Iluminace, 2023 (vol. 35), issue 1
Pandemic Television
Editorial
Pandemic Television
Television Industries in the midst of COVID-19
Jana Jedličková
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):5-6 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1754 
Editorial for a special issue on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the television industry.
Theme Articles
Fictionalizing the COVID-19 pandemic “instantly”. A case study of the German comedy drama Drinnen – Im Internet sind alle gleich
Florian Krauß
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):7-26 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1749
Based on interviews with production members and trade magazine articles, the paper discusses how the German comedy drama Drinnen – Im Internet sind alle gleich (2020) dealt with COVID-19 in its production. The series—whose title translates to “Inside – On the Internet All Are Equal”—is obviously about the pandemic: it tells the story of Charlotte, who is planning to quit her job and leave her marriage when she suddenly has to self-isolate and communicate with others only online. Not only Charlotte’s fictional life but also the show’s real-life production was very much affected by the COVID-19 pandemic....
Spanish TV Fiction in Times of Pandemic. Nuclear and Transversal Stories About COVID-19
Tatiana Hidalgo-Marí, Patricia Palomares-Sánchez
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):27-42 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1748
2020 marked an unprecedented change in the world population, social relationships, and cultural consumption itself. The outbreak of COVID-19 not only distanced people, families, and countries but also had many consequences on how we relate to each other. In this context, television was one of the sources of communication, entertainment, and bonding that resonated the most in times of crisis. This research aims to provide an in-depth study of the Spanish TV and VOD series born in the context of the pandemic to show how the discourse of COVID-19 has gone through the ways of consumption and entertainment and also through the fictional narratives. A content...
#QuedateEnCasa:
How did the Argentine and Spanish TV Industries React to the Outbreak of the Covid Pandemic in 2020?
Concepción Cascajosa Virino, Pablo Mendez Shiff
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):43-64 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1747
In March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit the world, television industries had to rapidly adapt to the circumstances. While a substantial number of people were able to spend more time in front of their TVs, the executives had to make choices: should they tell stories about what was going on or should they try to create escapism? This article compares the responses given to these challenging times by the Argentine and Spanish television industries. Whereas both countries have long-standing cultural and economic ties, they were different in the length of their respective lockdowns, and this had an impact on the televisual answer to the crisis....
Framing pandemic news. Empirical research on Covid-19 representation in the Italian TV news
Andrea Miconi, Simona Pezzano, Elisabetta Risi
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):65-90 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1752
The article contributes to the vast literature on the media representation of Covid-19, by exposing the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Covid-19 media coverage in Italy, run on the full archive of prime-time TV news – Tg1, Tg2, Tg3, Tg4, Tg5, Studio Aperto, Tg La7 – between February 28, 2020, and February 27, 2021. All verbal contents of TV news have been analyzed, based on a sample of 2,555 news shows and 14,304 news stories related to the epidemic, for a total of 1.6 million words. By applying the media framing models, we realized a two-step work: a mapping of TV coverage across one year; and an in-depth investigation...
Interviews
Ghosts On and Off Screen. An Interview with Helen Wheatley
Klára Feikusová
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):91-102 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1750
In the interview, Professor Helen Wheatley discusses her past and current research with an emphasis on her forthcoming book, Television/Death, and research project Ghost Town: Civic Television and the Haunting of Coventry.
Reviews
Ester Krumbachová's Phenomenon: Creator of Film Images
Jiří Voráč
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):103-109 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1751
Reviews of books and exhibition projects about Ester Krumbachová.
To Save the Whole through Ambiguity
Benjamin Slavík
Iluminace 2023, 35(1):110-117 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1753
Review of Jan Bierhanzl's Aesthetics of Ambiguity (2022).