TV

• Codes and conventions- crime drama

  • eery settings
  • darker outfits
  • suits
  • dark lighting- low key lighting
  • determined facial expressions
  • make up effects- cuts
  • violence
  • weapons
  • desaturated colours
  • anger
  • dramatic, non diagetic music
  • troubled detective
  • “safe environment“
  • villains Wearing suit
  • urban locations
• if a crime drama series has multiple crimes, they typically start with disruption- criticise Todorov
• Nordic-Noir/Scandi-Noir

  • sub genre of crime drama- began in literature and moved to tv
  • began in scandinavia
  • Nordic Noir uses noir genre conventions and relocates them from the traditional Hollywood urban setting to a Scandinavian location with a focus on rural and/or urban industrial locations
  • the killing is a good example which was broadcast on BBC4 (UK tv) 4 years after its original danish broadcast. It was a cult success despite it being a subtitled tv drama
• Nordic-Noir/Scandi-Noir

  • term first used to define crime fiction written in Scandinavian countries
  • darker side of modern life- violence, crime and their impact
  • regain thought of as being socially liberal with progressive attitudes to gender and sexuality
  • it engages with idealisation of theses countries and uses crime drama genre to explore and at time, critique ideas of national identity
  • historically low levels of wealth inequality in Scandinavian countries
  • it follows a range of visual and thematic codes and conventions
• visual codes of Nordic Noir

  • symbolic montage in the title sequence and/or use of melancholy music
  • muted colours
  • subdued and low-key lighting
  • long slow pans and tracking shots over landscapes and landmarks
  • rural landscape are often presented as ‘bleak‘
  • urban landscape are often presented as industrial
  • settings are often wintery
• thematic codes of Nordic Noir

  • they story will often be focused on crime and police investigations
  • investigator is a ‘lone wolf hero‘ who has personal problems to contend with and/or a dark past
  • investigator/‘hero’ may struggle with personal relationships
  • other character are shown to be complex and often flawed
  • authority figures cannot always be trusted
  • focus on the consequences of violent crime
  • dramatic tension and suspense
• history of crime

  • 1950s- conservative government, no sex or drudges, less ‘serious‘ crimes
  • 1960s- panda cars, traffic wardens, government scandals, police activism, rise of crime= rise of crime dramas
  • 1970s- terrorist attacks, mainland bombings, impact of feminism
  • 1980s- Margaret Thatcher in power, Falklands war, inner city riots, moral panic from stabbing of police officer, miners strike, unemployment, drug and rave culture
• history of crime

  • 1990s- gulf war, criminal justice bill, public concerns over immigration, delinquency, paedophilia, internet access
  • 2000s- impact of 9/11, terrorist threats and incidents, changes in policy attitudes to drugs
• institution: organisation that has an influence on a community or industry
• institution

  • something which has established customs or practices and may promote key ideologies
  • media institutions are involved in the competitive market of audience ratings
  • institutions are there to gratify audiences and to make money, even public service broadcasters must be seen to be profitable (BBC cant justify making a loss when its funded by licence payers money)
  • independent institutions operate on a small scale. often ,managed and run by staff who also create the media texts. an independent journalist may research, write, promote, photograph and publish their own stories
• in the UK the term ‘public service broadcasting‘ refers to the broadcasting which is intended for the public benefit rather than for purely commercial concerns
• public benefit is things such as the news or things that educate people e.g. documentaries
• public broadcasting

  • early principles: bringing arts to working class, teaching the population in school, informing and diverting unpaid female labour in the home, covering nation-building events such as sport and news, addressing religious differences
• commercial institutions

  • these generally have no guaranteed income (even ITV, C4 and C5 which have a small PBS remit) therefore it’s essential they are profitable
  • they can generate incomes by:
  • subscription (often confided to satellite/cable) e.g. BT vision, Sky sports/movies
  • pay per view e.g. sky box office, adult channels
  • sponsorship- many programmes often contain sponsor stings or sometimes ‘thanks to’ messages on credits. strands of programmes may also carry sponsorship e.g. ITV3
  • advertising- companies pay for advertising slots based on programme ratings
• Commercial institutions

  • they can generate incomes by:
  • product placement- since 2011 this is allowed on British TV (not during new or children’s) subjects to ofcom regulations (certain products are banned e.g. cigarettes). Companies pay to have thier products shown in programmes and follow in the hope that audience will want to be like the people represented (e.g. bond drinking Heineken in sky fall). this is more overt than just having props in the background
• integration

  • some companies buy up similar companies (often indies) to form larger groups (horizontal integration) e.g. zodiak media (in the uk) which owns several smaller production companies across different genres
  • many institutions merge with comparisons in other media areas (vertical integration) forming conglomerates
• integration

  • news corp (owned by Rupert murdoch) has companies across media platform although recently they have split into 2 companies due to concerns about monopolising the industry.
  • vertical integration can often help a company promote its products on multiple platforms (cross-platform marketing) and other areas (synergy)
• new technologies and institutions

  • institutions can have a multi-platform presence. Thsi doesn’t guarantee commercial success but can limit the amount of money lost, especially if its all spent “in house”
  • cross platform- where a product is present on a range of platforms, usually within one institutio BBC food programmes are shown on the channel (broadcast), have a website and mobile apps (e-media) and recipes/articles are published in BBC Good Food magazine (print)
• new technologies and institutions

  • synergy (literally “many energies“- the promotion or sale of a product through various media subsidiaries/companies and via different platforms and sometimes different institutions e.g. the film, the accompanying soundtrack, action figures, a video game version
  • Some institutions are expanding so rapidly they have interest in a number of areas and so can create synergetic marketing strategies themselves
• new technologies and institutions

  • convergence- being able to access all media types in one place, the coming together of technologies e.g. interest platforms allowing us to access news stories, clips from the news broadcast and watch TV episodes of the news all in one place
• the BBC

  • Victorian corporation often had monopolies over thier particular sector. based on this model, the BBC initially had a monopoly over broadcasting in the uk. it aimed to : “raise the standards of the entire national audience in terms of sophistication of taste, intellectual appetites and levels of knowledge“ (Jonathan Bignell)
  • lord Reith- first director of the BBC (1927-38) said : “TV shouldn’t give people waht they want but what they ought to have“
  • ”a unifying force in British life, something that binds people together to be entertained and informed“ (Phil Wickham)
• the BBC

  • by the 1950s many felt the “BBC represented a high culture snobbery that many leftist associated with a oppressuve class structure“. there was a “desire for a playful, commercial, anti-citizen address as a counter”
• channel 4

  • British public service television broadcaster that began transmission on 2nd November 1982
  • although largely commercially self-funded, its ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the indepdent broadcasting authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by channel 4 television corporation, a public corporation of the department for digital, culture, media and sport, which was established in 1990 and came into operation in 1993
• channel 4

  • with the conversion of the wenvoe transmitter group in wales to digital on 31st march 2010, channel 4 became a uk-wide tv channel for the first time
  • channel 4 started pre-digital and internet age and since then has undergone some shifts in the kinds of programming they buy in and what they commission
• channel 4

  • channel 4 is both a public service broadcaster and a commercial company. this is because it was started and developed at a time when the government though that the BBC and ITV didn't offer enough diversity and viewpoint for the population of the uk in order to offer more balance and plurality, channel 4 was born
  • channel 4 was the first channel in the world to launch VOD (video on demand)