Watching nostalgia : an analysis of nostalgic television fiction and its reception / Stefanie Armbruster.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Armbruster, Stefanie, author.

Contributor:

Todd and Elizabeth Donovan Endowed Fund For Television and Broadcast Media.

Walter de Gruyter & Co.

Series:

Cultural studies ; 48.

Cultural studies ; volume 48

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nostalgia on television.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Bielefeld : transcript, [2016]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

What is nostalgia in television? How far does a nostalgic text trigger nostalgic emotions? And how are nostalgic series received by different audience groups? Stefanie Armbruster uses an interdisciplinary approach as analytical and theoretical basis. Her detailed analyses identify nostalgia in reruns, remakes and period dramas such as "Knight Rider" or "Mad Men". Focus group discussions with German and Spanish viewers give new insights into its reception. The in-depth study helps to understand the interrelation of nostalgic texts and nostalgic reception better and explores a decisive part of a phenomenon mat is omnipresent m our current TV landscape. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 11

Part I Theoretical Background and Methodological Design

2 Nostalgia 19

2.1 A first definition-the origins of the term and its development 19

2.2 Literature review - discourses of nostalgia 21

2.2.1 Nostalgia as a contemporary malaise 22

2.2.2 Nostalgia and identity 23

2.2.3 Nostalgia: death of historicity or paradigm shift 25

2.2.4 Nostalgia and the (re)construction of 'history' 29

2.2.5 Nostalgia and cultural style 31

2.2.6 Nostalgia in Germany and Spain 33

2.3 Conclusion on the discourse and transition to following research steps 37

2.3.1 Nostalgia 'mood' 39

2.3.2 From the cognitive-emotional to the textual part of nostalgia 39

2.3.3 The bandwidth of nostalgia 40

3 Two 'archives' - nostalgia's relationship to the past 43

3.1 Memory 43

3.1.1 Personal memory 44

3.1.2 'Collective' memory 45

3.1.3 Postmemory and prosthetic memory 47

3.1.4 Media memories 49

3.2 Physical and digital archives 50

3.2.1 Television archives in Germany and Spain 51

3.3 Conclusion 53

4 Aesthetic emotions - on nostalgia's relationship to the present 57

4.1 The discourse of emotions in film and television studies 57

4.2 Characteristics of emotions 58

4.2.1 Nostalgia as an emotion 59

4.3 Aesthetic emotions 60

4.3.1 Fiction emotions 60

4.3.2 Artefact emotions 63

4.4 Making the transfer to nostalgia in television; conclusions, hypotheses, and transition to the analytical parts 64

4.4.1 A combination of the approaches - towards the 'modules' of analysis 68

4.4.2 Methodology 77

Part II Text

5 The 'genres' of nostalgic fiction 83

5.1 Television reruns 86

5.2 Television remakes 90

5.3 Period dramas 92

6 Case studies on nostalgia on the textual level 95

6.1 Reruns and nostalgia 97

6.1.1 Analysis of nostalgia in Knight Rider 102

6.1.2 Analysis of nostalgia in The Avengers 118

6.1.3 A first conclusion on reruns as potential triggers for nostalgia 134

6.2 Remakes and nostalgia 140

6.2.1 Analysis of nostalgia in Knight Rider (NBC, 2008) 144

6.2.2 Analysis of nostalgia in The Avengers (Chechik, 1998) 154

6.2.4 First conclusion on the remakes as potential triggers for nostalgia 164

6.3 Period dramas and nostalgia 168

6.3.1 Analysis of nostalgia in Mad Men 170

6.3.2 Analysis of nostalgia in Borgia 182

6.3.3 First conclusion on period dramas as potential triggers for nostalgia 188

6.4 Conclusion on the television analysis and transition to Part III 191

Part III Reception

7 The reception of nostalgia 199

7.1 Excursus - empirical research on nostalgia in television 199

7.2 The process of the investigation 202

7.2.1 Focus groups 202

7.2.2 Questionnaire 209

7.2.3 Analysis of the group discussions 210

8 Presentation of results 215

8.1 Reception of the reruns 217

8.1.1 The reception of the Knight Rider rerun 217

8.1.2 The reception of the The Avengers rerun 256

8.1.3 Conclusion on reams as potential triggers of nostalgia 288

8.2 Reception of the remakes 295

8.2.1 Reception of the Knight Rider remake 295

8.2.2 Reception of The Avengers remake 314

8.2.3 Conclusion on remakes as potential triggers for nostalgia 330

8.3 Reception of the period dramas 334

8.3.1 The reception of the period drama Mad Men 334

8.3.2 Reception of the period drama Borgia 359

8.3.3 Conclusion on period dramas as potential triggers of nostalgia 365

9 Discussion of the results of the reception study 369

9.1 The cases of nostalgia 370

9.1.1 General characteristics of the objects of nostalgia 370

9.1.2 The 'genres' of nostalgia 373

9.1.3 Triggers of nostalgia 375

9.1.4 Reception and appropriation 377

9.1.5 Necessary time spans of nostalgia 378

9.1.6 Relevance of the reflexive pre-focus of the text 380

9.1.7 Inter-group differences 381

9.1.8 Intra-group differences 386

9.2 Outlook 387

10 Afterword 389

11 Bibliography 391

12 Appendix 421.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Electronic reproduction. Berlin Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 15, 2017).

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Todd and Elizabeth Donovan Endowed Fund For Television and Broadcast Media.

ISBN:

3839435099

9783839435090

Publisher Number:

99978433548

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.