series based on two video games, League of Legends (2009) and The Last of Us (2013), which respectively aired on Netflix and HBO and they are currently in production with a second season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers some of the most relevant productive and cultural reasons behind the adaptation of scripted formats in Italian television. According to the principle that locally produced tv series often score better rates than imported/adapted series, the practice of adaptation of foreign scripted formats has been infrequent until the 2000s. From then on, the Italian television scenario radically changed, because of the debut of satellite pay TV in 2003 and of Netflix in 2015, which modified the market of tv series and forced Italian broadcasters (mainly Rai) to cope with the delicate and complex process of adaptation, with alternate results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Imaginaires is the property of Universitaires de Reims and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In recent years, countless studies have sought to explain and characterise video streaming consumption. Its facet of excessive consumption, the so-called binge-watching, has been privileged in an attempt to define and quantify, if possible, the phenomenon. In this work, we intend to analyse streaming video consumers, aiming to identify the factors that differentiate two specific types of consumers: TV series streamers and medium/short-duration video streamers. The data was obtained using a structured questionnaire, shared online between 16 June and 16 August 2022, to individuals residing in Portugal, aged between 18 and 64, with 496 valid responses. Our sample consists of 67.3% women, and 83.5% of the participants are of Portuguese nationality. About 75% of the participants assumed themselves as consumers of TV series, and about 25% were medium/short-duration video consumers. This study used several statistical techniques, including descriptive statistics, chi-square independence test and logistic regression. The factors that differentiate these two groups of consumers are gender, age group, environment where they live, type of platforms used, the device they usually watch, with whom they typically watch and the system recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the attitudes of individuals living in Serbia toward Turks by looking at how contact with Turkish individuals and watching Turkish TV series have affected Serbian individuals’ stereotyping. Furthermore, the study examines Serbians’ tendency to donate 2,000 Serbian Dinars in an imaginary scenario. The sample consists of 492 adults living in Serbia, and the findings show watching Turkish TV series to be related to more positive feelings toward Turks, higher levels of feeling pleasant about contact, and willingness to have a Turkish friend, colleague, and neighbor. Moreover, having contact with Turks and the frequency of contact are related to having more positive feelings toward Turks. Surprisingly, the Serbs who are more populous and have more frequent contact with Turks were found to feel less pleasant and respected and more nervous and looked down upon. In general, while watching Turkish TV series might have positive associations with Serbs’ positive feelings toward Turks, their contact with Turks seems to relate to more ambivalent feelings. Moreover, when participants were asked to donate money between Bosnians and Turks, most participants divided the money equally while donating the most money to their in-group when it was added. The study also discusses the findings and their implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of the television series Chernobyl (HBO, Sky Atlantic 2019) drew renewed attention to the tragedy, its locations, and the affected population, generating new productions in Russia, such as the film Chernobyl: Abyss (Danila Kozlovskij, 2021), explicitly made in response to the Western series, signalling a desire to re-appropriate the narrative of the disaster and its territories. Indeed, a recurrent characteristic of the film and television productions of the countries most affected by the 1986 nuclear disaster (Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia) has been the representation of the land and the inhabitants' relationship with it (Lindbladh 2019). This is also a central theme in Svetlana Alexievich's renowned 1997 work Voices from Chernobyl: Chronicle of the future, whose stories inspired some episodes of the Anglo-American series. This article analyzes the representation of the relationship between the inhabitants of the Chornobyl/Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and their homeland in film and television productions dedicated to the nuclear disaster, beginning with Eastern European films made in the early 1990s, moving on to the representation in the Western series, and culminating with an analysis of Kozlovskij's Chernobyl: Abyss. Features considered include the development of romantic narratives within the contaminated zone, the visual representation of radiation, and the depiction of the local institutions' response to the disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the representation and translation of swearwords in a corpus of English Netflix series dubbed into Italian. The TV series selected for this study encompass the most popular genres on the platform, including teen, dramedy, action, and mystery, making them representative of widely consumed content. The analysis begins with a comprehensive examination of the occurrence, extent, and function of swearwords in the original soundtracks, by considering variations across genres and semantic domains. The second part of the analysis offers a detailed exploration of the translation strategies employed to convey swearwords in the Italian dubbing of Netflix series, emphasizing genre-specific differences and the influence of language pair and cultural context on strategy selection. The results distinctly reveal that Italian dubbed dialogues often mitigate the offensiveness of swearwords, in contrast to the vulgarization tendency detected in previous studies for dialogues dubbed in Spanish. This divergence may be attributed to cultural factors and lower tolerance among Italian audiences.

