European Entertainment Media

Author Papathanassopoulos summarizes the state of European media:

• Digitization has increased the overall number of channels

• Subscription channels are a US invention. HBO appeared in 1972 and established the precedent for channels like Sky 1 which came to the UK in 1982. Canal+ then appeared in France in 1984.

• During the 1990’s Europeans increased familiarity with American thematic channels. Thematic channels succeeded in Europe because

-customers wanted what the US had

-increased satellite/digital ability

-subscriptions were desired by customers and more profitable for companies

•The main groupings for channels are news, sports, music, children, and adult.

•The main point for the author is the general increase in themes as well as the role of localization or customizing global broadcast. Even globally distributed theme channels are customized. The “glocal” trend is not only language but also technology, transitional segments (interstitials), local segments and completely local versions.

French Entertainment Media:

Canal+ is similar to HBO. While it features many US films it also funds and supports French cinema. In 2008, Canal Plus plowed e173.96 million ($256.6 million), a record, into pre-buying 142 French films. Canal Plus pre-bought 64% of all French-originated films. Recently in a story in Variety magazine producer Djamel Bensalah ("Neuilly samere") explained: "You can make a film without (French broadcasters) TF1, France Televisions or M6, but not without Canal Plus." Watch a commercial showing Canal+ support of screenwriters.

The Cannes Film Festival is one of France’s biggest moments in entertainment each May, mainly because it attracts global releases.

• The festival was established in 1946

•The “Official Selection” are films screened for a competition however many films not selected also have screenings and press junkets

•In sympathy for the students and workers, the 1968 Cannes Film Festival was halted on 19 May. Leading filmmakers Truffaut, Godard and Roman Polanski spoke to the press. The president of the French Cinema association was replaced and the Film Directors Society of France was founded (SRF).

Truffaut announcing the closure of Cannes in May 1968

•France has a tradition of more serious cultural media. They started Arte in partnership with Germany and have the state funded radio channel France Culture. The station is similar to NPR and has a variety of programs.

•The privacy laws in France decrease celebrity-paparazzi style entertainment. Paris Match, E! News France and Oops! focus on American celebrities and place minor emphasis on French celebs.

•By contrast to France, the UK and Sweden have excessive paparazzi style press with many magazines and websites devoted to both celebrities and royals. Netherlands based “Royal Press Europe” tracks their every move.

•Like the US, Europe has supported reality television. Duvuna Frau-Meigs describes in her essay "Big Brother and Reality TV in Europe," the increase of reality television and many of the social factors that generate both similar and different types of European reality shows from US counterparts.

Dubbing, Piracy & Counterfeits

Dubbing is a standard procedure in the exportation of media materials. It provides immediacy of material and reinforces the regional language. The key debate in dubbing is the strange obviousness of the final product with altered sound.

Dubbing basics:

•Dubbing for children’s animation is standard

•The most common US import that is dubbed is Japanimation

•Voiceover is commonly used for television news which allows some of the original audio to come through

•Russia, Spain and Italy dub the most. Germany and Austria are close behind

•France simultaneously releases both dubbed and subtitled

•In some countries, dubbed voices become famous

•One study on Spain suggested that dubbing films was an intentional effort at maintaining a national language. In other words, Spain which already had problems with dialects, did not want to support the spread of English

•Croatia and Serbia use subtitles because they do not have master audio recording studios

•Israel (Hebrew & Arabic) and Finland (Finnish & Swedish) are examples where double subtitles are common.

•Dubbing can also be used to censor content on broadcast television

•Dubs and subtitles create conflict if the meaning is altered

•The Situationists 1973 “Can Dialectics Break Bricks?” was an intentional re-dub of a kung fu movie into a Marxist narrative

For more on dubbing, see this summary

Listen to the NPR account on the dubbing of American films in Europe

Media Piracy is the unauthorized copying of materials and selling them. Some argue that it has resulted from demand. There are various types or versions with different laws. Organized crime in China produces the largest number of pirated dvds. Some argue that communism simply opposes the personal claim for profit on intellectual property.

Finally counterfeits are simply imitations. Some imitations pass themselves off as the real thing but some imitations are legal because they are considered artistic interpretation. Indian Superman, the Soviet Winnie the Pooh and Turkish ET are just a few of the "remakes" in other countries. While they are not presented as the original they are presented to a culture with people who may grow familiar with the copy, not the original. They are also customized for the culture with many differences, watch them here.

Media Imperialism

“I think we were directly or indirectly responsible for the fall of the Soviet empire," Larry Hagman

In his essay "Media Imperialism," John Tomlinson considers media to be an important aspect of larger "cultural imperialism." Cultural imperialism is any instance of one culture advancing its value system on another by force, or in the case of media, by seduction.

