Values and Choices in Television Discourse A View from Both Sides of the Screen

by Piazza, Roberta; Haarman, Louann; Caborn, Anne

• ISBN13: 9781137478467
• ISBN10: 1137478462
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-09-30
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In a high-pressure, fast-paced environment, television professionals are focused on the production and coherence of their broadcasts, as well as their responsibility to their audience (both in terms of professional commitment to the viewers and consideration of their evolving tastes). They can rarely take the time to reflect on how their choices of texts and images will be interpreted outside of these more immediate broadcast imperatives; and how their productions are understood and analysed by other professionals, for instance academics, at a different pace and away from the process itself. Such television analysts study the final product and attribute intention with often limited direct knowledge and appreciation of the production processes, its practicalities and imperatives. This book offers the possibility of a reflection on television for and from both parties, as well as an insight into the final product and the choices made during its preparation. This book will be of great interest to students and academics in both linguistics and media, as well as professionals in the broadcasting industry.

Author Biography

Roberta Piazza is Senior Lecturer in English Language & Linguistics at the University of Sussex, UK. Her interests range from anthropological linguistic studies of identity, as explored in her recent book, Marked Identities (2015, co-edited with A. Fasulo), to media discourse, as she discusses in The Discourse of Italian Cinema (2011) and Telecinematic Discourse (2011, co-edited).

Louann Haarman is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Bologna, Italy. Her principal research interest is in the field of media discourse analysis, focussing principally on television news in a cross-cultural perspective. Her publications include Backstage Activities as Frontstage News (2012, with Joanna Thornborrow), Toward a Definition and Classification of Human Interest Narratives in Television War Reporting (2011, with Roberta Piazza), and Evaluation and Stance in War News (2009, co-edited with Linda Lombardo).

Anne Caborn is a communications consultant for The Content Lab, as well as an editor and lecturer. She is a former journalist and worked for a number of years as a television correspondent, contributing articles to UK national newspapers. In 2007 she was elected as a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists. She was a contributor to One Day in the Life of Television, part of a project organised by the British Film Institute, and is co-author of Information Overload: An International Challenge for Professional Engineers and Technical Communicators.

Table of Contents

PART I

Introduction to Part I - The Analysis of the Television Product; Roberta Piazza and Louann Haarman
1. Promotional Videos: What Do They Tell Us About the Value of News?; Monika Bednarek and Helen Caple
2. Evaluation as Positioning in English Language World News Channels; Alison Duguid
3. Overweight and Obesity in Television News; Catriona Bonfiglioli
4. Camera Angles in Television News: Designed to Communicate?; Scott Koga-Browes
5. The Representation of Travellers in Television Documentaries: Dispelling Stigma While Dealing with Infotainment Demands; Roberta Piazza
6. Television, Collective Memory and the Commemoration Cure; Nuria Lorenzo-Dus
7. MasterChef: Cooking Competition across Cultures; Louann Haarman
PART II
Introduction to Part II - What's Behind the Screen?; Hilary Bruffell and Anne Caborn
8. What Makes the News Newsworthy: Position and Priority as Considerations in the Channel 4 News Room: An Interview with Jon Snow, C4
9. News as Political Commitment and Observations on Obesity: An Interview with Cathy Newman, C4
10. How Audiences Shape News Angles: An Interview with Luke Chilton, News Desk, This Morning
11. It's Not a Disaster if it Doesn't Make the News - The Critical Nature of News Positioning: An Interview with Clive Jones DEC
12. Commercial Imperatives and their Impact on the Values of the Contemporary Documentary and Reality Formats: An Interview with Peter Hamilton, ex CBS, consultant
13. Documentary Making - A Commercial and Public Broadcaster Perspective: An Interview with Olivia Lichtenstein
14. Competition and Cookery in a Global Cultural Format: An Interview with Karen Ross of Shine TV
15. The Morals of the Money Shot - The Journalistic and Personal Perspective on Creating a Porn Documentary for Channel 4: An Interview with Martin Daubney, journalist; Porn on the Brain documentary C4
16. Authenticity in Documentary Making: An Interview with Anya Sitaram, executive producer of Rockhopper TV, documentary production company
17. Documentary and Reality TV as Modern Fairytales - An Odyssey in Character, Content and Commissioning: An Interview with Jan Euden and Mick Sawyer, Reeljem Productions
18. The Interplay between Conflict and Character in Drama and its Possible Influences on the Construction of Reality Programming; An Interview with Harry Duffin, former drama scriptwriter