Television And Social Change

Caption What I'm Saying: How Television Commercials That Are Not Closed Captioned Lose Millions In Potential Revenue

by Rachel Burton

Graduate thesis for the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University

Glee and Homophobia in Sports

by John Nauright

Blog article published after the Glee episode that first aired in the USA on 2/21/12.

Last night’s episode of Glee was one of the most important hours of television ever aired in America dealing with... more Last night’s episode of Glee was one of the most important hours of television ever aired in America dealing with sports. You heard me right, the show that normally addresses a choral group as safe space for all, took on one of the least talked about, yet important issues in sports today – the issue of homophobia in male sports.

In the episode, the closeted gay football player character of David Karofsky, who previously bullied Kurt, an openly gay member of the chorus group, is outed by others and has the word “Fag” spray-painted across his locker. In a locker room scene he is taunted by his teammates, his supposed friends, as he flees the scene. Upon arriving in his room at home, he sees even worse language all over the internet about him. With no easy refuge, he chooses to attempt suicide as a way to escape his pain and humiliation. This blog situates this storyline in the context of homophobia and male sport in the USA.

La generación Internet frente al televisor

by Idoia Portilla

Presented in 2006 in the 22nd. Seminar of AEDEMO (Seminario de Televisión)

Children and teenagers use internet and televisión. Have they stopped watching television since they use internet? The... more Children and teenagers use internet and televisión. Have they stopped watching television since they use internet? The answer is not easy.

Spain’s economic crisis creates opportunity for Al Jazeera

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

A refusal by Spanish commercial television stations to bid at current rates for rights... more By James M. Dorsey

A refusal by Spanish commercial television stations to bid at current rates for rights to broadcast next season’s top league Spanish soccer matches creates an opportunity for the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera network to advance its push into Europe and to become the world’s premier global broadcaster.

A bid for Spanish rights would reaffirm Al Jazeera’s strategy of moving in behind other Qatar government institutions as they conclude sponsorship agreements and acquisitions such as the winning of the hosting the 2022 World Cup and in France. It would also fit with the broadcaster’s move into markets such as Egypt in anticipation that they will generate revenue at a later stage rather than immediately and Qatar’s strategy of employing sports and media to leverage its global influence.

More than anything else, Al Jazeera and the 2022 World Cup have put Qatar, a tiny city state, on the world map. With Al Jazeera, Qatar rewrote the Middle East and North Africa’s media landscape, which until then was dominated by heavily censored state-owned broadcasters. Qatar’s ruler, Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, ignored with few exceptions the protests of Al Jazeera’s often freewheeling journalism by various Arab leaders as well as initial US government portrayals of Al Jazeera as an Al Qaeda mouthpiece.

Al Jazeera has spent an estimated $400 million in the last year for broadcast rights to France's soccer league, the Champions League and Europa League, as well as some top German and Italian matches. It also concluded a $225 million sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona and a member of the royal family has bought FC Malaga.

Al Jazeera’s opportunity in Spain emerged after the country’s major commercial television stations, Antena 3 de Television SA (A3TV) and Mediaset Espana Comunicacion SA (TL5), said that they would only bid in June for the soccer league broadcast rights if rates were dropped by half. Reduced rates however could put the financial future of the Spanish league in jeopardy with players worried that clubs may not be able to honour their contracts.

The Spanish League generates annual television revenues of approximately $600 million. Business Week quoted Antena 3 as saying that Rival La Sexta, with which it is merging, paid $78 million for last season’s rights or just under $2 million for each of the 38 matches. 

Antena 3’s net income fell 14 percent last year while Mediaset SpA (MS), the parent company of Mediaset Espana, cut its dividend in March after profit dropped more than estimated on lower advertisement sales, Business Week said.

“The problem with sports events is that it’s good for ratings but it’s a financial disaster,” Antena 3 Chief Executive Officer Silvio Gonzalez told the magazine.

