Journal Description
Television & New Media is an international journal showcasing key intellectual developments in television and new media studies.
The journal focuses on critical and cultural studies approaches to media and their application across social science and humanities disciplines. TVNM is particularly focused on scholarship that addresses the power dynamics of media cultures, industries, networks, and audiences.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
• the past, present, and future of television and the televisual
• critical analysis of genres, programs, and content
• digitalization, digital media, and theories of convergence
• broadcast and post-broadcast technologies, infrastructures, and platforms
• creative, cultural, aesthetic, affective, and digital labor
• transnational media, identity and global culture
• media audiences and fandom
• production and industry studies
• surveillance technologies and cultures
• media policy, ownership, and intellectual property
• social movements, activism, and media power
• citizenship and media
• datafication, gamification and algorithmic governance
Article submissions can address any aspect of television and new media, but should take up questions that point to both the specificities of the object of study and the broader implications of historical conjunctures, cultural formations, political regimes, geopolitics, and/or economic forces.
Recent Special Issues include:
• Genre After Media
• Gender and Sexuality in Live Streaming
• Nationalisms and Racisms on Digital Media
• Contemporary Irish Television
• Digital Politics in Millennial India
• Reactionary Fandom
Questions about submissions can be directed to Laurie Ouellette at ouell031@umn.edu
Please direct correspondence regarding book reviews to the editor listed below:
Hollis Griffin
University of Michigan
Department of Communication and Media
North Quad, Room 5370
105 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
hollisg@umich.edu
Journal Feed
- by Yifei ZhaoTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print.
- by Axelle AsmarTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. With the renewed popularity of teen television, SVOD services such as Netflix are increasingly investing in the production and distribution of teen series. Netflix is one of the first SVOD service to have adapted the genre outside of the western world. This transnationalisation of teen television is, we argue, infused with the streamer increasing emphasis on diversity. Based on a qualitative analysis of Netflix’s teen series trailers, this contribution explores how the streamer (a) challenges existing televisual conventions and (b) establishes its cultural authority through distinct negotiations of the global and the local. […]
- by Elizabeth NathansonTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print.
- by Joe F. KhalilTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This article rethinks Netflix productions beyond Western dominance, exploring their development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Drawing from industry reports and expert insights, it uncovers emerging patterns in the creation and marketing of Netflix Originals in Arabic. The first section examines regional television and streaming industries, identifying competitors, genres, and production structures. Case studies in the second section reveal insights into series revival and movie remaking. The second section presents two case studies of Netflix Arabic Originals. These case studies offer insights into the revival of a series with popular […]
- by Jingyuan YanTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print.
- by Ellie HomantTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. In The Authenticity Industries: Keeping It “Real” in Media, Culture, and Politics, journalist-turned-media studies professor Michael Serazio helps us understand how authenticity gets constructed, by whom, and to what ends. Serazio argues that authenticity is “nothing short of the central moral framework of our time”: on a quest to alleviate the anxieties and pressures of modern life, we pursue an inner sense of self—one purportedly unaffected by contemporary economic and social forces (p. 2). However, a careful choreography goes into authentic performance, professionalized by what Serazio dubs the “authenticity industries”: a subset of […]
- by Corinne WeinsteinTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Neoliberal capitalism dominates American society despite its reproduction of mass inequality. The most vulnerable individuals are tasked with maintaining the health and morality of the marketplace by becoming the entrepreneurial self, and are placated with false promises of American Dream mythology that promotes unattainable ideas of success. In the following, I consider two television satires of capitalism—Killing It and Severance—as disruptive stories that raise critical ethical questions about neoliberal capitalism through the humorous perspective of the neoliberal worker.
- by Sofia P. CaldeiraTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Digital presence and participation are often imagined as essential for contemporary feminist practices and identities. However, feminist engagements with digital and social media platforms can be tempered by drawbacks and tensions. This leads activists and everyday feminists to the need to negotiate digital dis/connection in their everyday lives. This article explores the affective dimensions of social media dis/connection in feminist contexts, grounding it on 22 in-depth interviews with people engaged with online feminisms and activisms in the Portuguese context. The article foregrounds the relationship between digital activisms and different affective ambiences, both internal […]
- by Shannon SweeneyTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. During the hectic context of 2020 America, television became a salve for many, while an increased middle-class emphasis on staying at home to mitigate COVID-19 spread softly benefited streaming services’ bottom lines. Ted Lasso (AppleTV+, 2020-2023) was beloved for its positive outlook and comforting tone during these unsettled times. This paper discusses three “discursive mantras” which white Ted Lasso fans deploy in interviews about the series, and argues that fans use these to code their engagement with television as acceptable and necessary. In their description of the series’ impact, white fans use Ted […]
- by Anubha SarkarTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This paper offers a comparative analysis of the international streaming trajectories of South Korean television dramas (K-dramas) and Chinese television dramas (C-dramas), highlighting their distinct approaches shaped by geopolitical and regulatory contexts. K-dramas have achieved global success through government support, strategic partnerships with platforms like Netflix, and diverse audience engagement, driving waves of Hallyu (the Korean cultural wave). In contrast, C-dramas initially lagged due to restrictive government policies and limited co-production but have gained momentum through the expansion of Chinese streaming platforms into Southeast Asia. Case studies of Kingdom (2019) and Empresses in […]
