Iluminace 1/2023: Television and COVID-19: How to Deal with Global Pandemics While Broadcasting

(Extended deadline for abstracts July 15, 2022; deadline for manuscripts September 30, 2022)

Journal website: https://www.iluminace.cz/

Guest Editor: Jana Jedličková

One reason that COVID-19 is a global issue is that it has significantly influenced our everyday experience, our daily routines, and even imprinted itself into our social behaviour and cultural practice. Though it only appeared as recently as the autumn of 2019 and spread worldwide in the winter of 2020, the virus has already become a fixed part of our shared social reality. It ultimately even reached a point where not only had almost every living human being at least heard of COVID-19, they most probably consumed some content that directly or indirectly reflected upon our own pandemic-related experiences. While it certainly can be viewed as a disruptive element in our shared lives, the global pandemic can also present an opportunity for new ways of making social connections and giving rise to new cultural practices and shared experiences. Television (including online streaming platforms and VOD portals) is a medium that equally occupies the private and public spheres, and thus not only enables constructed reflections of COVID-19 and its cultural and social meanings in our lives, it also creates new interpretations and meanings of the disruptive existence of global pandemics.

Therefore, the following issue of Iluminace is focused on the topic of television and TV industries dealing with COVID-19. Even though we realize that topics connected to the virus and its influence on TV industries and audio-visual industries, and the entertainment business in general, are time-consuming in regard to conducting proper academic research, we urge readers to share your academic views on the pandemic’s influence on creative industries (mainly connected to linear and non-linear TV). After all, studies reflecting upon broadcasting and/or streaming COVID-19 news, disrupting TV production, or challenging distribution strategies already exist and have been or are in the process of being published.

Many TV productions were held back or cancelled due to the pandemic. TV companies had to change their programming strategies because less new content was being made (leading to fast and cheap reality TV programming, short-format comedy series targeting younger audiences, and extensively relying on reruns and archival programming). Shooting was also upheld by extensive health protection regulations and, lately, also by demands of mandatory vaccinations for cast and crew (in some countries often resulting in losing actors who disagree with the policies). Not to mention there are increased costs for producing TV series. On the other hand, TV programming went through a renaissance due to the need to report reliable information (the role of PSM raised significantly, hand in hand with the viewership of public service media) and to fight against fake news. Many TV companies and streaming services (including VOD portals) reported raised interest in documentary and educational television content, not to mention broadcasting targeting children. COVID-19 also significantly influenced our societal and individual mental health, which television often used as an advantage, and it also reframed a concept of so-called comfort TV. Not only do we observe the rise of calming, soothing, optimistic TV series (contrary to dark and semi-traumatic quality TV prevalent in the past two decades), but the topic of mental health is often the main theme of many TV series and factual programming (e.g., Ted Lasso, Queer Eye, The Morning Show, We’re Here, Doom Patrol, In Treatment, WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Station Eleven just to name a few internationally known examples). There is also a new format of covid short programming appearing all over the globe: fictional TV series targeting younger audiences (sometimes branded as online-only or web series) and reflecting upon life during lockdowns (series such as Irish Le Ceangal, Spanish Quarantine Diaries, or Czech Láska v čase korony (Love in the Time of Corona) or Třídní schůzka (Parent-Teacher Conference). Not by chance, series such as these are usually set in Zoom or Skype interface, using specific communication tools and situational comedy coming from relying on lousy internet connections, weak technological skills, and distance relationships. Finally, TV industries needed to adapt very quickly to a new and unprecedented situation. Unlike live arts such as music, theatre, and dance, you can watch your favourite TV programme without the need to leave your apartment. Thus, TV was able to adapt, though not without costs, and even offer space and time to those who were less flexible, such as movie blockbusters aiming for cinema openings. Streaming portals such as Netflix, Amazon, or HBO Max (and other non-exclusively TV VODs) jumped in to catch potential viewers who got stuck in their homes: they even developed and offered group and family viewing options, along with the possibility to chat with friends while watching a TV show, to their interfaces. Many such technological features are being reconsidered as there is no further use for them.

