2nd Call for Articles: A special issue of SERIES - International journal
of TV series narratives http://series.unibo.it/announcement/view/215
"Locations in Television Drama Series"
Guest Editors: Anne Marit Waade and John Lynch
This special issue is dedicated to the analysis of the increasingly
significant role of location as a key element in television drama. In
recent years, the popularity of serial television has progressively been
tied to the expanded use of
location as a central element in productions, both as setting and as part
of a wider audience engagement driven by social media and marketing.
Popular television series and brands as for example Game of Thrones, Sex
and the city, Nordic Noir, The Fall, Cities and The Wire illustrate how
location has become a significant production value. This emerging field of
research defined here as ¡®location studies¡¯ represents an
interdisciplinary approach to the study of television series.It is
pertinent at this point to bring together examples of work from a range of
scholars and to usefully mark out potential lines of development within
the subject. Location has so far mainly been considered as a practical
term in film and television productions.
Locations,television places and production design have experienced very
little academic attention in contrast to, for example, narratives, visual
style, genre and acting. Location in a television drama production
involves persons and decisions both above the line (creative and financial
decision makers) and below the line (technical and practical personal), as
well as institutional and economic conditions outside the production team,
for example funding, production facilities, public service commitments,
target groups (Blandford and McElroy, 2011). Les Roberts (2012) introduces
the idea of cinematic geography as an interdisciplinary approach that
reflects upon the relation between the film or television drama series and
the actual city, the geographical place, and demonstrates the complex
interplay between respectively economic, artistic and practical interests
that are at stake when it comes to audio-visual productions. Roberts©ö work
is a contribution to a more overall and increasing interest in the
relation between media and geography (Couldry and McCarthy 2004;
Falkheimer & Jansson, 2006; Eichner & Waade, 2015). More recently, there
are works on, for instance, The Wire and the city as a character
(Gjelsvik, 2010), BBC¡¯s Wallander and the glocal (McCabe 2015) and
landscapes in Nordic Noir (Creeber 2014). Location studies reflects upon
the relationship between the places and the television drama series,
considering aspects such as the aesthetic and narrative aspects of the
places in the series, how media represents and brands places (city,
nations, regions), how the site of production and the physical conditions
influence the series, and how media production is seen as valuable
creative industry and regional development to attract investors, inhabits
and visitors. As part of the glocalisation process, the specific places
become commodities with significant values, both cultural and economic in
a globalised world. The recent interest for places in the creative
industry in general (Comunian et al. 2010) and in television drama in
particular illustrates this very well.
The aim of this issue is to highlight research that engages with the
multi-discipline and multi-method approach to location studies in
television series. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature
and all submissions will be considered; particular areas of interest
include:
1. The development of location from practical role in production to
significant social value tied to cultural issues of place and meaning
2. Location studies and methodologies of empirical research
3. Theorising the relationship between location and the dramaturgical
function
4. The relation between physical, mediated and imagined places
5. Televisual places: Reflecting on the relation between production
design, exterior and interior, location and landscapes, respectively
6. The role of regional commissioning and production agencies and emerging
collaborative practices
7. Location as commodity and production value in television series
8. The politics of location as signifiers of changing landscapes in a
globalised media culture
9. Location as site of screen tourism and fan-based engagements
Submit your abstract:
Submit your abstract to (seriesjournal.org /at/ gmail.com).
<mailto:(seriesjournal.org /at/ gmail.com.The)> The deadline is May 1st 2016.
We can only accept abstracts/articles in English.
Author Guidelines:
http://series.unibo.it/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Time line (revised):
May 1st 2016: Deadline abstracts. 3-400 words. Submit to
(seriesjournal.org /at/ gmail.com)
June 1st, 2016: Feedback to the authors
October 1st: Deadline for submitting the article. Submit to
(seriesjournal.org /at/ gmail.com)
December 1st: Review process, deadline for the reviewers
February 1st: Deadline for the final version of the article. Submit to
(seriesjournal.org /at/ gmail.com)
May 2016: The articles are ready to be published.
Contact persons:
Anne Marit Waade is Associate Professor, School of Culture and
Communication, at Aarhus University, Denmark. E-mail: (amwaade /at/ dac.au.dk)
John Lynch is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Karlstad
University, Sweden. E-mail: (john.lynch /at/ kau.se)
SERIES website: http://series.unibo.it <http://series.unibo.it/> E-mail:
(seriesjournal.org /at/ gmail.com)