The author has 3 criticisms of prior theories
-the problem of specifying culture as political/economic
-the problem of naivety

-the problem of seeing the West as only capitalist

Media imperialism, suggests Tomlinson, is much more complex. It advances political and economic values but also transforms societies. The notion imperialism is associated with transnational media that reaches a global audience. Media works as “patterning” behavior so that lived culture influences the media and vice versa. Media representations can inform/replace the authentic and even teach people about themselves.

Tomlinson is specifically interested in the European distribution of the television show Dallas. Dallas premiered as a miniseries in 1978 and continued until 1991. The show centered on the Ewing family, an oil and cattle ranching family in Texas. The show was a glorification of materialism that generated Marxist critique.

From "How 'Dallas' Won the Cold War": “I think we were directly or indirectly responsible for the fall of the [Soviet] empire," Hagman told the Associated Press a decade ago. "They would see the wealthy Ewings and say, 'Hey, we don't have all this stuff.' I think it was good old-fashioned greed that got them to question their authority.” In Romania, "Dallas" was the last Western show allowed because President Nicolae Ceausescu was persuaded that it was sufficiently anti-capitalistic.

A few facts

•Although EU countries make more films than the US, 75% of the income of European cinemas comes from American films.

•A study on American media in Europe found that the best evidence of influence was the sudden appearance of American names (Jennifer & Jason in the 1970’s)

•Because of its unique geographical position, Europe is “invaded” by media from both the US and Arabic countries. Recent articles discuss less of the US imperialism and more of an Islamic imperialism

The Culture Industry

Artist Sylvie Fluery, 2002

Theodor Adono is co-author of the text titled, "The Culture Industy" from 1944. Adorno wrote with Max Horkheimer, but it was Adorno who made a life long committment to the theory, so it is normally associated with him.

The Frankfurt School was a school of thought, a group of scholars associated with the “Institute for Social Research” founded in 1923 in Frankfurt, Germany until 1933, then elsewhere

•The scholars used a Neo-Marxist approach that combined sociology and philosophy to make the cultural theory that constitutes today’s “media theory”

•They relied on Marx’ idea of class/power structures and the use/myth value of the commodity

•Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno are the most well known members

•Some people argue that they legitimized “critical” theory, and negated the honest philosophical quest for truth

The culture industry refers to the sysytem of production of culture. It is important to understand that all cultures have cultural goods that are specific to their region or values. A media product is cultural good. It is the cultural goods that are then exchanged, while culture itself remains communal and cannot be bought or sold. In the contemporary global world we have many American and Western products that dominate global exchange, especially in Europe.

Adorno wrote, “Culture now impresses the same stamp on everything.” Media gives the stamp of approval. The actual culture industry is the entire system of mass cultural production from mass made dvd’s to manufactured home décor. Adorno explains that the real world must pass through the filter of the culture industry so that particular cultures are merged with capitalist culture.

This image is from the British National Party on a site discussing the issue of exporting Disney

The culture industry can also be understood as the "media machine" that builds and supports particular media in every area so that you see a media product on the internet, television, magazine and book form as well in entertainment news.

Adorno also describes that one problem for the whole “cult of objects” is that advertising, already in 1944, was not informing a consumer but simply dazzling him. But Adorno concludes by saying consumers already know this: “The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use products even though they can see right through them.”

Global Journalist Marilyn Georgeff

After studying economics, followed by a cadetship at a daily newspaper, Australian Marilyn Georgeff joined the Murdoch group as women’s editor of the West Australian Sunday Times. She then moved into television journalism for Channel 7, and, a keen underwater diver, participated in several underwater documentaries for the channel, including a film on White Pointer sharks and another on a 17th Century Dutch wreck that was found off the coast of Western Australia.

In a change of countries and career paths, she left Australia for Indonesia to set up a corporate bi-lingual newspaper for the Canadian nickel mining company PT Inco on the island of Sulewisi, a task that included training local Indonesians in journalism and off-set printing.

Returning to Australia, she joined the national television broadcaster SBS in Sydney as a journalist and documentary maker, winning a number of international prizes. She produced and directed one of the first documentaries on China’s exploratory moves towards a free market in the early 80’s. While making a documentary on the 19th Century French explorer Laperouse, whose two ships were lost in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, she met her husband, and eventually moved to Paris.

Here she worked as a marketing consultant, launching the successful Australian-themed Café Oz bars and Paris’s first Australian restaruant. But her interest in film remained, and she set up her own company marketing documentaries between France and Australia. She is now a documentary consultant, and a board member of Australian Business in Europe (ABIE), a group that works to facilitate business between France and Australia, and Advance, a business networking organisation for Australians living overseas.

