[ecrea] CFP Special Issue for Critical Studies in Television: Ephemeral Television

Cathy Johnson and Elke Weissmann



CFP Special Issue for Critical Studies in Television: Ephemeral Television



Raymond Williams’s Television as a Cultural Form (1974) continues to be 
considered a central text in television studies. Despite its role in 
identifying aspects of medium specificity and its standing in the 
television studies canon, very little television research has actually 
looked at aspects of ‘flow’ as Williams described it: namely the 
intersection of different texts into the main programme text. What such 
a description highlights (as Jonathan Gray (2010) has explored in his 
study of media paratexts) is the centrality of smaller, non-programme 
texts to the experience of television, and the role of intersecting 
meanings assembled from a variety of sources. At the same time, however, 
digitalisation is transforming television, challenging the nature, 
composition and significance of television’s flow. New textual forms, 
such as interfaces, websites, games and apps, increasingly shape our 
interactions with programmes, channels and broadcasters. What these new 
textual forms have in common with the interstitial texts the constitute 
Williams’ flow of linear broadcast television is their ephemerality.

In his edited collection, Ephemeral Media, Paul Grainge (2011) 
demonstrates the value of subjecting ephemeral media texts to academic 
scrutiny. This special issue of Critical Studies in Television aims to 
build on this work in order to focus attention on, first, the often 
overlooked ephemera that circulate in and around television and, second, 
the intersecting meanings raised by them in relation to programmes, 
channels, broadcasters and the nature of television itself. The term 
ephemeral suggests the transient and short-lived, and this special 
edition is interested in articles on both short-form and (apparently) 
short-lived media forms that circulate around television programmes, 
such as trailers, adverts and idents. However, the editors also invite 
papers that challenge us to consider the nature of television ephemera 
today and in the past, through explorations of new ephemeral forms such 
as the electronic programme guide, web interfaces and social media, and 
their historical antecedents. The editors welcome papers that could 
address (but need not be restricted to) the following themes:



·         Historical and contemporary examples of flow or ephemeral 
television such as trailers, adverts, weather reports, channel idents, 
continuity announcements, websites, interfaces, apps, interstitials etc.

·         Changes to the understanding and standing of ephemeral 
television as a result of digitalisation and a diversity of forms of 
engagement with television

·         Ephemera connected to television that intersect with the 
programme text or institutional meanings, such as Twitter feeds, 
additional content, broadcaster/programme websites etc.

·         The production cultures of ephemeral television, including 
issues related to creativity, labour, the organisation and management of 
work, scheduling and curation, and so on.

·         The challenges that analysing television ephemera raise for 
television studies conceptually and methodologically, and the problems 
television ephemera raise for archiving.

·

Proposals for articles of 5,000-6,000 words, in the form of an abstract 
of 400-500 words should be submitted to the editors of the special 
edition (Catherine Johnson: (Catherine.Johnson /at/ nottingham.ac.uk), and Elke 
Weissman: (Elke.Weissmann /at/ edgehill.ac.uk)) by 29 May 2015. Authors will be 
informed of acceptance in July 2015. Final articles will be due in 
December 2015. All articles will be subject to peer review.





Elke Weissmann

Reader in Film and Television

Edge Hill University

Ormskirk, L39 4QP

01695 584680

(weissmae /at/ edgehill.ac.uk)



Recent publications include Transnational Television Drama: Special 
Relations and Mutual Influences between the US and the UK 
(http://us.macmillan.com/transnationaltelevisiondrama/ElkeWeissmann

)and (ed. with Helen Thornham) Renewing Feminisms: Radical Narratives, 
Fantasies and Futures in Media Studies 
(http://www.ibtauris.com/Books/Society%20%20social%20sciences/Society%20%20culture%20general/Media%20studies/Renewing%20Feminisms%20Narratives%20Fantasies%20and%20Futures%20in%20Media%20Studies.aspx?menuitem=)







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