Al Jazeera’s opportunity is bolstered by the fact that the economics of Spanish league broadcast rights are complicated by Spain’s economic crisis, which has seen media revenues decline and unemployment rise, as well as the fact that Spanish law requires one match a week to be aired on a free-to-air rather than a pay tv channel. Complicating a possible Al Jazeera push into the Spain is the fact that each Spanish club sells its own rights which strengthens the negotiating position teams like Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

The potential crisis in Spanish soccer has fuelled calls for the dropping of the legal requirement of a free-to-air game amid a flurry of Spanish and British media reports about players getting ready to transfer abroad after this season ends.

Britain’s The Sun reported that Abu Dhabi-owned Manchester City might offer $67 million for Colombian striker Radamel Falcao, who scored more than 25 goals for Spain’s Atletico Madrid this season. Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain could also well try to exploit Spain’s dilemma.

Al Jazeera has not commented on whether it is considering bidding for next season’s Spanish league rights. A bid would however be in line with the Gulf state’s global soccer and media ambitions as well as Sheikh Hamad’s proven willingness to enable Al Jazeera to suffer multi-year losses as it builds its business.

The broadcaster, the most popular sports network in the Middle East and Africa with two free and 15 pay channels, has acquired the rights in 23 countries to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as well as to the troubled premier league in Egypt, where the pay TV market is still underdeveloped.

Al Jazeera is expected to launch a new French channel in early June in time for the European soccer championships after acquiring French rights in the wake of Qatar’s acquisition of Paris Saint-Germain.

Al Jazeera, which shares the rights with free-to-air channels TF1 and M6, who as part of their package will broadcast those French matches which have to be shown on free TV under French law, sees France as its test case for establishing itself as a pay-TV broadcaster in Europe.

The broadcaster is also looking at challenging this spring Rupert Murdoch’s BskyB for British rights to the English Premier League, at approximately $3 billion the world’s most expensive soccer league broadcast rights, and could also bid for German Bundesliga rights.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Milton Friedman: Grand héraut de l'"orthodoxie" néo-libérale

by Lucas Bouchard

Weaving the threads of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurial learning through a university-located reality-TV and master class: Enterprise …

by Peter Mellalieu

Mellalieu, P. J. (1998). Weaving the threads of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurial learning through a university-located reality-TV and master class: Enterprise MasterWorks (EMW)™. International Conference on Higher Education and Small/Medium Enterprise (SMEs). Presented at the International Conference on Higher Education and Small/Medium Enterprise (SMEs), Rennes, France: Centre Études et Recherche EURO PME, Rennes International School of Business. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/emw1998

Prologue
A substantial gap is opening up between business faculties and leading edge business practice. Academics... more Prologue
A substantial gap is opening up between business faculties and leading edge business practice. Academics tend to dismiss the innovative struggles of leading edge businesses as faddism. By doing this they fail to recognise that what is often happening is that practising managers are confronting actual, experiential situations and finding that traditional practices no longer work. What seem to be fads are actually people struggling with new situations for which they have in- adequate models to help them understand - and they are getting inadequate help from academics at both the research and teaching levels. (Anna Smith, Business Education Quarterly Review, 1996)

Introduction
Enterprise MasterWorksTM (EMW) is a university-based educational programme that demonstrates a novel approach for developing competencies in entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity. EMW is framed as a star-tup small-medium enterprise (SME), staffed mainly by students of enterprise development. The EMW 'company' produces two products: (a) purpose-designed learning adventures, and (b) video training packages based around the competency requirements for creating efficacious entrepreneurs and innovators, science and technology managers, SME consultants and trainers, and SME managers.

Each episode of EMW is realised as an “as live-to-air master class and workshop”. In practice, each episode is a high-energy learning adventure that takes place in a television studio. A typical 160 minute episode includes:
• a workshop briefing from a guest “master” (such as an SME manager);
• an interview and fish bowl discussion with students;
• video inserts profiling the guest’s enterprise; a team-taught practical workshop;
• reflective insights; and learning connections to relevant theory and “masterful” entrepreneurial practice.

