Globalising the local in children’s television for the post-network era: How Disney+ and BBC Studios helped Bluey the Australian cattle dog jump the national fence

Abstract

Online television services are changing the way television is funded, produced and experienced by its national and global audiences, with profound cultural implications. The case study presented here of Australian production company Ludo Studio and the animated series Bluey provides valuable insights into the increasingly complex interactions between the local and the global in television production, and the cultural counterflows they can engender. Television made for online distribution can encompass national policy settlements, funding bodies and public service media as well as globally oriented distribution arrangements on SVODs such as Disney +, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Drawing on interview material with Bluey’s key creatives, this research identifies how globalising influences are both shaping and amplifying the local in children’s television production cultures.

Κινούμενα Σχέδια Και Οπτικές Αναπαραστάσεις Του Φύλου: Διδακτική Πρόταση Κριτικού Γραμματισμού Για Παιδιά Πρωτοσχολικής Ηλικίας

“…Πραγματεύονται θέματα σχετικά με τις καθημερινές δραστηριότητες της οικογένειας, το παιχνίδι, τις παιδικές φιλίες, γεγονός που τις καθιστά πιο εύκολα συγκρίσιμες, αν συνυπολογίσουμε τις δομικές ομοιότητες που παρουσιάζουν. Οι ομοιότητες αυτές, σύμφωνα με την Potter (2020) Τα δεδομένα του άρθρου προέρχονται από μια ευρύτερη έρευνα για τη γλωσσική και εικονιστική κατασκευή του φύλου στις εν λόγω σειρές κινουμένων σχεδίων (Γκαλά, 2021). Στο παρόν, όπως προαναφέρθηκε, επικεντρωνόμαστε στην εικονιστική κατασκευή του φύλου, συντασσόμενες με τις παρατηρήσεις της Καραγιαννάκη (2021) για τον καίριο ρόλο της εικόνας στην προσχολική και πρωτοσχολική ηλικία.…”

Historical Drama in the Time of Global Streaming Platforms: Envisioning Transition in Mr. Sunshine

“…Most academic literature on the subject focuses on regionally specific cases involving Netflix, analyzing the service's impact on local media industries (Castro and Cascajosa 2020;Dwyer et al 2018;Turner 2018), localizing strategies (Daidj and Egert 2018;Stiegler 2016;Ward 2016), and the role of local media practitioners or critics in the process (Castro and Cascajosa 2020;Tse 2020;Wayne and Castro 2020). Meanwhile, studies of other transnational streaming services, such as Amazon Prime Video (Rahe et al 2020;Tiwary 2020) and Disney+ (Potter 2020), have recently increased.…”

“…Although some cases can be seen as US-based media giants’ unilateral invasion of local media markets (Turner 2018), most studies demonstrate far more complex and often ambiguous relationships. The intertwined competition, cooperation, and mutual adjustments among transnational streaming services and various local sectors have resulted in unevenly distributed damages and benefits for the latter (Daidj and Egert 2018; Leung and Lee 2019; Potter 2020; Steemers 2016; Wayne and Castro 2020). A similar analysis is made by Kim et al (2018), who conclude that Netflix’s expansion in South Korea has had negative economic effects on paid local services but incentivizes broadcast networks to increase content investments, potentially leading to positive long-term consequences.…”

“…While research on global streaming services has focused on their economic dimensions, such as marketing strategies and impacts on local media industries, literature on television texts in the post-network era is heavily concentrated on US-produced or Anglophone shows. The impact of transnational streaming platforms on locally produced television content has remained a far less researched area, with a limited number of recent studies concentrating on European (Carelli and Garofalo 2020; Castro and Cascajosa 2020) or Anglophone (Potter 2020) cases. In this context, Mr. Sunshine offers an interesting example of a local series shaped but not directly produced by transnational streaming services.…”

Politics and Mass Communication: Rethinking the Interplay of Global Media and Democracy in Post Arab-Spring Morocco

“…This article addresses this relationship and analyzes the impacts of the rapid and unruly digitized invasion on participatory citizenship in Morocco. It explores why democracy, freedom, and change have become inescapable consequences of the proliferation of digitized communication tools and the uncensored access to modern media technologies, auspicating the demise of the nation-state in favor of direct democracy (Katz, 2009;Potter, 2021;Turner, 2016). The conservation of cultural pluralism and the boosting of cultural awareness ultimately depend on how we handle media outlets and how we adapt international information and the massive dissemination of digital products.…”