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 Pierre J. PernuitTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print.
- by Stephanie HeroldTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Over the last decade, depictions of characters who obtain abortions onscreen have come closer to representing the reality of abortion seekers, addressing, though not eliminating, documented discrepancies across race, class, and barriers to abortion care. Yet year after year, portrayals of characters parenting at the time of their abortions represent less than 10% of the total characters who have abortions, a striking departure from reality, where most people who have abortions are raising children. This paper is a qualitative content analysis of the twenty-three characters onscreen from 2013 to 2023 shown parenting at […]
- by Lorenzo LazzariTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. In “Art vs. TV: A Brief History of Contemporary Artists’ Responses to Television,” Francesco Spampinato examines how contemporary artists from the 1950s to the 2010s challenged the unidirectional communication of television by creating works that critique its hegemonic structures. The book explores various artists, highlighting the political dimension of their works and allows the reader to view them within the contextualised history of conflict between artistic innovation and mass communication, in this case specifically with television.
- by Madison Barnes-NelsonTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print.
- by Glen CreeberTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This paper examines the notion that contemporary television is more “complex” than programming made in the past, arguing that such an approach can risk denigrating earlier TV and erasing its impact on current practice. Focusing on the role soap opera has played in influencing recent narrative trends, it will particularly examine the genre’s tendency toward “paradigmatic complexity” and its increasing presence in contemporary long-form drama. Explaining how this esthetic trend has helped to produce increased levels of narrative depth and expansion, it will also show how this is no longer sacrificed at the […]
- by Benjamin M. HanTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Despite Netflix’s status as a dominant global streaming service, it is irrefutable that the platform has facilitated the circulation of media content from different national markets to its subscribers around the world. This increased circulation has been accompanied by the platforms’ exploration of local cultures for global audiences. Specifically, Netflix has sought to represent and repackage local cultures in allegedly “authentic” ways. Drawing on a critical analysis of Netflix’s industry discourses, interviews with Korean content creators, and a textual analysis of the original Korean series Squid Game (2021–present), the article explores how Netflix […]
- by Menglu LyuTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. This study analyzes the growth trajectory of Chinese video game companies, with Tencent as the main focus. It draws on the framework of political economy regarding transnational capitalism and its reconfiguration, employing document analysis and informant interviews as research methods. This study argues that Chinese video game companies have taken a distinctive development path within the transnational capitalist system. Initially, they accumulated experience, technology, and capital at lower tiers of the global industry hierarchy. They then entered the emerging mobile game market and eventually ascended to prominent positions. On the one hand, their […]
- by Jie GuoTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print.
- by Mark AndrejevicTelevision & New Media, Ahead of Print. Recent developments in AI promise to further enact the shift from personalization to personification in automated digital interfaces. We have already seen the rise of virtual influencers and, more recently, of chatbots that adopt the personas of celebrities. Drawing on the intertwined history of the relationship between parasociality and personal influence, we frame the shift toward personification as a strategy for re-centralizing control over the online media environment. The shift is likely to extend beyond the realm of social media influencers to characterize our interactions with a range of services, platforms, and media […]
- 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, Volume 26, Issue 1, Page 31-43, January 2025. 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 […]