“Infertile Motherhood”

This study explores the socio-cultural arena following legalization of surrogate motherhood in Israel by analyzing Israel's most popular television series: A Touch of Happiness. The qualitative analysis presented here reveals a constant tension between women's reproductive and sexual bodies. This analysis demonstrates how social institutions of marriage, divorce, and motherhood are serving as instruments that reward fertile and punish infertile women. Advances in medical technology and modern surrogacy enable the infertile female to achieve motherhood even though her body remains infertile. Thus, paradoxically, if a woman selects to avail herself of these medical advances, she becomes an “infertile mother.” Viewed more broadly, the implications of such hybrid conceptions pose a threat to the patriarchal order, and therefore it was negated in this television series by a rich array of narrative and rhetorical devices. Derived by deeply rooted cultural–religious beliefs, the ideological stance applied in the series de-legitimizes female infertility and non-biological motherhood achieved through surrogacy. In doing so, it perpetuates notions of the inferiority of both types of women in the social order and cultivates the perception of biological determinism as a primary measure in determining all women's destinies, solely by the state of their wombs.     

Stars Behaving Badly

There appears to be a high degree of public tolerance for celebrities who misbehave and break the law. This has given rise to concerns that celebrities are bad role models who are glamorizing antisocial behaviour. However, it would be wrong to suggest that celebrity antics are uniformly tolerated and accepted by the public. The reputation of some celebrities is undoubtedly seriously affected when they breach moral, legal and social codes, while other celebrities suffer few adverse effects. This paper examines the importance of gender and class in ascertaining the limits of permissiveness that apply to celebrity wrongdoing. Female celebrities of a lower-class status are often subjected to very high levels of public scrutiny and punitive media commentary. This point will be illustrated with reference to the British reality TV star Jade Goody and her fall from grace following public outcry about her treatment of her co-contestant Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother 2007.     

Xena Rules

This paper analyzes and discusses “Antony and Cleopatra,” an episode from the popular and highly intertextual action-fantasy television series, Xena: Warrior Princess, in the context of the Roman story arc in the series and more particularly as a “feminized” appropriation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Although Xena's version of this tragedy copies the voluptuous atmosphere of Shakespeare's play, it radically changes its characterization. The Roman triumvirate exemplifies rigid and corrupted power play: Octavius is (as yet) a peaceful idealist, but Brutus (who replaces Lepidus) has murdered Cleopatra, and Antony, although brave and intelligent, is depicted as a ruthless and over-ambitious power politician, who is only taken in by a woman much cleverer than himself. Cleopatra is the victim of the struggle between these oppressive masculine forces, and, unlike Shakespeare's Queen of Egypt, Xena, who replaces her, does not allow her feelings for Antony to divide her from her sensibilities. She never loses sight of the desirable outcome: a mutual weakening of the combative (masculine) forces of empire and colonial expansion through war, and the survival of the traditionally feminine values of peace and justice. She eliminates both Antony and Brutus, and to a much larger extent than Shakespeare's fickle and understandably insecure lover-queen, Xena, a focused and confident female superhero, acts as an empowered and pragmatic ruler, who sacrifices her own love for the greater cause of Egypt's freedom.     

Between a Rock and a Slippery Slope: Negotiating the Intersections of Religion and Sexuality on Network Television's The Book of Daniel

This article analyzes the television series The Book of Daniel, a program that shows in full relief the ways that current discourses of religion and sexuality converge to produce a particular type of gay subject. This subject, primarily male, might be understood as bound through an innate identity and commitment to the sanctity and reproduction of heteronormative institutions such as the church and state, which renders him assimilable into the social order. As homosexuality, per se, is no longer “outside” the normative order, the program constructs an unstable, nonbinary, and nonheteronormative other who is best understood as queer.     

以多种方式促进秦皇岛市影视文化市场的繁荣

在现代经济社会中,文化产业在一个国家的经济发展中占据着越来越大的比重,文化产业的发展是国家经济发展的重要指标。在这一背景下,秦皇岛市文化产业的发展日益受到我们的关注,对秦皇岛市文化产业的一个重要分支——影视文化市场的现状进行分析,并从建设公共文化设施、推介精品文化、以人为本、加大政府扶持力度、开辟农村市场、招商引资等方面探讨如何促进秦皇岛市影视文化市场的繁荣发展。     

Risk and the Media: A Comparison of Print and Televised News Stories of a Canadian Drinking Water Risk Event

This article explores the utility of using media analyses as a method for risk researchers to gain an initial understanding of how the public may perceive a risk issue or event based on how it is presented and communicated in news media stories. In the area of risk research, newspapers consistently provide coverage of both acute and chronic risk events, whereas televised news broadcasts report primarily acute risk events. There is no consensus in the literature about which news format (print vs. televised) may be better to study public conceptualizations of risk, or if one format (e.g., print) may be used as a surrogate measure for another format (e.g., televised). This study compares Canadian national televised and newspaper coverage of the same risk event: the E. coli contamination of a public drinking water supply. Using a content analysis, this study empirically demonstrates the overall similarity in story content coverage in both televised and print coverage, noting that televised coverage promotes primarily emotional story themes while print coverage tends to also include coverage of analysis and process. On this basis, the research draws two conclusions: 1) given its more comprehensive coverage, newspaper broadsheets may provide a better measure of media coverage of a risk event than televised coverage (if only one format can be studied); and 2) when the risk area of interest is chronic, and/or if the scale of analysis is at a community/local level (i.e., when it is unlikely that archived televised coverage is available), then a researcher may find the print media to be a more useful format to study.     

西部影视文化研究说略——代“西部影视文化研究”栏目开篇语

"西部影视"是相对于"中国影视"外延而言略小的一个概念,"西部影视文化研究"则包容了电影电视艺术研究的所有命题与范畴,研究重点在于涉及西部影视文化艺术现象的所有对象,突出地探讨电影电视创作和理论发展中的新现象、新经验。栏目的学术定位为影视艺术的专业性研究园地,刊发在当今中国影视艺术研究领域具有前瞻性、指导性、独创性学术观点的论文。     

策划时代说策划 --中国电视节目策划的缘起及其作用

人们都说当今社会是"信息的时代",是"知识经济的时代",同时又是"策划的时代".在这样一个时代里,策划正扮演着越来越重要的角色.那么,什么是策划?什么是电视节目策划?中国的电视节目策划又是在什么条件下和怎样兴起的?在今天,面对中国入世后的严峻挑战,中国的电视节目策划应该担当起怎样的重任?这些正是本文所要探讨和说明的问题.     

数字高清晰度电视地面广播COFDM传输方案

数字高清晰度电视是新一代电视的发展方向,常用的传输方案是编玛正交频分复用（ＣＯＦＤＭ）方案和大联盟（ＧＡ）的残留边带调制（ＶＳＢ）方案。文中介绍了在于ＣＯＦＤＭ的数字高清晰度电视全数字发送部分的基本传输方案和硬件实现,分析了误码率等性能,并给出了实验结果。