French Culture, French Faith

The French resistance flag during World War II used the cross of Joan of Arc

Society can be understood as the seemingly anonymous mass of people that make up the world. Laws govern society in general, but it is normally a language, with shared values and territory, that defines a culture. Within a culture, people develop even more particular interests with codes and slang to create a smaller community or subculture.

Media plays an interesting role. Media has different modes of address for different audiences. Media that is directed to society in general is mass media in many languages with the most general content, as in Euronews. Media that is addressed to a particular culture or subculture, has a unique mode of address and uses unique codes that may not be understood by society in general. We must de-code the slang of a culture or subculture in order to understand their media. New media networking sites like Facebook, encourage the diversification of subcultures.

To make matters even more complicated, people who may share language and territory can have different values or faiths. So while each person identifies with a culture they are in competing subcultures. France has a historic national and cultural identity in its language, territory and indigenous Gaul-Germanic race that is predominately Catholic. "French" then is a culture of language, place, race and faith. The recent 20th century integration of French colonies added other races and other faiths, which have consequently become subcultures that are transforming French culture.

French Faith Facts

St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the 1572 assassination of leading Protestant Huguenots in Paris, painting Debat-Ponson, 1880

France is historically Catholic in part due to the expulsion of all Protestant Huguenots by the 17th century.

Most polls find however that only about 40% of French people acknowledge God.

A 2003 census found

Roman Catholic 62%

Muslim (largely North African) 6%

Protestant 2%

Jewish 2%

Unaffiliated 28%

The BBC and most other reliable reports suggest the Islamic population is closer to 10%, at 6 million Muslims, the largest in Europe. The French “integration model” is the government’s cultural plan for religious harmony

The Algeria Factor

-Located in North Africa it is the 11 largest nation territory by size

-France invaded Algeria in 1830 and claimed it as a colony

-50,000 French people re-located to build up the country and created new farming

-The native Algerian Jews were accepted as French citizens but the black African Muslims were not given French citizenship

-The Algerians fought for independence in 1954 with De Gualle’s support in 1958 re-writing the French republic law, but it not in place until 1962.

-When Algeria became a separate nation many people fled to France and claimed citizenship. Since 1962, black Algerians have re-located outside of Paris city limits creating a race and faith community with tension.

Jacques Derrida, Philosopher as Mediator

Jacques Derrida was an Algerian Jew who came to Paris during the German occupation in the early 1940’s and was prevented from attending school because of his faith. He is best known for Deconstruction. He also spoken openly about the French Algerian identity issue.

“In Algeria, I had begun to get into literature and philosophy. I dreamed of writing-and already models were instructing the dream, a certain language governed it.”

“Each time this identity announces itself, someone or something cries: Look out for the trap, you're caught. Take off, get free, disengage yourself. "

September 2005, Islamic Cartoons in the Media

The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after twelve editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad, were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. The newspaper announced that this publication was an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with police firing on the crowds (resulting in more than 100 deaths, all together), including setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, storming European buildings. Importantly, these cartoons were re-printed by France Soir in 2006, which continued the controversy.

October 2005, French Riots in the Media

The 2005 civil unrest in France of October and November (in French Les émeutes de banlieues de 2005) was a series of riots involving mainly the burning of cars and public buildings at night starting on 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois. Events spread to poor housing projects (the cités HLM) in various parts of France. A state of emergency was declared by President Chirac on 8 November 2005. It was extended for three months on 16 November by the Parliament. The biggest riots since the May 1968 unrest were triggered by the accidental death of two teenagers, Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré, in Clichy-sous-Bois, a working-class commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, who were allegedly chased by the police. They tried to hide from the police in a power substation where they were electrocuted. Nicolas Sarkozy was interior minister at the time and is blamed for inciting the riots by calling some of the rioters racaille , meaning racial scum and Sarkozy’s Jewish heritage was used as a chant in the racial/faith riots of 2005.

Academic Perspectives

Kay Adamson in her 2006 article "Issues of Culture and Identity in Contemporary France," describes the Anti-Semetic issues in France's past, as well as the contemporary challenge of Algeria. Yasmin Ibrahim's article "The Mediated ‘Ummah’ in Europe," describes Islamic faith and media as a global situation. Also relevant is Russell Sandberg's essay "Religious Identities in the European Media: A Legal perspective," which describes the recent removal of the blasphemy law in the UK. Importantly Sandberg identifies that in each democratic society we find the freedom of faith and the freedom of expression are competing in media.

Read the Reuter's report on faith integration: US Vs. Europe.