Television Overview

•          TV is the primary form of visual entertainment – cheap and available for millions around the world

–       Often the first thing a family buys when they get any money at all

•          Outside of the U.S., most television programming comes form international sources

–       Much of it bought at a series of conventions in the U.S. and France

•          Whereas U.S. and UK are leading exporters, there is increasingly equitable intraregional exchange within Latin America and Middle East

–       Also much American/British programming is “schedule filler” – the highest rated programs in many semi-developed/developed countries are domestic

•          Literacy rates of countries is a factor, because subtitling is much cheaper than dubbing

–       However, it is easier to edit out obscenities/politically objectionable material if dubbed

–       Also, in dubbing, characters can be given distinctive accents familiar to viewers (Sicilian in Italy)

 

Television Ownership

•          Doubled from 1980-2000

•          US, Canada and Japan have highest rates (700 per 1000)

–       Africa and South Asia lowest (<25 per 1000)

•          Countries with more than 50 sets per 1000 people are highly impacted, b/c TV viewing is more social than West.

–       Extended families make for larger households

–       Social clubs, cafes, bars, stores have TV

–       People will run them off car batteries, hide satellite dishes from governments

•      It is tremendously powerful

 

What is made locally?

Unscripted Television is cheapest to produce:

–       Talk Shows

•      Spread of “family drama” type from U.S.

•      Also important local source of political debate, health information, family planning

–       Variety Shows

•      In studio music comedy and celebrity guests

–     Sabado Gigante started in 1986, now in 28 countries and 120 million viewers

–       Reality Shows

•      Japan started Fear Factor Type Physical Shows (Takeshi’s Castle)

•      Endemol: Big Brother now in 20 countries

•      Pop Idol in long line of talent shows

 

Arab Media

•          Al Jazeera only station that is free of government influence, mostly former BBC employees

 

 Therefore, most media is abroad:

•          London was home to MBC (Saudi funded), as well as Al-Hayat, other Arab and Kurdish papers to escape censorship, make use of inexpensive printing and distribution

–       Also home to African papers, Tamil papers

–       Recently, MBC moved offices to Dubai, started Al-Arabiya TV news

•          Los Angeles is home to exiled Iranian community, home of publishers, radio stations, and satellite broadcaster NITV, which can be received inside Iran

 

Soap Operas

Around the world, the most popular get Super Bowl type audience share

–       In terms of audience share, are single most sucessful TV exports

•          American Soap Operas

–       Series run infinitely, often fantastic storylines about rich people

–       More sexually explicit than rest of world

–       Among the most successful

•      Young and The Restless most popular show in Trinidad

•          British, Australian Soap Operas

–       Series run infinitely, realistic stories about working class people

–       Least successful internationally

 

Soap Operas (cont.)

•          Telenovellas (Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela)

–       Run for limited time, often < 100 episodes

–       Tended historically to be Cinderella stories, where the rich marry poor

–       Content used to be less racy than prevailing standard, tended to pass censors more easily (less true now)

–       Popular in Russia, South Korea, China and Iran

•          Egyptian/Middle Eastern Soap Operas

–       Run for limited time each year, usually during Ramadan, for 1 to 3 years

–       Stories about rich families, some quite “modern”

–       Help redefine roles for women, by showing them holding jobs, making family decision

 

Animation & Children’s Television

•          From the between 1980 and 1995, children’s animation became internationalized

–       Good format to internationalize, b/c dubbing is easy/looks good

–       Easy to internationalize labor markets: scripts  and storyboards in one country, localization (script edit, voiceover) many places, animation in East Asia

•          Sesame Street and Disney share some segments all over the world, interspersed with localized live action shots

–       Co-productions used between culturally similar countries to help increase markets to spread out fixed costs

–       Until recently, Hanna Barbara characters had very different personalities in different markets, also widely varying success

•          Markets are different – some countries set aside little time for children; in Hong Kong, half go to school in mornings, other half in afternoon

–       Big differences in perception whether children’s television is to educate or make consumers

•          U.S. shows faster paced; slower foreign shows struggle here

–       First Japanese “hit” was Speed Racer; 20 years later Power Rangers and Pokemon

–       Also helped by proliferation of cable channels

 

Internet

•          Changing the nature of how people relate to space

–       Information from all over the globe available; form communities based on interest, not proximity

–       Massively Multiplayer Online Games are examples of people cooperating across borders

–        Blogs have been a real revolution in audience building, bypassing the traditional punditry class in many contexts (U.S., Saudi Arabia)

•          Allows people to expand/maintain their social networks (friends, family in distant places) which, b/c of telephones, already often supplanted or exceeded relations with neighbors

–       This is especially true of social networking sites.

•          Cyberspace is rife with references to space: rooms, lobbies, highways, cafes, build, surf, enter, lurk

 

Internet (cont.)

