Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of 2024, 19.1, of Critical Studies in Television: the International Journal of Television Studies. It is, in CST terms, a general issue, which means that it consists of articles that have been submitted directly to the journal and are now available online. There is no over-arching theme for the articles included here: indeed, there is a variety of approach, methodology and subject, although there are connections as well as contrasts. The issue begins with two studies of the representation of what might be considered marginal identities in two different television contexts, rural Spain (Castelló) and gay men in Chile (Rivera). In contrast, the remaining articles scrutinise the policies of an entire network towards ‘repeats’ and archive material (Hewett on the UK’s C4), the analysis of a single programme in relation to notions of ‘surveillance television’ (Brayton) and a timely re-consideration of questions of aesthetics in television criticism (Walters). The issue concludes with an aerial review, of a kind that CST commissions on a regular basis to provide an overview of television scholarship in a single national context, in this case South Africa (Loader).

The issue opens with an article by Enric Castelló that explores the ways in which Spanish television has sought to engage with Spain’s rural hinterlands through an analysis of a single documentary series, Ruralitis (2020 - present). The series is distinctive, Castello argues, because it attempts to get beyond some of the clichés of rural representation, especially the ‘rural idyll’ of pristine landscape and an unchanging way of life, or a de-populated, under-resourced backwater, with the ‘urban’ as its binary opposite (and sometimes evil twin). Although the series does not manage to entirely avoid such iconography, it does give its participants agency, Castello argues, and is an example of what he calls the ‘agentic rural’, an approach that keeps self-determining individuals at its centre. There are limitations to Ruralitis’ view, as not all the problems affecting rural areas are visible through the individual lives it follows, such as intensive food production, mass tourism and the leisure industries. However, it does go a long way, Castello argues, towards rescuing the rural communities of Spain from the condescension of the urban. Castello’s persuasive analysis contributes to the wider discussion of the urban imaginary.

The article that follows, by Ricarado Ramirez, also proceeds from an awareness of a precise historical context, in this case that of post-Pinochet Chile. The liberalisation of Chilean society that occurred after the dictator left power in 1990 eventually included attitudes towards homosexuality. The media, especially television, played an important role in this process, Ramirez argues, especially telenovelas, which were extremely popular with Chilean audiences, helping to make homosexuality visible and acceptable. Ramirez pursues his analysis in relation to a single programme, which is both representative of how telenovelas have sought to normalise homosexuality and distinctive in the way it introduces a new dimension. Casa de Muñecos (2018 – 19) places four gay men at the centre of the series’ narratives and proved to be very popular with its audiences. It also used the series form to create complex and developed storylines that went beyond the familiar tropes of gay representation. This included encountering homophobia, still very much part of gay reality in Spain, as elsewhere. Although there is much that is positive about the way Casa de Muñecos presents its gay characters and their narratives, it is also constrained by its individualism, which Ramirez characterises as neo-liberal. In the world of the series, gay men are responsible through the process of coming-out, a process of self-determination, for their own mental and moral health, irrespective of the actions of others; indeed, they are, to a degree, responsible for those actions as well. Nevertheless, Casa de Muñecos remains ground-breaking on its own terms.

The UK’s Channel 4 (C4) was a relative newcomer to terrestrial television (1982), and faced the problem of scarcity of material, especially as it did not produce content of its own, but rather commissioned or bought it. In its early years, the channel was much criticised. Hewett notes, for relying on repeats of television from an earlier era of both the USA and the UK, such as sitcoms and cult drama series. What began as a pragmatic response to a programming challenge, however, became a deliberate strategy, as the broadcaster discovered that such programmes were popular. For one sector of the audience, the viewing pleasure was essentially nostalgic, a reminder of an earlier time; but for another, such programmes were being encountered, and enjoyed, for the first time. Archive programmes were configured into themed evenings, and then, in 1992, into a whole season. In a persuasive and meticulous analysis, Hewett explores publicity material from C4’s press packs, investigates the pattern of repeats, and conducts original interviews with those involved in the curatorial process, and concludes that C4’s use of archival programming was born of more than economic pragmatism, and was a conscious act of contextualisation and re-evaluation. As his interviews in particular reveal, there was a strong belief amongst commissioners in the value of giving viewers access to the history of television. In doing this, C4 pre-figured the digital age, when a raft of new channels and streaming services, such as Britbox, Drama and Dave in the UK, drew extensively on television’s rich history to fill their schedules.

