An Analysis of the Representation of Community within Only Fools and Horses is an investigation into a concept that is quite often left unexplored in other academic work or is not investigated as thoroughly as it should. This concept is community, and this PhD will investigate the variety of meanings and values that are bound up with the term "community", how a community is constructed within a TV programme such as Only Fools and Horses and what kinds of issues are raised in this investigation. It starts by investigating the term community, its historical meanings and the various ways by which we understand this term. This investigation takes in a wide range of works from Hoggart and his illustration of industrial workingclass life in the early 20th century, and the community that formed around work places, to the later works of Bauman and Delanty where community is a much more ambiguous concept, where boundaries of community are no longer bound by geographical limits, but by issues of class and ethnicity instead. As well as this, the PhD will also investigate sitcoms, their history and how they have dealt with the concept of community. This will involve looking at other aspects such as class, ethnicity, sexuality and gender and how these have all facto red into the construction of communities in the narrative space of the sitcoms. Finally, this will be specified to just one example, and how the working class world and characters within it are formed into a community, thus pointing out the problems, flaws and processes inherent to community.

This thesis examines quantitative and qualitative representations of race in contemporary U.S. drama series with a focus on network television and the two largest minority groups in the United States, Latinos and African Americans. The analysis of quantitative representations of whites and non-whites in American network dramas is based on the February 2011 television schedule of the five broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW, with a focus on regular characters as represented on the networks' official websites. The results show that Latinos are dramatically under-represented in U.S. network drama series, while whites and black males are overrepresented. Furthermore, due to structural changes in the American television landscape and an increased focus on non-scripted reality programming, black-themed and Latino-themed programmes have been completely eliminated from primetime network television so that African-American and Latino characters are generally portrayed in white settings. The second part of the thesis provides a critical analysis of the three internationally successful American quality dramas CSI, House and Desperate Housewives. Among their otherwise white regular casts, CSI and House each include one black male character, while Desperate Housewives features a Latina as one of the four female protagonists. Based on a critical analysis of individual episodes as well as on a contextualisation of the characters within each series, representations of whiteness and non-whiteness are discussed in the context of traditional Western conceptions of racial dilference.

This thesis examines the earliest science fiction dramas on the BBC, broadcast during the period between 1936 and 1955 when the BBC had the monopoly on television within Britain. These dramas were not originally identified as "science fiction", although their fantastic nature was recognised and provided early television writers and producers the opportunity to engage with social concerns and to experiment with the formal possibilities of the new medium. As the American term "science fiction" became more familiar in Britain after the war, the approaches and responses to these productions changed as the audience responded to the connotations of the genre as well as to the individual programmes, and the BBC had to consider these probable responses with regard to its programming. This coincided with the expansion of the television audience, and the increased possibility of a rival television broadcaster being established. These factors required close consideration with regard to the way that the BBC handled genre on television if it was to successfully adapt to these changing circumstances The dangers of making wrong choices with regard to genre were demonstrated by the controversy surrounding Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954), which connected with concerns over loss of British culture. The benefits of making the right choices regarding genre were shown by the success of Tile Quatermass Experiment (1953). Science fiction production expanded across the BBC, continuing to engage with social concerns, but also helping the BBC to develop a particular identity for its television service based on past successes as it prepared for the arrival of its competitor.

In this dissertation I look at the consumption of one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Latin America: the <i>telenovela. </i>My research is based in Brazil, which has the most successful and most profitable <i>telenovela</i> industry in Latin America. Current research into <i>telenovelas </i>has reached an impasse. It either posits the <i>telenovela </i>as an ideological tool to brainwash the masses, or as a symbolic site at which 'culturally competent' agents negotiate with the text and are involved in the construction of meaning and culture. I argue that this impasse is the result of dependence either on textual analysis or on interviews rather than immersion into a particular context. In order to overcome this, I adopt the technique of ethnographic immersion into the lives of viewers in a particular environment. Moreover, I focus on viewers who have been neglected in the scant account of in-depth work into <i>telenovelas</i>: unemployed women living in low-income neighbourhoods in one of the poorest regions of Brazil, the Northeast. I begin the dissertation with an in-depth description of the women's lives, and I show how the <i>telenovelas </i>are an important form of sociability and pleasure in these lives. Strikingly, the women say that the world of wealth and opportunity portrayed in the <i>telenovelas</i> is like real life. What they find so pleasurable about the programmes is the suffering that the female protagonists have to endure. I investigate this in terms of the Christian glorification of suffering, which I argue is apparent in the women's real lives and in the <i>telenovelas. </i>I connect this cult of suffering to a system of valuation in which women are treated not as whole people but as body parts for others. I then illustrate how the majority of women mobile the <i>telenovelas </i>to overcome this fragmenting system. However, given their conditions of existence this is achieved only at the level of imagination or fantasy. My analysis reveals the gendered ideas and practices that connect the women's real lives to the <i>telenovelas. </i>It also demonstrates how the women use their creative powers to affirm a social world in which they are oppressed.