The release of the television series Chernobyl (HBO, Sky Atlantic 2019) drew renewed attention to the tragedy, its locations, and the affected population, generating new productions in Russia, such as the film Chernobyl: Abyss (Danila Kozlovskij, 2021), explicitly made in response to the Western series, signalling a desire to re-appropriate the narrative of the disaster and its territories. Indeed, a recurrent characteristic of the film and television productions of the countries most affected by the 1986 nuclear disaster (Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia) has been the representation of the land and the inhabitants’ relationship with it (Lindbladh 2019). This is also a central theme in Svetlana Alexievich’s renowned 1997 work Voices from Chernobyl: Chronicle of the future, whose stories inspired some episodes of the Anglo-American series. This article analyzes the representation of the relationship between the inhabitants of the Chornobyl/Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and their homeland in film and television productions dedicated to the nuclear disaster, beginning with Eastern European films made in the early 1990s, moving on to the representation in the Western series, and culminating with an analysis of Kozlovskij’s Chernobyl: Abyss. Features considered include the development of romantic narratives within the contaminated zone, the visual representation of radiation, and the depiction of the local institutions’ response to the disaster.

Directed by Owen Harris and broadcast on Channel 4, the Black Mirror episode “Be Right Back” (S02E01) features an artificial intelligence programmed to enable conversations with deceased people. Considering contemporary TV series are likely to be involved in framing public issues, this article investigate how AI is portrayed and the risks associated with it by using the dystopian genre. Combining an episode analysis and a reception study, it aims to ask whether fiction offers a simple dystopian anticipation or whether its collective discussion suggests the development of a critical and reflexive stance towards our contemporary societies and current issues linked to AI, thus contributing to the collective debate.

The consolidation of digital television via subscription video on demand (SVOD) services has created an unprecedented increase in the consumption of serialised TV shows, which has had direct consequences on the content production sector. Faced with an increasingly demanding, hyperconnected and discerning audience and a supply of content never previously seen, television production and distribution strategies are involved in a process of change and adaptation. This paper seeks to analyse the production of Spanish television series created to be distributed on SVOD platforms. The aim is to know the role that production companies play in the creation of television series for SVOD so as to identify strategies and cooperative alliances between production companies and platforms and to detect possible patterns and trends in the operations of the audiovisual market. Using a mixed methodology that combines quantitative study with qualitative data analysis, the 88 Spanish TV series and miniseries that premiered on SVOD platforms from 2016 to 2021 are analysed, taking as a starting point the year in which these platforms began operating in Spain. The results confirm a trend towards cooperation between independent production companies and the platforms themselves, while no presence of in-house production is observed. Likewise, the atomisation of the role of production companies in the context of SVOD is shown, a phenomenon that already existed in generalist television production.

Diziler, insanlar için vakit geçirmeyi sağlayan, onları günlük telaşlarından uzaklaştıran eğlence araçlarından bir tanesidir. Dizilerde yansıtılan yaşantılar ve karakterler bazen doğrudan bazen de dolaylı olarak izleyicilerin zihnine belli yapıları inşa etmektedir. Dizilerin etkililiği, diziler aracılığıyla verilen mesajlar ile sağlanmaktadır. Dini içerikli TV dizilerinde İslami kimliğin nasıl sunulduğu ve yansıtılan ile var olan arasında nasıl bir mesafenin olduğunu ortaya koymak araştırmanın amacını oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada nitel araştırma yöntemi seçilmiş ve söylem analizi kullanılmıştır. Araştırma örneklemi için Kızılcık Şerbeti dizisi seçilmiştir. Çözümlemeler, 8-15 Mayıs arasında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler çözümlenerek araştırma sonucunda İslami kimliğinin ve İslam dininin seküler kesim tarafından uygarlığın gerisinde ve eğitimsiz bireylerin bir inancı olarak konumlandırıldığı bulgusuna ulaşılmıştır. Muhafazakâr kesim ile de bu savın doğrulanarak, içselleştirilerek sunulduğu görülmüştür. Varılan bir diğer sonuç ise muhafazakâr kesimin yansıttığı kültürel davranışların birer İslami kimlik değeri olarak sunulduğu ve İslam dini için dezenformasyon sağladığıdır. İslam dininde yer alan ilkelerin bağlamsız olarak yer aldığı, bu nedenle irrasyonel ve abartılı sunularak spekülasyon oluşturduğu gözlemlenmiştir.