Thus, for this issue, we invite global, national, regional, or other studies, case studies, academic reflections, etc., focusing on COVID-19 and its influence (or presence) on TV and audio-visual industries, with possible topics including but not limited to:

  • COVID-19 (or absence of) as a theme of contemporary TV content
  • narrative strategies, online communication, and TV content targeting young viewers
  • comfort TV framed through COVID-19 pandemic
  • educational and documentary TV formats, reality TV, and/or live TV and COVID-19
  • reporting COVID-19 news on TV
  • watching and streaming TV in the age of COVID-19
  • new production and distribution strategies of contemporary TV programming resulting from national lockdowns and health protection regulations
  • role of PSB in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • COVID-19 resulting in innovative TV programming strategies, targeting new audiences, launching new streaming services and TV channels (or rebranding old ones)
  • TV and live arts (music industry and theatre especially) as an example of crisis cooperation due to the COVID-19 pandemic
  • technology and COVID-19 in TV broadcasting and streaming
  • contemporary TV trends influenced by COVID-19

For further inspiration, see the literature, podcast, and blog examples of semi- or fully academic reflections on COVID-19 in TV industries cited below.

Please send an abstract (250 words) and a short bio (150 words) to lucie.cesalkova@nfa.cz and ja.jedlickova@gmail.com by July 15, 2022. The authors will be informed of the decision by July 30, 2022. The deadline for submitting the full article is September 30, 2022.

 

Literature:

  • Apuke, Oberiri Destiny and Omar Bahiyah. “Television News Coverage of COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria: Missed Opportunities to Promote Health Due to Ownership and Politics,” SAGE OPEN 11, no. 3 (2021), pp 1–13.
  • Berman, Judy and Simmone Shah. “How Docu-Mania Took Streaming by Storm,” TIME Magazine 197, no. 13/14 (2021), pp 95–97.
  • Berman, Judy. “How the Virus Attacks Traditional TV,” TIME Magazine 195, no. 20/21 (2020), pp 87–89.
  • “Covid-19 crisis: Public service media audience performance,” EBU, 2020, cit. 14. 1. 2022, https://www.ebu.ch/publications/research/membersonly/report/covid-19-crisis-psm-audience-performance.
  • “Covid-19 crisis: Public service media support to the arts and creative sector,” EBU, 2020, cit. 14. 1. 2022, https://www.ebu.ch/publications/research/membersonly/dataset/covid-19-crisis-psm-support-to-the-arts-and-creative-sector.
  • Flynn, Roddy. “Irish Film and Television the Year in Review-2020: Introduction, The Irish Audiovisual Sector in 2020: Living in the Shadow of Covid,” Estudios Irlandeses – Journal of Irish Studies, no. 16 (2021), pp 303–311.
  • Graca, Martin and Sláva Gracová. “Effect of the Quarantine on Television Viewership,” Megatrends & Media: Media Farm – Totems & Taboo, no. 1 (2020), pp 41–48.
  • Horeck, Tanya. “‘Netflix and Heal’: The Shifting Meanings of Binge-Watching during the Covid-19 Crisis,” Film Quarterly 75, no. 1 (2021), pp 35–40.
  • Kabbadj, Mohcine and Mohamed Bendahan. “Television Channels in the Face of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Case of Public Television Channels in Morocco,” Essachess 14, no. 2 (2021), pp 129–150.
  • Lino, Mirko. “Post-Apocalypse Now. Cinema and Zombie Series as a Pre-Mediation of Contagion: Spaces, Media and Lockdowns,” Between 11, no. 22 (2021), pp 113–138.
  • Raats, Tim. “The Resilience of Small Television Markets to COVID-19: the Case of Lockdown,” Baltic Screen Media Review 8, no. 1 (2020), pp 82–89.
  • Samudio Granados, Marcela, Mónica Maruri Castillo, and Roberto Ponce-Cordero. “Voices and Images of Hope: The Rebirth of Educational Television in Ecuador in Times of COVID-19,” Journal of Children & Media 15, no. 1 (2021), pp 65–68.
  • Shaw, Caitlin. “Introduction: Television and Nostalgia Now,” Journal of Popular Television 9, no. 3 (2021), pp 287–91.
  • Túñez-López, Miguel, Martín Vaz-Álvarez, and César Fieiras-Ceide, “Covid-19 and Public Service Media: Impact of the Pandemic on Public Television in Europe,” El Profesional de La Información 29, no. 5 (2020), pp 1–16.

Other sources on contemporary TV industries (and covid-19):