The next article in this issue is also concerned with Channel 4, though it is seen through the prism of a very different set of concerns. Sean Brayton focuses on a single programme, C4’s Hunted (2015 – present), and is interested in notions of ‘surveillance television’. The premise of each of the five series of Hunted to appear so far is that British citizens go ‘on the run’, as it were, for about one month, pursued by retired law enforcement personnel. The chase is unequal, however, since the Hunted have access to the latest surveillance technologies, including closed-circuit television (CCTV), cell-site data monitoring, call tracing and automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR); the Hunted have only their wits. Brayton notes that there has been considerable academic interest in surveillance television, especially with regard to forms of reality television, where the unseen but all-seeing camera is an essential component of viewer engagement. Brayton’s argument is that the programme is more complex than it might at first seem, especially in how it seeks to position the viewer in relation to the power of the state. The series upholds the myth of ‘symmetrical surveillance’, for example, in which the process of tracking the Hunted is exercised without racial and gender bias. This position is undermined by the series itself, since the value-free decision-making that this implies is sometimes contradicted by what we see on the screen. Brayton also notes that the focus on the personal stories of those being Hunted produces a ‘therapeutic self’, in which the experience is seen as life-affirming. This, in turn, gains considerable viewer empathy, activating an ‘underdog’ narrative that sees the hunters as the enemy. It is not as straightforward as that, however, as this is partly recouped by a ‘gamedoc’ format that steers the audience away from the political implications of mass surveillance. There is no single viewpoint, Brayton argues, and the series cannot be seen as either part of the ideological state apparatus nor is it consistently subversive.

In the fifth, and final, formal academic article in the issue, James Walters is concerned not so much with television as with the processes of writing about it, especially the practice of television aesthetics, or aesthetic criticism. Walters observes that, amongst the plenitude of approaches, methods and ideologies applied to the study of television from within the many disciplines that engage with it, television aesthetics survives, and retains the power to provoke heated argument. Walters provides an overview of recent debates around television aesthetics, which may be defined as a process of analysis and evaluation of television programmes, noting that questions of judgment have often been the most contentious, since ‘judgment’ too-easily becomes ‘value judgment’, importing hierarchies of taste and discrimination from elsewhere. He is not interested in offering a new critical model, but in looking at the processes of conducting aesthetic criticism itself, in order to encourage self-reflection and awareness. He examines a selection of recent examples of such criticism in some detail, not to engage directly, or combatively, with the analysis but rather to understand better what kind of criticism is being conducted. As the field of television aesthetics expands, and different forms and emphases appear, this will become more necessary. Walters is not arguing that scholars should immediately engage in ‘meta-criticism’ of the field, but is rather in favour of the practice of an aesthetic criticism that embraces both analysis and evaluation. It is essential that such a practice retains its distinctiveness, separate from, if connected to, other forms of scholarship and criticism.

The issue concludes - as does its immediate predecessor, 18.4 – with an aerial review, in which the traditions and practices of television scholarship from a particular national context are examined. In this case, Reina-Marie Loader analyses television scholarship from, and about, South Africa (SA). In doing this, Loader returns us to the emphasis of the first two articles in the issue, which are also about the importance of a specific, often traumatic, national history to the development and characterisation of its television. Like South African society in general, television and television scholarship have been profoundly affected by the experience of apartheid, Loader argues; the shadow of apartheid is a long one that shows no sign of receding. She divides the development of SA television into three phases: the first is the period of apartheid itself, when television was entirely state-controlled, restricted in its output and propagandistic; the second is the period of transition, when SA began to transform into a more open, multi-racial democracy; and thirdly, a period of stocktaking, still in evidence, when the achievements of, and the challenges faced by, the new society are being subject to scrutiny. Television scholarship arrived late in SA, post-apartheid, but developed quickly, engaging directly with the politics of change – in the broadest sense – in this complicated history. The emphases of scholarship tracked closely the three-phase development of television. In the period of transition, for example, scholarship became very concerned with questions of broadcasting policy and institutional reform, as SA chose a free-market model for its broadcasting future, becoming increasingly reliant on advertising rather than the state as its primary funding source. At the same time, and since, television scholarship has engaged directly with questions that have preoccupied many in the wider society. This includes reflections on nation-building, national identity, language and representation. It has also embraced a wide range of programmes and genres, such as soap operas and popular drama series, often scrutinising their value as cultural products in an emerging and often volatile public sphere. Loader concludes that SA television scholarship is healthy, but not as visible, or as valued, as it should be. It provides a case-study of a practice of criticism that engages directly with the development of a new democracy and with fundamental questions of human rights. As Loader notes, television scholarship in SA is not only interested in television, but also wants to examine the myriad forms of cultural expression, of which contemporary SA is comprised.