Film ve dizilerde canlandırılan psikoterapi sahneleri aracılığıyla terapötik süreçleri ve müdahaleleri incelemek, kuramları farklı perspektiften analiz etmek ve bunları psikolojik danışman eğitiminde kullanmak mümkündür. Bu araştırmada terapi sahneleri bakımından zengin veriler sunan “In Treatment” dizisinde kullanılan terapötik becerilerin ve sağlanan terapötik koşulların metin analizi yöntemi ile incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Nitel araştırma yönteminin kullanıldığı bu araştırmada elde edilen veriler betimsel analize tabi tutulmuştur. Veriler analiz edildiğinde terapistin en sık başvurduğu becerinin kişiselleştirme becerisi en çok sağlanan terapötik koşulun ise ilişkinin şimdi ve buradalığı olduğu görülmektedir. Bunun yanında terapistin konuşmaya açık davet, kendini açma, bağlama, koşulsuz kabul, yüzleştirme, yansıtma, somutlaştırma, saydamlık, yapılama, empati, özetleme, amaç belirleme, bilgilendirme ve sessizlik beceri ve koşullara da başvurduğu saptanmıştır. Danışanın ise terapiste yoğun bir direnç gösterdiği, eşi, çocuğu, babası ve yakın arkadaşı ile yaşadığı ilişki ve sorunlarından bahsettiği, yer yer kendi hakkında içgörü kazandığı ancak çoğunlukla farkındalık kazanmaktan kaçındığı, kimi zaman terapist ile sorunlar yaşadığı ve son olarak terapiyi yarıda bıraktığı görülmektedir. Filmlerde yer alan terapi sahnelerinin analiz edildiği bu araştırmalar eğitim sürecinde, yaşanan problemleri somutlaştırmada ve profesyonellere çeşitli bakış açıları kazandırmada alanyazına çok büyük katkılar sunmaktadır.

As tourism linked to fiction in all its forms has developed strongly, national television productions have become important stimuli for domestic tourism. This is the case of contemporary French television series, both daily soaps (Plus belle la vie, Un si grand soleil, etc.) and crime series (Meurtres à..., Crimes en....) produced by the public service. This article sheds light on the transition in French television fiction from an interest in history (during the 1960s-1980s) to an interest in « territories ». They are now full-fledged agents in the fiction, even first in the writing of the scenarios (the place is chosen before the plot is elaborated), because the objectives are operations of promotion and territorial marketing. This study is based on the analysis of the crime series Meurtres à... co-produced by France 3 and RTBF since 2013. The fictionalization of the space of these « territories », their activities and their stories, tales and legends therefore participates in new geographical narratives, likely to be part of tourism practices as well as residential choices.

The city of Montreal is an important destination, behind Toronto and Vancouver, for filming in Canada, both nationally and internationally (especially for U.S. filmmakers). The article aims to compare filming locations, representations of the city on screen and geographical imaginaries linked to Montreal: to what extent does the choice of filming locations lead to a selective image of the city of Montreal according to the productions and the audiences? While the city of Montreal is often used as a generic or substitute city setting in American series, some Quebec productions choose, on the contrary, a strong territorial anchoring in more peripheral neighborhoods. The use of cross-methodologies allows us to question the notion of the imaginary applied to the city of Montreal, and the discrepancies observed between a city that is seen from the outside and a city that is seen by its inhabitants, an inhabited city. The article will focus on the mini-series “Je voudrais qu'on m'efface”, which takes place in the working-class and multicultural Saint-Michel district, in order to examine the inhabitation of the district as it is represented on screen, thereby overcoming certain representations of the city in other series and nourishing the Montreal imaginary.