German Quality TV as a Glocal Industry Discourse

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.57910

Keywords:

German television, European television drama, transnational television, glocalisation, television series, quality TV, media industry studies, television drama

Abstract

This paper discusses how television professionals in Germany negotiate the transnational potential as well as the regional, national and local particularities of German quality drama. The central hypothesis is that the practitioners’ current industry discourse on quality TV drama bears clear “glocal” traits, as their debates on transnationalisation focus on national or local specificities as well. Drawing on the theoretical concept of glocalisation, the analysis is based on 12 expert interviews with 15 producers, scriptwriters, commissioning editors and directors of recent quality TV drama projects from Germany. First, the article outlines key concepts and methods for the analysis. Subsequently, it describes transnationalism and regionalism in the German-speaking television landscape and among public broadcasters, which are the most important commissioners of German TV fiction. Further, the article deals with industry discourses on foreign sales and transnational distribution. Finally, it discusses the transnationalisation of project networks and individual practitioners on a micro level.

Author Biography

Florian Krauß, University of Siegen

Florian Krauß, Dr. habil., is research fellow at the University of Siegen, Germany. He has held visiting scholar positions at the universities of Bologna, Copenhagen, and Utrecht. Previously, he served as substitute professor in Media Literacy at Technische Universität Dresden, as lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Siegen, and as research associate at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Potsdam. In 2022, he achieved his habilitation with a thesis titled "Qualitätsserien aus Deutschland: Produktionspraktiken, Erzählweisen und Transformationen des Fernsehens" (forthcoming publication at Springer VS and in English at Palgrave), which explores quality drama from Germany and its production cultures, narrative styles, and television's transformations. His work has been published in Critical Studies in Television, Journal of Popular Television, Illuminance, and VIEW Journal of European Television History & Culture.

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Published

2023-07-18

How to Cite

Krauß, F. (2023). German Quality TV as a Glocal Industry Discourse. Global Media Journal - German Edition, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.57910

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2023): Spring/Summer 2023: Special Section: Diversity in Media Societies

Section

Peer-Reviewed Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Florian Krauß

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.