LFTVD - INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSIONS?

TASK: Write/Rewrite the following essay...

 'Producers of Long Form TV Drama, construct versions of reality that target the viewpoints and ideologies of their audiences." How far do you agree with this statement?

• consider the contexts in which long form television dramas are produced and consumed,
• explain how media contexts may have influenced representations in the set episodes of the two long form television dramas you have studied,
• refer to relevant academic theories,
• make judgements and reach conclusions about the reasons for the differences in representation between the two episodes.

Feel free to make it a collage of points lifted from the various PowerPoints, but make it fit your answer carefully. Also, if you are picking elements from elsewhere, make sure that you understand and can reproduce them.

Look carefully at the following introduction and conclusion:

• Think about whether you agree with them. 
• Consider how you might bend them to fit other essays about LFTVDs. 
• Consider how you might include or exclude elements to make your essay more manageable.
• Consider how you could use them to shape the essay you write.

Introduction

All successful Long Form T.V. drama, must, on some level, construct versions of reality that appeal to their audience. However, in the case of ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘D83’ we might ask whether the global impact of U.S. television on cultural hegemony is more significant than the need to appeal to national audiences. We might also wish to consider whether genre has a more significant effect on representation than an attempt to appeal to the target audience on the basis of ideology.

Conclusion

While it is clear that both TV shows construct versions of reality that appeal to the viewpoints of and ideologies of their audiences, we can see that both ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Deutschland 83’ demonstrate U.S. cultural and economic dominance over the TV industry, with international audiences comfortable with accepting a  hyperreal diegesis built around U.S. TV and Film, and foreign language TV prioritising its  U.S. audience over its domestic audience. Furthermore, it seems more likely that appealing to a shared understanding of genre conventions may be more influential over representation, than a desire to appeal to the target audience at an ideological level.

CORE POINT 1:

U.S. LFTVDs want to reach an international audience, but hegemonic cultural dominance by U.S. Media means that they can do this by targeting the viewpoints and ideologies of their domestic audience, whereas foreign language LFTVDs may prioritise the U.S. market for financial reasons.

CORE POINT 2:

The decisions that producers make about representations of reality (from historical diegesis, to messages about gender) may be influenced by shared understanding of genre more than ideological reasons.