MH17 News Features and Values

Everything that happens around us, whether a natural disaster or a bad being born, is immediately classified as to either being newsworthy or not. The news on television is a virtual happening that has occurred or is occurring and is broadcasted to us in the comfort of our own home. News comes in many medium forms such as the newspaper or the news segment on television. These news has gone through various management team and has been carefully constructed into the story that is worthy of our attention. The worthiness of the news may arise problems such as is it the truth or a packaged story? But what I am focusing on in this blog post is about the features and values that goes into the making of a news to determine its worthiness.

The recent tragedy that happened for the MH17 flight was publicly broadcasted over the news tabloid, for weeks the only news that was worthy of our attention was this. The MH17 tragedy news can be categorized as having a “transient” quality, it is a news that is ultimately unexpected but its broadcast seemingly decreases day by day and finally stops unless there was any new insights into the investigations. Transient news is a news that is only temporary as its importance decreases with the decreases of new information. Narrativisation is another feature that helps construct the “story” of MH17 tragedy, it is pieced in a storyline and the reporter will narrate according to its line. Following narrativisation is visual imperative, like a children’s storybook, visual is important in order to give viewers a glimpse of what’s happening along with the narrator explaining the visual images.

News values is another important aspect of a news segment in order to establish its news worthiness. Cultural proximity is the closeness of the news to the viewers according to their culture, there were several Australians on board the flight which made the news closer in terms of culture which helps viewers relate. The rarity of this news increases it worthiness because something that is totally unexpected provokes curiosity in viewers. Once MH17 has hit the headlines, it possess the continuality value because viewers requires that constant update regarding the tragedy with any new insights into investigations. Negativity, though it is not plausible to state negativity as worthy of news, it is the negativity that puts drama in the news segment, which interest viewers in terms of a storyline. The negativity projected was about the cause of the downing of flight MH17 caused by a pro-Russian separatist that accidentally shot down the plane and another issue was about the regulations that were not laid out about Russia and Ukraine airspace being a no-fly-zone.

All these features and values are what made up the news and increased its worthiness for the attention of viewers. Without these qualities, the news would bore viewers and may not even attract their attention. News organisations fighting over diminished resources, audiences and public trust still need to question their values to justify their existence (Lee-Wright, P).

Reference:

Lee-Wright, P, “News Value: An Assessment Of News Priorities Through a Comparative Analysis Of Arab Spring Anniversary Coverage”, JOMEC Journal, University of London.

The Englishness in Sherlock Holmes

Elementary vs Sherlock

Drama is a situation or story that usually involves some sort of conflict. Drama when translated across cultures, locations and nationalities varies according to what they are accustomed to. The prime example this week similarly from my last blog post is Sherlock Holmes. From its first feature in a novel in 1887, the Holmes name represents this ideal figure of an idealised Englishness and is imaginary and constructed (Frew, C 2014). The UK series Sherlock took up the idea of Sherlock Holmes character and adapted the series in a very traditional way by sticking closely to the original story in order to keep its Englishness. The American adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, Elementary, though it follows through the guideline of the original story, it has incorporated many Americanised television features and values such as the sexual tension between characters, sympathetic characters, and its set in New York. However, the series didn’t entirely changed its originality by keeping a trait of Englishness in the series as seen in the character’s accent, Holmes’s background and influences from London to give it that touch of proper-ness.

It has been presumed for a while now that the Englishmen are proper, they possess certain qualities of being more looked up to. The UK and US version of Sherlock Holmes both garnered much success in their very own way. Focusing now on Elementary, its profound difference from Sherlock (UK) was that Watson, which originally according to the story was a male and share a sort of “bromance” with Holmes, was played by a female instead. This gives viewers a more different perception as to the relationship of Watson and Holmes but it was relatable to American audiences. Another significant difference was the villain in the story, Moriarty, also originally played by a male, was played by a female and nonetheless was Holmes’s previous lovers. This created the sexual tension between characters that excites the audiences. Americans are accustomed to sexual references in American dramas.

But not all is lost in translation, there had to be traits of originality from the original story otherwise the story might instead become a joke. Holmes in Elementary still possesses his English accent and his posture are always stiff and quite direct in his remark which is similar to the British version of the series. Elementary still needed to persuade viewers that Holmes did indeed have the authority to solve crimes because of his direct personality and blunt humour that might put viewers off, it is that fine line between creating a character that is “weird” yet “wise” building up the character platform.

Drama when translated across nations are inevitably modified in order to suit the different cultures, locations, and nationalities. However, a trait from home must be adapted into the series in order to keep its originality that was what made it successful in the first place. Good Holmesians know that every adaptation is a new twist, a hopefully intriguing spin on a comfortable theme (Asher-Perrin, E 2014).