The EMW 'reality-TV' format results in a weaving together of the strengths of both academic thinking and good management practice, focussed directly on the personal and professional de- velopment interests of the programme participants.

Example video clips:
Enterprise MasterWorks - EMW Concept overview. (1997). Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University Television Production Centre. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4IKa6dy7_I&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Behind the scenes of Enterprise MasterWorks (EMW). (1997). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYrQLeJLfH0&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Elements of an Enterprise MasterWorks (EMW) learning adventure. (1997). Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University Television Production Centre. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYya4gfcxs4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Evaluative questioning as a risk management tactic whilst innovating in teaching practice: The case of Enterprise MasterWorks (EMW). (1997). Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University Television Production Centre. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn_49OEpjhs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

See also:
Mellalieu, P. J. (1999). Beyond the Case Method: A Master Class for Enterprise Development. Think Global! Act Global! The role and impact of strategic management in the development of small enterprise and new ventures: Proceedings of the Annual Educators Conference of the New Zealand Strategic Management Society, 1 (Vol. 1, pp. 293–304). Presented at the 7th Annual Educators Conference of the New Zealand Strategic Management Society, Massey University, Palmerston North: New Zealand Strategic Management Society. Retrieved from http://unitec.academia.edu/PeterMellalieu/Papers/1571134/Beyond_the_Case_Method_A_Master_Class_for_Enterprise_Development


Mellalieu, P. J. (1998). Creating the virtual learning enterprise: Lessons from Enterprise MasterWorks. 6th New Zealand Strategic Management Educators Conference. Auckland University: New Zealand Strategic Management Society/Auckland University. Retrieved from http://unitec.academia.edu/PeterMellalieu/Papers/1571162/Creating_the_virtual_learning_enterprise_Lessons_from_Enterprise_MasterWorks

Religious Change among Yemeni Women: The New Popularity of ‘Amr Khaled

by Sophia Pandya

Published in JMEWS.

While I was interviewing young, educated, employed Yemeni women
regarding their religious practices, many... more While I was interviewing young, educated, employed Yemeni women
regarding their religious practices, many conveyed to me that their
favorite preacher was the charismatic Egyptian televangelist ‘Amr
Khaled, whose show is broadcast in Sanaa and in many parts of
the Middle East on a weekly basis. Th ey also spoke of reluctance to
take part in many of their mother’s communal religious practices
and events. In this study I analyze the reasons for this generational
change, and examine the impact of modernity and new forms of
media, such as televangelism, on educated Yemeni women’s religious
practices. Factors such as a newfound access to modern education,
lack of time, fatigue with politics, and ‘Amr Khaled’s unique ability to
reconcile tensions between tradition and modernity have contributed
to his popularity among this group of Yemeni women.

Are the Muppets Still a "Catalyst for Social Change"?

by Deanne McDonald

published in Graduate Research Conference Journal, Minnesota State University, Mankato 2011

The Muppet Show and early Muppet films are known for their silliness and self-referentiality, but also have a strong... more The Muppet Show and early Muppet films are known for their silliness and self-referentiality, but also have a strong message of social change through acceptance of individuals. Muppet Treasure Island is a more recent film in keeping with the Muppet tradition of chaos but lacks the strong social message of the earlier work.