•          Increasingly, improving processors, graphic cards and transmission speeds allow cyberspace to resemble physical space

–       Mammothly Multi- Player Online Games (World of Warcraft, Sims) are tremendously popular, especially in South Korea

–       Also, getting virtual real estate markets in “places” like Second Life

•          Interesting geographies can be done of cyberspace based on visibility (how many links coming in) and luminosity (how many links going out)

–       Things have changed since Google (which uses robots) overtook Yahoo (which used “librarians”) to organize search

–       Blogrolls are easy ways to uncover the “borders” of a thought community, with its metropolises and outliers

•          Servers themselves also have a geography – many in the countryside of Virginia  (near DC, no quakes)

 

Internet

While Internet is greatest information source world has known, and 1.3 billion people with access globally, there is a digital divide, which is shrinking between countries:

•          90% of all web pages are in English. US has most 3rdmost users

–       China is number 1 in users; India 2 in users, both growing fast

•          18% of all users are in U.S. in 2006 vs. 38% in 2000

–       China now has second highest number of users, but still only 600 million out of 1 billion. 

–       But Africa, Middle East, Central America lag behind

•          Within a given country, the richest and those in government, research and education have access

•          China has tried to block Google, Syria and Saudi Arabia have various levels of bans

 

Cell Phones

•          High adoption rates first occurred in Europe and Japan, now pretty much everywhere (although US lags other rich countries)

–       In Europe and Japan have become integrated into life with cell phone directories and the power to operate vending machines

•          Cell phones will overtake landlines

–       Land lines require much more infrastructure, maintenance because of need to run cable

•      Cell phones only require towers, not contiguous connections

–     Great for developing countries

–       Already in Morocco, only 6% of population has access to a land line, 85% within cell range

•      In fact, in many places areas have cell coverage that never had landline coverage

•      Farmers can use phones to improve lives by finding out current prices for themselves, not just having to take the word of middlemen

 

Music

•          Is the most concentrated of all culture industries in terms of ownership

–       The 6 biggest music groups in 2000 sold 90% of all records

•          They stay fresh by distributing independent labels/having imprints which focus on niche styles

–       These come and go as styles change

•          There is a geography to the music industry

•          Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Nashville are the sites of headquarters in U.S. (London, Paris, Tokyo outside)

–       There are many regional capitals where the labels have offices

 

Music (cont.)

•          Unless a local label gets traction (Sub-Pop in Seattle) usually musicians have to migrate to where the music companies are to get discovered

•          Since the late 1960’s, music styles (first rock, then R&B, disco, electronic, rap) have crossed borders, mixed with traditional local styles

•          Always concerns among purists saying these hybrids are inauthentic

•          Popular music manages everywhere to appear rebellious while using highly organized corporate structures to get $$$

 

Japanese Cultural Influence

•          Japan, which long seemed  to the world like an economic machine w/little cultural export, has been a major influence in Asia

•          3 C’s:

–       Consumer tech (Karoke, Walkman)

–       Cartoons

–       Computer Games

•          The difference is, unlike American products, they don’t try to sell a “Japanese way of life” along with them

–       Sony is transnational, not like Malboro, which is American

•          Cartoon characters often don’t look particularly Japanese

•          Sony makes products with English names

•          Japan serves in Asia as a model for how to integrate American style into local vernacular

•          However, Japan and U.S. only two really self-sufficient countries in terms of TV programming

 

 

What is Bollywood?

•          The Hindi language film industry in India centered on Mumbai

•          Literally combination of Bombay (now known as  Mumbai) + Hollywood

•          Part of the world’s most productive film industry

–       India produces more movies per year than Hollywood

–       sells more tickets per year than Hollywood

–       BUT, makes infinitely less profit than Hollywood

•          India has a huge culture industry, which is sucessful among NRI’s and others

 

Characteristics of Post-Independence Cinema

A split between “parallel” (art) vs. “commercial” cinema, begins to form

–       Mother India one of first great boundary crossers, to address social issues and be a musical

–       Parallel cinema, led by Satyajit Ray, becomes centered on Calcutta and works within Western tradition of realist/art cinema

•      Mira Nair, director of Salaam Bombay! Monsoon Wedding, and Vanity Fair, is in this tradition

Post-Independence Cinema (cont.)

–       National commercial cinema in Hindi language centered on Bombay/Mumbai

–       Other regional cinemas remain strong, such as the Tamil cinema (Kollywood), based in Chennai in South India

–       Hindi movies “officially” banned in Pakistan since 1954.

 

Characteristics of Bollywood Cinema

•          Production by individual producer, not studios.

•          Each film is high risk, stable funding hard to find.

•          Factory-like mass production, based on star power, not scripts

–       Character actors do dozens of films

•          Almost all films are musicals, soundtrack used to make as much money as film

–       Actors rarely sing themselves; lip-sync to playback singers, some of whom have recorded thousands of songs

–       The actors will lip-sync live in concert

 

Characteristics of Bolly (cont.)

•          Most films are melodramas, meaning that emotion, action, stock characters, plot twists and getting to the next dance number take precedent over deep character development

•          Cinema is very referential, going back again and again to the same themes and other films

–       Common themes: love triangles, lost relatives, doomed lovers, revenge, partition, evil villains

•      Often all that is in one film: masala film

–       Scenes/plots from other Bolly/Hollywood films often “borrowed”

•          Roles for women very limited: pure mother, supportive girlfriend, sinner/prostitute who dies

–       In-theater audience primarily male, seek air conditioning

•      Explains why many films are 3+ hours; longer they are, the longer people keep cool

–       Kissing in films is taboo, a couple of years ago a kiss caused riots

 

Famous Playback Singers

 

·         Lata Mageshkar

 

Famous Faces

Actresses:

Zeenat Aman, Kajol, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra

Actors:

Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Kahn, Hrithrik Roshan