Introduction to the interactive story.
This article examines the phenomenon of internet memes not just as a pervasive form of digital communication with implications for political culture, but as a new satirical medium. Through the lens of socialist television satire, this article details how memes are an evolution of the venerable history of political satire that abridge past and future traditions of political humour...
Taking as its main case study the experimental, satirical sketch show The Street / Улицата (1992-1996), this essay examines the transformational moment in Bulgarian broadcast media following 1989, specifically focusing on the period between 1990 and 1997, and ways in which the socio-political transition functioned as a catalyst for re-assessing the aesthetics, politics, and...
This article examines postsocialist TV satire of the 1990s in the Czech Republic and Poland using the examples of the programmes Česká soda (Czech Soda Water, ČT, 1993-1997) and Za chwilę dalszy ciąg programu (Next Episode in a Moment, TVP, 1988-1994). These pioneering shows were among the first to introduce the format of television satire and news parody to postsocialist screens...
For a brief period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a degree of political freedom existed in Russia that allowed political satire to appear on television. Different oligarchs purchased important television channels and used them to push the Boris Yeltsin government to approve policies favorable to their business interests by polarizing public opinion against the...
This article explores the trajectory of one of the most popular comedy shows in Bulgaria, using a cultural-historical analysis approach. While Gospodari na Efira started as the Bulgarian version of an Italian news parody show, it assumed its own trajectory to become a distinct amalgamation of social satire, political humor and investigative journalism. The show’s formula for...
Since 2015, Israeli-born German artist Shahak Shapira has initiated several satirical campaigns targeting antisemitism and racism in Germany and the country’s relation to the Holocaust. These interventions set Shapira’s career in motion, and in 2019 he landed a slot on the ZDF public broadcasting channel for the talk show Shapira Shapira. The show mocked antisemitism and far...
This article contributes to the work of scholars of Eastern Europe who insist on the relevance of race and racism to the region. The text analyzes a contemporary Bulgarian documentary TV series, called Nichia Zemia (No Man’s Land) and its representation of Roma minorities. The study traces the connections between rising inequalities, poverty, and demographic change that accompany...
Your Face Sounds Familiar, a celebrity talent television format developed by the Dutch production company Endemol and first broadcast in Spain in 2011, has entertained audiences in more than forty countries with the sight of well-known professional musicians impersonating foreign and domestic stars through cross-gender drag and, on many national editions, cross-racial drag, with...
In this article we discuss discourses of white mobility in reality television, a genre whose problematic post-racial and neoliberal discourses have long been exposed. Moving beyond the widely researched Anglophone media landscapes, we interrogate the discursive construction of white mobilities in the Swedish romance reality show Bonde Söker Fru – Jorden Runt (TV4, 2019-2020...
This article interrogates the figure of the Eastern European itinerant in contemporary prestige BBC drama to highlight the figure’s role in mobilising ideas of nationhood and foreignness in Brexit-era Britain. Our critical analyses of Dracula (BBC1, 2020), Killing Eve (BBC America, 2018-), and Call the Midwife (BBC1, 2012-) show that programming that putatively celebrates British...
This article delves into Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum, examining how the cultural text builds upon Black feminist media discourse, and intimately grapples with the nuances of Black women’s sexuality while explicitly challenging misogynoir. This work illustrates how Coel is helping develop a Black British cultural aesthetic that centers Black women’s liberation, specifically from...
Today, stereotypical and racialised imaginations of Muslims are pervasive on Dutch television. This article traces the history of Dutch television coverage of Muslim immigrants through the lens of the archive of Sound and Vision. It demonstrates that during their symbolic transformation from ‘guest workers’ to ‘ethnic minorities’ to ‘allochtonen’ and ‘Muslims’, television’s...
This article analyses Claude Lanzmann’s final work, The Four Sisters (2017), in the context of its being edited from the outtakes of Shoah (1985) for broadcast on the Arte television channel. It argues that the distinctive features of the film, including its form as a quartet of self-contained interviews, absence of location footage and reliance on certain kinds of shot...
This article explores representations of Mary I of England, wife of Philip II of Spain. Specifically, it examines the portrayal of the queen – perhaps most famously known by the epithet ‘Bloody Mary’ – in the TV series Carlos, Rey Emperador (2015-2016), and in its associated online supporting materials. It details how textual representations of Mary underpin European visual...
Despite continual improvements in production and writing quality, live-action Russian series have fared poorly in the global market. While many deals have been struck, Western remakes of Russian series have failed to appear, and live-action programs have failed to find mainstream audiences outside of Russia. Russian animated series, on the other hand, have enjoyed global success...
The subject of this paper is the use of broadcast media content – newsreels, news reportage and non-fiction documentaries – in the history classroom. Used educationally as sources of evidence, such moving images offer students a valuable learning experience. Drawing on findings from a study involving students analysing media content in a Maltese secondary history classroom, I...
This article focuses on the short lived Turkish police procedural TV series, Cinayet (The Murder, Akbel Film and Adam Film, 2014) which is a scripted format adaptation of the celebrated Danish crime drama Forbrydelsen (DR, 2007-2012). By making a comparative textual analysis of the series, the article intends to emphasize the significance of ‘aesthetic proximity’ as a concept in...
This paper examines how Greek television fiction introduced and represented lesbian characters during primetime. Drawing on feminist and queer theory and taking the codes and conventions of the comedy genre into account, the paper reveals Greek comedy’s elusive and ambiguous stances towards heteronormativity. By applying a qualitative textual approach, the paper argues that...
The study discloses the secretly held facts of the establishment of Hungarian Television. It analyses the four-year-long process, including fiascos of political decisions, infighting in governmental economic and political organizations, financial aspects, as well as personal conflicts and battles. It discusses the factors leading to the original resolution of establishing...
This article studies the import of East German films by Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio, and their reception in the Swedish public sphere. While few GDR films reached theatrical distribution, Swedish television imported and broadcasted over 30 productions by the state-owned film studio DEFA during the 1970s and 1980s, making this the primary distribution window...
From the mid-1950s onwards, the number of television viewers in West Germany increased rapidly and television became the “window to the world” for many people. Through audio-visual reporting the people were informed so that they could feel save as they know what had happened in the world, especially in times of the Cold War. The Suez Crisis of 1956/1957 was one of the Cold War...
The paper discusses the storytelling formulas of the first season of the German series Dark (2017–2020) by focusing on the key temporal and spatial aspects of seriality in the show, such as the time frame of diegesis (story time), the temporal structure of the story (discourse and narration time) and the unique temporal installation of the series. As argued, the story and visual...