The Killing CSP

• The economic context can be explored through patterns of ownership and production and how the product is marketed nationally and globally.
• The use of noir visual style, conventions of the police procedural and multiple narrative strands, The Killing provides a rich area of study for media language, which would form the foundation for work on the other theoretical frameworks.
• Mise-en-scene analysis in The Killing includes costume, lighting, and semiotics.
• The detective in The Killing wears a jumper and is fully covered, which may make her appear smarter as she is not sexualised and also dedicated to her work.
• Low lighting in The Killing signifies danger.
• Semiotics in The Killing involves how images signify cultural meanings.
• Not being sexualised in The Killing signifies independence.
• Dark lighting in The Killing signifies danger.
• Surprise party in The Killing signifies danger/ actual police issues.
• The Killing uses binary oppositions to drive the narrative forward.
• The way the binary opposition is resolved in The Killing may have ideological significance.
• The oppositions that The Killing uses are good and evil, dark and light/night and day, hero and villain.
• Knights theory of prolonging the inevitable can be applied to The Killing, as due to the common features of a police procedural drama, the audience can assume the ending but the ending of the episodes always leaves another problem for the next episode.
• The crime in The Killing seems to branch off of a lot of suspects and numerous possibilities which entertain the audience as they're expecting the unexpected.
• At the equilibrium of the first episode of The Killing, Sarah is getting ready to start a new life elsewhere, and move out of the city.
• The disruption in The Killing is that a girl goes missing.
• The recognition in The Killing is that Sarah has to go and solve this crime before she leaves.
• The attempt to solve the disruption in The Killing is that the car is found however, the girl is not a live so it opens up a new case which is the new equilibrium.
• The Killing follows some conventions of police procedural: lack emphasis on personal lives, a high focus on law, police related topics and a detective which seems to work alone.
• The Killing was the catalyst for the distribution of foreign language crime programming on UK television, influencing BBC4's scheduling but also that of other UK channels.
• Van Zoonen suggests that the body is objectified, which does not apply to The Killing as the women appear to be fairly covered.
• In media language, the use of different formal structures to position the audience to receive and interpret meaning is central, while the study of representations has at its heart the reinforcement of social and cultural values for audiences.
• The Killing does not exploit women, but it could not generalise no exploitation for other races.
• The Killing personifies a successful transnational, contemporary media product with long duration that has been shown in its original form across Europe and remade by Turkish and US TV.
• The Killing was produced by the Danish national public service broadcaster DR, providing the opportunity to study PSB in a different national context.
• The Killing uses the crime genre to explore contemporary political contexts of multi-culturalism and debate the effects of immigration.
• The Killing does not use stereotypes, which goes against Halls theory.
• The Killing provides a case study for the specialised nature of media production, distribution and circulation within a transnational and global context.
• The Killing suggests that females are as strong as men and should not be neglected or underestimated.
• Hooks suggest women are exploited depending on their race, sex and class.
• Issues of audience are relevant throughout the other theoretical frameworks.
• The Killing is part of a cultural phenomenon of the early twenty-first century which saw TV series not in English language become part of mainstream UK broadcasting.
• The Killing includes new characters for audience alignment (narrative strands).
• Sarah Linden is a female detective in a dangerous position.
• The advertising campaigns for the series demonstrate how media producers target, attract and potentially construct audiences.
• The Killing represents national identity through issues of multiculturalism.
• The production, distribution and exhibition of The Killing shows how audiences can be reached, both on a national and global scale, through different media technologies and platforms, moving from the national to transnational through broadcast and digital technologies.
• The Killing also borrows features from film noir: investigator, crime, heavy smoking, urban locations, bleak view of humanity.
• The Killing is a hybrid genre.
• Steve Neale suggests that genre is instances of repetition and differences.