[ecrea] Call for Abstracts - Introduction to Greek Television Studies

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS


Introduction to Greek Television Studies: (Re)Reading Greek Television 
Fiction since 1989

SPECIAL ISSUE - Filmicon: Journal of Greek Film Studies


In December 2016, in an international conference entitled “50 years of 
Greek Television” that took place in Thessaloniki, organized by the 
Laboratory of Cultural and Visual Studies of the Department of 
Journalism and Mass Media Communication, both well-established and 
emerging scholars came together to discuss the past, present, and future 
of (the academic study of) Greek television. The conference delivered a 
wide array of arguments in favor of a fresh and unapologetic – yet 
rigorous – approach to the study of the popular medium, as well as its 
content, production conditions, technological transformations, 
historical and socio-political parameters, and impact on Greek society. 
With this rejuvenated interest in the study of Greek television as an 
overarching guideline, this special issue of Filmicon: Journal of Greek 
Film Studies aspires to introduce the theme of Greek Television Studies, 
with a particular focus on the study of television fiction made and seen 
within the Greek context since 1989.

Ever since its emergence as part of the British cultural studies during 
the 1970s, television studies have charted a progressive yet certainly 
complicated course. From a neglected cousin, television studies have 
succeeded in becoming independent from film and media studies, to the 
point that they have now come to be considered an ‘established field’ 
with its own degrees and courses at different Anglophone universities. 
Furthermore, thanks to its disciplinary hybridity, the study of 
television in countries like the UK and the USA has attracted extensive 
scholarly attention from a variety of disciplines, particularly the 
humanities and social sciences, thus resulting in an exponentially rich 
body of monographs and articles that read and decode – among other 
formats – the polysemy of television shows and series.

The academic study of Greek television, however, has a limited place in 
the national and international bibliography. Previous studies have 
adopted mainly autobiographic, historical and sociological approaches in 
an attempt to capture ‘the big picture’ of Greek television and 
chronicle the evolution of the medium, as well its impact on viewers 
across different time periods and cultural moments. It can be argued 
that with the exception of television critics and relatively recent 
academic interventions in collective volumes and articles, such as 
Kaklamanidou (2017), Vamvakas & Paschalidis (2018), and Aitaki (2015, 
2017, 2018), the discussion around Greek fiction still remains in its 
infancy. This lack of systematic engagement with the area of television 
fiction, combined with the closure of MEGA channel, signifies a need to 
discuss and reconsider Greek television’s traditionally ‘unserious’ 
cultural archive, especially within the context of commercially oriented 
television.

This special issue wishes to create a space for reflections upon Greek 
television fiction produced so far since the deregulation of Greek 
television and the emergence of private channels in 1989. We thus ask 
that all contributions – whether historical approaches, case studies or 
comparative analyses – engage with the Greek televisual content and 
create new pathways to read, understand, and explore the academic field 
of Greek television studies.

The scope of the special issue may include (but is not restricted to) 
the following themes revolving around Greek TV fiction:

  * Textual and contextual analysis of case studies
  * Genres and sub-genres
  * Representation of gender, sexuality, body image, ethnicity and/or
    disability
  * ‘Identity politics’ and intersectionality
  * Production, reception and consumption
  * Book-to-TV adaptations
  * Television series and audiences
  * Television fiction and fandom
  * Television fiction in the Internet age
  * Convergence culture
  * Programming strategies and reruns
  * The case of MEGA channel

Submission Guidelines

Authors should submit a 300-word abstract for their papers including a 
title, aim and brief background, sources of data & method, and potential 
arguments/results if already known by 20 January 2019. Proposals, along 
with authors’ contact information and a short bio of maximum 100 words 
should be submitted via e-mail to (greetvstudies /at/ gmail.com). The editors 
will make a decision and will contact authors by 1 February 2019.

The deadline for article submissions is 30 June 2019, while the special 
issue is expected to appear in December 2019. All submissions should be 
in the range of 5,000-8,000 words, written in English, and prepared for 
an anonymous peer review process. Please note that prospective articles 
should not have been previously published or should not currently be 
under consideration for publication elsewhere.

Any queries should be addressed to the editors of the special issue 
Georgia Aitaki and Spyridon Chairetis at: (greetvstudies /at/ gmail.com)

A few words about the special issue editors:

Georgia Aitaki works as a research associate for the Department of 
Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Gothenburg. Her 
doctoral dissertation entitled ‘The private life of a nation in crisis: 
A study on the politics in/of Greek television fiction’ offers in-depth 
studies of the fictional reconstruction and negotiation of moments of 
heightened societal tension in Greek television fiction since 1989 
(University of Gothenburg, 2018). Her research interests revolve around 
television fiction, television criticism, the production culture of 
commercial television, as well as the relationship between Greek media 
and society. Her work has been published in journals such as Media, 
Culture & Society, Critical Studies in Television, and Social Semiotics.

Spyridon Chairetis is a DPhil/ PhD candidate in Modern Languages and 
Cultural Studies at the University of Oxford. His doctoral thesis 
examines queer potentialities and ambivalences in Greek TV comedy texts 
produced in the 1990s and 2000s. He holds a BA in English literature, 
University of Athens and has studied Contemporary European Politics 
(University of Bath, UK & Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) and Creative 
Writing (University of W. Macedonia, Greece) at Master’s level. He 
serves as gender/sexuality editor of E-International Relations and his 
work has been published in journals and blogs, including Filmicon: 
Journal of Greek Film Studies, Social Anthropology, and Oxford Queer 
Studies Network.



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