- by Michele WhiteTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. The Try Guys’ “what happened” video, which appears on their YouTube channel, narrates their cancellation of colleague Ned Fulmer because of an extra-marital relationship with an employee. Some literature suggests that cancel culture offers disempowered individuals and groups methods of identifying and correcting hateful practices. However, I employ the humanities practice of close reading to demonstrate how emotional cancel practices can elide intolerant systems and sustain norms. I analyze The Try Guys’ content, reportage about the group, and YouTube. As I argue, The Try Guys’ claims about enacting an ethical cancellation displace their […]
- by Jacqueline RistolaTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This article examines how media production is shaped under media conglomeration through a close analysis of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast (1994–2008), arguing that animation evinces the corporate strategy of archive reuse through its esthetics. It compares how the limited animation of Hanna-Barbera Productions transformed in the shift to cable and greater media conglomeration under Turner Broadcasting System. Using a thick description of the production process, the chapter illustrates how Cartoon Network programmers remixed the corporate archive to create Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Through this remixed production process, channel programmers used limited […]
- by Suruchi MazumdarTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Through a study of mimetic political videos produced by civil society groups and mainstream political parties during state-level elections in the east Indian West Bengal in 2021, this paper explores how diverse actors evoked politics of fun as a strategy to resist and extend digital nationalism. Fun has been theorized as “a political matter”; and as an agent to undermine hegemony. Fun also remained an indelible feature of right wing mobilization and nationalism. Everyday digital practices are articulated through wit, parody, sarcasm, and “memification”; and translate to joyful conducts, spontaneity and lightness, or […]
- by Xiaomeng LiTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Cancel culture in China has multiple specificities that invite further investigation, given the role of the state in producing content and regulating media platforms, alongside the distinct factors that can trigger canceling. This paper draws on social media posts, news articles, and government edicts for several illustrative cases, presenting a critical qualitative account about the involvement of ordinary media users, platforms, and state actors. State pronouncements on celebrity conduct, fan cultures, and digital media content all structure the regulatory environment, but canceling can originate as both bottom-up incidents and state-initiated events, with platform […]
- by temi lasade-andersonTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. As Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter highlights, platforms’ affordances extend further than UI choices and content formats emphasized. Extant work addresses that political perspectives are implicated in the affordances of platforms; however, the notion of “ideology as/of affordance” requires more scholarly attention, namely, from a Black feminist position which grapples with the raced and gendered dimensions of how such shaping of affordances is understood and experienced in digital contexts. A Black feminist analysis offers a critical intervention that examines the dynamics between ideology, digital culture, and relational experiences of autonomy. Thus, our article […]
- by Jinsook KimTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This paper examines the antifeminist appropriation of cancel culture in South Korea, focusing on the controversy surrounding the finger-pinching motif, allegedly associated with Megalia, a now-defunct feminist online community. While cancel culture originated from marginalized groups challenging systemic injustices, it is now appropriated by dominant groups to reinforce social structures—in this case, to protect male privilege and undermine feminism. The study reveals how antifeminist canceling in the country has extended over the years beyond subcultural industries to companies, government agencies, and public institutions. Although both feminists and antifeminists engage in cancel practices, antifeminist […]
- by Elizabeth FarriesTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Cancel culture claims, narratives and practices now play out in predominantly platformed spaces, spanning from progressive publics and accountability practices to reactionary/anti-woke/far right publics. We argue that platform affordances, architectures and cultures serve as a nodal point to bring together a disparate set of practices, discourses and ideological positions to facilitate polarized, reactionary, and or strategic networked publics in the context of digital politics and the (re)emergence of culture wars. Papers within this special issue speak to our argument in varying ways. They explore the mechanisms, sentiments, tolerances, and practices in local and […]
- by Daniel JurgTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. “Cancel culture” has gained tremendous attention in contemporary political discourse. On platforms like YouTube, reactionary ideological entrepreneurs often employ what Ng terms second-order discourses on cancel culture, that is, portraying call-out practices such as shaming public figures as left-wing censorship efforts stifling free speech. This article argues that such call-out practices, generally ascribed to progressive communities, also occur internally within reactionary communities where fans hold ideological entrepreneurs accountable for adhering to potentially extreme political canons. Adopting a fan studies perspective, this exploratory investigation used “close” and “distant” readings on 1.8 million comments from the […]
- by Shangran JinTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper examines a sample of X hashtags supporting or criticizing Johnny Depp or Amber Heard in their 2022 domestic abuse/defamation trial, where in both cases there were calls to cancel each. The analysis explores how the acts carried out by the targets for canceling, along with concrete details of their personal circumstances, become set aside as what we call “trigger-ready” interest groups become activated by a perceived transgression in relation to their own more narrow and heterogeneous concerns. Hashtags become an entanglement of vaguely articulated discourses relating […]
- by Nicola BozziTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This paper outlines a cultural critique of the Joe Rogan Experience. Framing the podcast as an adaptive cultural platform, I emphasize how it is ideologically informed by both the established infrastructure and dynamics of communicative capitalism and Joe Rogan’s ethos as a comedian. The paper discusses three ways Joe Rogan and his format negotiate their relationship with platform infrastructures. The first is Rogan’s relationship with Spotify and his interest in shaping “cancel discourses” and, subsequently, his own role as an embedded, “uncancellable” skeptic. The second is the combination of Rogan’s roast universalism and […]