scholarly journals You’re Part of Something Bigger: Macrorealist TV

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Maynes-Aminzade
Keyword(s):  
Breaking Bad ◽  
The Sopranos ◽  
The Wire

“Dickensian” has become a buzzword in recent TV criticism not only because the term connotes a large character ensemble, but also because it connotes adiffuseensemble. In TV series such asThe Sopranos, The Wire,andBreaking Bad, many characters live and work so far apart from each other—whether in different neighborhoods of a city or different regions of the globe—that they fail to recognize how their actions affect each other. Through its wide spatial scope, this type of macroscopic “stranger narrative” explores a type of ethical confusion that is a byproduct of globalization. Namely, these narratives reveal to readers or viewers how they might be connected to and responsible for people they don’t even know.

scholarly journals Stranger Things: Complex Serial, Complex Industry. The Institutional, Cultural, and Textual Significance of Internet-Distributed Television

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Caitlin Grandy
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Distributed Networks ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Breaking Bad ◽  
Cable Networks ◽  
The Sopranos ◽  
The Us ◽  
Streaming Services

<p>This thesis explores the emergence and significance of internet-distributed television by unpacking the industrial, cultural, and textual ramifications of programming originated for an online context. As one of the foremost streaming services both globally and within the United States, Netflix will be the central focus of this thesis. The programmes that Netflix originates facilitate discussions around the potential of this network and its online platform to encourage innovation and novelty in its long-form TV drama. Netflix’s Stranger Things (2016–), a programme concept that was reputedly rejected by a number of cable networks before being accepted by Netflix, provides a compelling case study of the creative possibilities afforded by streaming capabilities.  This exploration is structured into three chapters. The first examines the environmental and institutional factors of the US television industry from which internet-distributed networks emerged. This chapter also explores the different economic models and the associated storytelling methods of each. Chapter 2 demonstrates the cultural significance of streaming on consumption behaviours and explores how broadcast, cable, and internet-distributed TV networks conceive of and pursue audiences. The analysis of several seminal TV dramas, such as The Sopranos (HBO 1999-2007), Game of Thrones (HBO 2011-2019), and Breaking Bad (AMC 2008-2013), provides comparisons from which to better understand the significance of Stranger Things to both the network that commissioned it and to the American television industry at large. The third chapter offers a detailed analysis of Stranger Things as an exemplar of Netflix’s ability to commission what Trisha Dunleavy (2018) terms the ‘complex serial drama’ and in doing so emulate the successful strategies first deployed by US cable networks.</p>

Tv-serien som vor tids roman?

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (68) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Isak Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Mad Men ◽  
The Sopranos ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Wire

Jakob Isak Nielsen: "Tv-serien som vor tids roman?"AbstractJakob Isak Nielsen: “The TV Series as the Novel of our Time?”In recent years contemporary TV series – particularly American one-hour drama series such as The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007), The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008) and Mad Men (AMC, 2007-) – have often been likened to many of the canonic works within the history of the novel. This article discusses the validity of this hypothesis byhighlighting a number of similarities between the two art forms before ultimately demonstrating how they differ from each other and how they are best understood as products of particular media-systemic circumstances.

Fiction Is Liquid: States of Money in The Sopranos and Breaking Bad

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-774
Author(s):  
LEIGH CLAIRE LA BERGE
Keyword(s):  
Breaking Bad ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
The Sopranos ◽  
The Right ◽  
Liquid States

In this article, I read the television shows The Sopranos and Breaking Bad to explore how an illegitimate economy represents a legitimate one. I argue that what holds these shows together in some proto-generic organization is that money functions as both a criminal outside to capital and a structural assertion that capital has no outside. Thus I claim that capital is best represented by its own double, that legitimate enterprise is best represented by illegitimate enterprise, but that representation is only efficacious because ultimately there is no capitalist activity that, for the right price, cannot become legitimate. I suggest we might best see fiction itself as a kind of liquidity, one of the forms that circulating capital takes, and thus representation and the potential for accumulation become theoretical cognates.

scholarly journals Stranger Things: Complex Serial, Complex Industry. The Institutional, Cultural, and Textual Significance of Internet-Distributed Television

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Caitlin Grandy
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Distributed Networks ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Breaking Bad ◽  
Cable Networks ◽  
The Sopranos ◽  
The Us ◽  
Streaming Services

<p>This thesis explores the emergence and significance of internet-distributed television by unpacking the industrial, cultural, and textual ramifications of programming originated for an online context. As one of the foremost streaming services both globally and within the United States, Netflix will be the central focus of this thesis. The programmes that Netflix originates facilitate discussions around the potential of this network and its online platform to encourage innovation and novelty in its long-form TV drama. Netflix’s Stranger Things (2016–), a programme concept that was reputedly rejected by a number of cable networks before being accepted by Netflix, provides a compelling case study of the creative possibilities afforded by streaming capabilities.  This exploration is structured into three chapters. The first examines the environmental and institutional factors of the US television industry from which internet-distributed networks emerged. This chapter also explores the different economic models and the associated storytelling methods of each. Chapter 2 demonstrates the cultural significance of streaming on consumption behaviours and explores how broadcast, cable, and internet-distributed TV networks conceive of and pursue audiences. The analysis of several seminal TV dramas, such as The Sopranos (HBO 1999-2007), Game of Thrones (HBO 2011-2019), and Breaking Bad (AMC 2008-2013), provides comparisons from which to better understand the significance of Stranger Things to both the network that commissioned it and to the American television industry at large. The third chapter offers a detailed analysis of Stranger Things as an exemplar of Netflix’s ability to commission what Trisha Dunleavy (2018) terms the ‘complex serial drama’ and in doing so emulate the successful strategies first deployed by US cable networks.</p>

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