'Don't stop': re-thinking the function of endings in narrative television

PN1990 Broadcasting;PR English literature

Bell, Stuart ; Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) ; Holdsworth, Amy

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Culture and Creative Arts

关键词: Television, narrative, endings, soap opera, televised sport, sitcom, contingency, serialisation.;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7282/7/2016bellphd.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

This thesis argues that the study of narrative television has been limited by anadherence to accepted and commonplace conceptions of endings as derived fromliterary theory, particularly a preoccupation with the terminus of the text as the ultimatesite of cohesion, structure, and meaning. Such common conceptions of endings, thisthesis argues, are largely incompatible with the realities of television’s production andreception, and as a result the study of endings in television needs to be re-thought to payattention to the specificities of the medium. In this regard, this thesis proposes a modelof intra-narrative endings, islands of cohesion, structure, and meaning located withintelevision texts, as a possible solution to the problem of endings in television. Theseintra-narrative endings maintain the functionality of traditional endings, whilst alsoallowing for the specificities of television as a narrative medium.The first two chapters set out the theoretical groundwork, first by exploring theessential characteristics of narrative television (serialisation, fragmentation, duration,repetition, and accumulation), then by exploring the unique relationship betweennarrative television and the forces of contingency. These chapters also introduce theconcept of intra-narrative endings as a possible solution to the problems of television’snarrative structure, and the medium’s relationship to contingency. Following on fromthis my three case studies examine forms of television which have either beentraditionally defined as particularly resistant to closure (soap opera and the US sitcom)or which have received little analysis in terms of their narrative structure (sportscoverage). Each of these case studies provides contextual material on these televisualforms, situating them in terms of their narrative structure, before moving on to analysethem in terms of my concept of intra-narrative endings. In the case of soap opera, thechapter focusses on the death of the long running character Pat Butcher in the Britishsoap EastEnders (BBC, 1985-), while my chapter on the US sitcom focusses on thevarying levels of closure that can be located within the US sitcom, using Friends (NBC,1993-2004) as a particular example. Finally, my chapter on sports coverage analyses theBBC’s coverage of the 2012 London Olympics, and focusses on the narrativessurrounding cyclists Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton. Each of these case studiesidentifies their chosen events as intra-narrative endings within larger, ongoing texts, andanalyses the various ways in which they operate within those wider texts.This thesis is intended to make a contribution to the emerging field of endingsstudies within television by shifting the understanding of endings away from a dominantliterary model which overwhelmingly focusses on the terminus of the text, to a moretelevisually specific model which pays attention to the particular contexts of themedium’s production and reception.