Transatlantic Television Drama

A tide of high-quality television drama is sweeping the world. The new transnational television series has developed not only global appeal but innovative new modes of production, distribution, and reception. Nowhere is the transnational exchange of television drama more vital than between Britain and the United States, where it builds on more than sixty years of import, adaptation, coproduction, and fandom. This edited volume explores the transatlantic flow of television drama, focusing on key programs, industry strategies, critical debates, and audience reception, from an international roster of scholars and researchers. The chapters explore some of the most widely discussed programs on the transatlantic circuit. The book's first part focuses on media industries, tracing the history of transatlantic exchange and investigating contemporary practices such as coproduction, digital distribution, global partnerships, promotion, and branding. The second part concentrates on specific television texts and their negotiation of meaning across cultural contexts, exploring critical issues in the creation of transnational drama, such as heritage, proximity, performance, and self-reflexivity. Part III turns to the lively sphere of transatlantic fandom and commentary, including fan conventions, fan fiction, the role of both traditional and social media, and fan strategies for negotiating cultural differences. Transatlantic Television Drama provides a wide-ranging analysis of a phenomenon at the forefront of today’s television universe. It is focused on the serial dramatic programs that have gained the bulk of critical and popular attention and is particularly concerned with the impact of digital technologies on the production, distribution, and reception of television drama.