Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. NIGHT HEAD was a science fiction drama that aired on Japan’s Fuji TV between 1992 and 1993. The series arrived during a wave of interest in the paranormal, a trend that was embraced by commercial television in both dramatic programs and variety/infotainment talk shows. This boom of interest in the paranormal happened within the thriving economic and cultural environment of Japan’s Bubble Era, a period that saw a rapid expansion of television in addition to the prosperity of markets in real estate and industry. NIGHT HEAD portrays a darker vision of 90 ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. This article analyzes the Fox Sports 1 sports debate program Speak for Yourself. The article analyzes the thematic frames the show utilizes to espouse and reinforce sport as a site of conservative value-making and male bonding. In using an interracial male pairing of Colin Cowherd and Jason Whitlock, the show mimics similarly popular debate programs on rival network ESPN, such as Pardon the Interruption and First Take. However, Whitlock in particular advances a unique brand of Black conservatism, and his clashes with progressive activists and other bl ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. In 2020, the Philippines’ largest mobile network provider Smart Communications launched a year-long campaign with South Korean actor Hyun Bin, who gained high popularity among Filipino audiences through the Korean TV drama Crash Landing on You (TvN 2019-2020) aired through Netflix. This article analyzes media texts, government plans, corporate narratives, and infrastructure data to examines two ways that transnational media, such as K-dramas, function as cultural interfaces to disseminate and operationalize the infrastructural desires in the Philippin ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the social construction of locality? To examine the impact of the ruptures between physical mobility and digital fluidity on the media representation of locality, I analyzed two cases (the Korea Tourism Organization’s Feel the Rhythm of Korea project and BTS’ media performances for “Dynamite”) produced during the pandemic. Based on a textual analysis of the chosen video projects, I identified three social techniques in shaping locality: a mixture of the past and present, the territorialization of cultural referen ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. This article considers how TV retailers shape public understanding of television as a cultural technology and household device. Drawing on interviews with Australian TV retailers, we identify four sales strategies used when selling smart TVs in-store: simplification, avoidance, empathy, and exploitation. Our analysis shows how these sales strategies seek to minimize and manage the smart TV’s technological complexity, thus downplaying its interactive potential. We critically assess the assumptions about technological expertise that underlie these strat ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. Though the political economy of Filipina care workers and their lives on the ground might appear to be a world distinct from that of digital platforms, this article explores their continuity: between the multiple demands for Filipina care workers in Taiwan to relentlessly serve the demands of others, and thus to be “always-on,” and the logics of the platforms that they use to stay in touch with loved ones and chill during down time. Based on interviews and online observation, I argue that examining the lives of women OFWs in Taiwan helps us understand ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. Places matter, despite the discursive hype of virtual making or remote locations, in showing the ways that production is a process nested within social worlds. In 2020, global Hollywood promoted a “COVID-friendly ideal” in order to return to work during widespread lockdowns and work stoppages. Yet by focusing comparatively on the stories that film and television workers told about production during COVID, we argue that crisis stories reveal much about the specificity of places in studying production cultures. To illustrate, we compare workers’ pandemi ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. How do key players in Bombay’s screen industries—producers, directors, writers, and business developers—understand, imagine, and navigate the dizzying new world of streaming platforms in India? Tracking the emergence of symbiotic relationships between new streaming platforms and established media professionals, I discuss how a restructuring of industry dynamics is elemental to the processes of cultural legitimation of new streaming tastes and the reconfigurations of the relationships between texts, industries, and audiences. Through case studies of a ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. This paper investigates a new, popular, award-winning reality television show, Your Home Made Perfect. Drawing on insights from Sara Ahmed’s work on the promise of happiness, our thematic analysis of nineteen episodes of Your Home shows how architectural entertainment is uniquely positioned through its use of Virtual Reality (VR) technology to circulate happiness and uplifting emotions and to critique the power imbalances of architect-client relationships. The paper argues how Your Home foregrounds happy emotions to the re-design of homes, where emoti ..read more

Television &New Media, Ahead of Print. This article argues that unplayability must be a considered component of game analysis and further discussed in new media studies. The concept that games cannot be or should not be played does not limit game analysis. On the contrary, the “unplayable aspect” of a particular game or genre of games is what must be investigated. This essay hopes to expand upon why new media such as video games are becoming inaccessible by using Nicholas Baer et al.’s Unwatchable to discuss a range of unplayable games for common reasons such as: (1) excessive violence, (2 ..read more