TWITTER Y LA REBELIÓN DE LOS CIBERFANS DE GRAN HERMANO 2.0

by Luis Garcia Fanlo

Resumen / Abstract Texto de próxima publicación (marzo 2012)

Radical Rationalism as Cinema Aesthetics: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in North American Documentary and Experimental Film

by Terri Ginsberg

Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination 4.1 (Fall/Winter 2011): 91-115

Historical Sites of the Present: Deadwood as Cognitive Mapping

by Sean Legassick

When we look for television that ‘cognitively maps’ contemporary capitalism, we are drawn first to present-day... more When we look for television that ‘cognitively maps’ contemporary capitalism, we are drawn first to present-day narratives that extend over contemporary urban landscapes to explore the spatial displacement of flows of cause and effect within late capitalism. David Simon's The Wire, for example, tracks exactly such flows through its portrayal of a contemporary American city in decay. This paper argues that we can also consider recent works of semi-historical television drama as cognitive mappings, where the narrative is temporally displaced and spatially confined. David Milch's Deadwood is one example, a show that charts the transition of Deadwood from illegal and lawless frontier settlement to a company town annexed by the US Dakota territory, figuring a transitional period for the US state and US capital, mapping that era onto our present.

Dylan Moran's Critical Take on England's Stereotypical Character and Prejudices

by Frederic Derose-Jacques

Distribución y financiación de formatos audiovisuales en Internet: nuevas estrategias para rentabilizar los contenidos

by Maria Jose Arrojo

New Strategies to Make Contents Profitable.
Distribution and Financing of Audiovisual Formats in the Internet

The changes derived from the use of new devices for the audio-visual consumption are transforming the productive... more The changes derived from the use of new devices for the audio-visual consumption are transforming the productive processes, the distribution and the strategies of and of programming. The persons marketing in charge of the television formats seek to promote their contents in the Network and there arise audio-visual
specific products for this support across new lines of funding.
Keywords: Formats, Internet, Television, Distribution, Branded Entertainment

Phenomenology and Uncanny Homecoming: Homeworld, Alienworld, and Being-at-Home in Alan Ball’s HBO Television Series, Six Feet Under

by David Seamon

first draft of a chapter prepared for Uncanny Homecomings, a collection of essays edited by Daniel Boscaljon, publisher to be determined. A revised, extended version of a presentation at the 7th annual Religion, Literature, and the Arts Conference held at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, August 27; conference theme: “Uncanny Homecomings: Narrative, Structures, Existential Questions, Theological Visions.” © David Seamon 2011

This chapter provides one phenomenological interpretation of writer and director Alan Ball’s popular Home Box Office... more This chapter provides one phenomenological interpretation of writer and director Alan Ball’s popular Home Box Office cable-television series, Six Feet Under, which completed its fifth and final season in 2005. The chapter considers how home and at-homeness are portrayed in the series, drawing on two contrasting phenomenological conceptions: First, Edmund Husserl’s homeworld/alienworld as interpreted by Anthony Steinbock in Home and Beyond (Steinbock 1995); and, second, Kristen Jacobson’s being-at-home (Jacobson 2009). The argument is made that an open sense of at-homeness, grounded in family and place, allows for personal and communal transformation partly impelled by unsettling moments when characters suddenly encounter, in their home lifeworld, compelling situations and understandings before out of sight—i.e., the uncanny.

Key words: home, at-homeness, dwelling, homeworld, alienworld, being-at-home, uncanny, place, phenomenology, phenomenology of home, Alan Ball, Six Feet Under

Информационный труд в эпоху экономического кризиса: прогнозы и репрезентации (на примере телевизионных сериалов 2006-2011)

by Ekaterina Lapina-Kratasyuk

Edutainment Television Programmes: Tackling HIV/AIDS on the South African Broadcasting Corporation

by viola milton

Published in Health Communication in Southern Africa: Engaging with Social and Cultural Diversity Edited by Luuk Lagerwerf, Henk Boer and Herman Wasserman, 2009

Black and White TV: Race, Television Viewing and Academic Achievement

by Carl L Bankston

co-authored with Stephen J. Caldas

Comunicação política, televisão e entendimento esclarecido: um exame da compatibilidade de uma mídia com a política democrática

by Francisco Mata Machado Tavares (Franck)

Griffiths, M.D. (2004). Interactive television gambling Youth Gambling International, 4(2), 1-2.

by Mark Griffiths

Le Carré Blanc

by Victoria H.F. Scott