Reference:

Asher-Perrin, E 2014, ‘Battling Super Sleuths: The Awkward Case of Elementary, Sherlock, and Building the Better Adaptation’, available online at
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/02/battling-super-sleuths-the-awkward-case-of-elementary-sherlock-and-building-the-better-adaptation

Frew, C 2014, “Sherlock and Elementary: Representing Englishness in Drama”, Powerpoint slides, University of Wollongong.

Comedy Lost In Translation

AUS vs US

Adaptation, according the Collins English Dictionary is something that has changed or modified to suit new conditions or needs. Therefore, film adaptation is the process of producing an idea of an existing film to in turn produce another film that shares similar values and meanings but is translated according to its culture needs. A prime example of this is the character driven television situation comedy series “Kath & Kim” that has garnered much success nationally in Australia winning two Logie awards and establishing a pop culture in Australia. Internationally, its success on British television inspired its adaptation by Greg Daniels who subsequently was the same producer of the American adaptation of the British sit-com “The Office” (Turnbull, S). Kath & Kim (US) was looking for the same success road as The Office however after the series was premiered, its viewers dropped significantly after the first episode was aired and the series was cancelled after just 17 episodes.

Focusing now on the American version, the plot revolves around the life of mother and daughter, Kath and Kim, their life is portrayed through a sense of humour which was a big success in Australia. Kath was played by Molly Shannon and Kim was played by Selma Blair. In the first episode alone, the similarity towards that Australian version was almost parallel, Kath announces that she has a boyfriend and the reaction from Kim was appalling as in the first episode of the Australian version of Kath & Kim, with Kim challenging Kath about being all “tizzed up” inside only to learn about Kath’s new boyfriend. The series was criticised for being “a pale imitation of the original”, Kath & Kim’s character was not monstrous enough to fit the original role, but ultimately, the argument was that the characters didn’t generate enough irony that the original comedy held which was what made it successful in the first place (Turnbull, S).

According to Turnbull, The problem here was that the humor wasn’t translated across cultures, and this has partly to do with the casting of the characters and the irony that was lost in translation. Kim in the Australian version imagines herself as a horn-bag while her performance shows sufficient evidence to show herself as self-deluded and foolish whereas Kim in the American version is actually trashy and dramatic enough to fit her role as a tabloid queen. This eliminates the humor from the irony that was what the viewer’s actually got from the original version. The heart of the comedy wasn’t there which was what sank the show’s ratings and speared quickly to its end.

Comedy is indeed a universal language but when translated among cultures, it needs to be pinpoint accurate in order for it to be a laughing stock for the other viewers. The way a film is produced should have thorough research before production begins, by affiliating one’s series success on another is an error even in translation because not all comedy fits well with cultures. One’s insult may be another’s joke.

Reference:

Turnbull, S, Television Comedy In Translation, Metro Magazine, Vol. 159, pp. 110-115

“Bending” Cultures in Media Capitals

In this week’s lecture, I came across this new yet foreign hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic but the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural (Huntington, 1993). This statement proves evident through the various news media broadcasting about International conflicts such as wars and violence. The most recent news to hit me was the war between Iraq and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine. A quick glance through these happenings shows the obvious signs of a difference in culture that provoked these wars. Huntington’s claim that the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics are somewhat true, however not in every case does violence solves our problems.

Media capitals, then, are sites of mediation, locations where complex forces and flows interact. They are neither bounded nor self-contained entities (Curtin, 2003). One example that comes to mind is Nickelodeon, an American basic cable and satellite television network broadcasting cartoon programs aimed at children and adolescents aged 8-16. I’ve been a loyal viewers even at the age of 20, and my favourite program by far is The Legend of Korra.

The series follows Avatar Korra, the successor of Aang from the previous series, as she faces political and spiritual unrest in a modernizing world. The feature of this series is Korra’s ability to “bend” all four Elements: fire, water, air and earth. Though this program’s young audiences are mostly in the West, the animation was set in an Asian-influenced world. With Korra’s ability to “bend” elements, this is the classical myths of a type of Chinese Martial Art that has been long foretold in Asian histories. The drawings are very similar to Japanese anime and has faced various claims that it is an anime work.

In the synopsis alone, I have been able to identified three different culture that has come together to work on a project that has since became a critical and commercial success in the West. This program obtained the highest viewers for an animated series in the United States in 2012. Therefore, this goes back to my understanding of our ever evolutional world that even though claims of the negativity of the clash of civilizations has been evident and has spread all over the media. There is no saying that it is a bad thing, from what I see, the clash of civilizations in “The legend of Korra” was an amazing art piece. And I can so say about this because media capitals are places where things come together and, consequently, where the generation and circulation of new mass culture forms become possible (Curtin, 2003).

Reference:

Curtin, M 2009, ‘Media capital: Towards the study of spatial flows’, International journal of cultural studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 202-228

Huntington, S 1993, ‘The Clash of Civilizations’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, pp. 22–49.