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‘SCREENSCAPES’: PLACING TV SERIES IN THEIR CONTEXTS OF PRODUCTION, MEANING AND CONSUMPTION
Author(s) -
BOLLHÖFER BJÖRN
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-9663
pISSN - 0040-747X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9663.2007.00389.x
Subject(s) - appropriation , representation (politics) , consumption (sociology) , meaning (existential) , sociology , politics , interdependence , argument (complex analysis) , production (economics) , television series , order (exchange) , space (punctuation) , television studies , aesthetics , epistemology , media studies , linguistics , art , political science , social science , law , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , finance , economics , macroeconomics
The main argument of this paper is that television participates in a complex, cultural process through which environmental meanings and values are produced and consumed. Using the theoretical model of the ‘circuit of culture’ the ways in which a city's imagery is embedded in the processes of representation, production, and consumption are explored. First, two types of the TV crime genre are examined in order to outline how the differences between them cause and require contrasting geographical imaginations of contemporary Cologne. Second, the contexts of production are looked at in order to explain how the city's representation is inextricably linked to the politics of determining film locations. Finally, the ways in which fans perceive the city through television are explored. In conclusion, it becomes clear that space and genre are highly interdependent elements in crime series, and that environmental meanings are constructed and contested in multiple everyday contexts of media use and appropriation.