This thesis is a qualitative study of TV comedy audiences. Based on a series of 25 focus groups with middle-class, adult viewers in Britain and Norway, it provides comparative analysis across participant gender and nationality. Each focus group discussion was based around the screening of two British programmes and two Norwegian programmes. These included sitcoms The Office (BBC2 / BBC1,2001-2003) and Nissene pä Läven (TVNorge, 2001), as well as sketch shows Smack the Pony (Channel 4,1999-2003) and Melonas (NRK1, 2001-2006). The programmes were used to encourage talk around male and female performers, comedic genres, and the international trade in TV comedy. My analysis of this talk employs a theoretical framework integrating theories of humour and comedy (eg., Cook, 1982; Mills, 2005) with social constructionist approaches to gender (eg., Crawford, 2003) and nationality (eg., Anderson, 1991). Conceptualising audience engagement with TV comedy as a "culturally figured world" (Holland et al., 1998: 52), the thesis examines how focus group discussions structured this world through discourses of gender and nationality. While my analysis identifies few marked differences in terms of how male and female participants constructed their own audience engagement, it demonstrates that discussions tended to marginalise female comedy performers and limit the appeal of shows centred around women. This can be seen to reinforce the patriarchal notion of humour production as a masculine practice. Shifting the focus from gender to nationality, I then consider how national contexts affected participant talk around TV comedy, and underline a recurring opposition between British and US comedy. While this tended to privilege British comedy, I also highlight exceptions to this pattern. Finally, the analysis compares national and transnational participant engagement with the case study programmes, and discusses differences in relation to genre and the textual combination of "universal" and nationally specific elements (Gentikow, 2006).

The thesis is concerned with British television classic-novel adaptations and their cultural significance. It interrogates at some length the arguments of comparative theorists and critics, and examines the implicit presumptions and conceptualisations that have determined their various influential approaches. The thesis develops an alternative understanding of these programmes, explicitly resisting a traditional comparative approach, and instead exploring a genre and the broader textual, cultural and social discourses within which it exists. The texts are conceived as sites of interplay between discourses about the past, the present, television and, reflexively, the genre itself, and are explored through close textual analysis that focuses on these concerns. British television classic-novel adaptations establish a generic microcosm that can be identified by its characteristic tropes of content (in particular, representations of the past), style and mood(s). Traditionally, this microcosm has been justifiably associated with nostalgia; however, whilst the nostalgic mode is still prevalent, generic development and the influence of (post)modern cultural discourses have resulted in the possibility of a wider range of meanings and consequent interpretations. In addition, classic-novel adaptations are necessarily and problematically situated within the context of the televisual, and the televisual context has impacted upon the genre's identity and development. The thesis elucidates the specificity of the televisual - highlighting its 'presentness', 'performativity', and intertextuality. The salience of a limited range of theories of the postmodern to the proffered conceptualisations of televisuality and (post)nostalgia is indicated. Informed by detailed conceptualisations of postmodern nostalgia and the televisual, the genre is examined textually, contextually and intertextually. The thesis therefore aims to reconfigure the theoretical assumptions behind the study of adaptation and propose an alternative conceptual and interpretative framework, grounding the study in detailed discussion of adaptations made in Britain over a twenty-year period (1980s and 1990s).

This thesis interrogates representations of gender and subjectivity within 21st century American science fiction television. It recognises a recent convergence of generic concerns, the shifting contexts of television, and the cultural context of 21st century America. Identifying a recent shift in how American science fiction television of this era has engaged with issues of gender and subjectivity, I offer an exploration of this trend via four key texts: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX, 2008-2009), Fringe (FOX, 2008-2013), Battlestar Galactica (SyFy, 2004-2009) and Caprica (SyFy, 2009-2010). The importance of this thesis lies in its exploration of new representational strategies in contemporary science fiction television in relation to the female body, and its consideration of the wider socio-cultural concerns of America in the 21st century. Previous attempts have been made to examine the socio-political import of certain series this thesis interrogates. I intervene in these debates by offering a much more focused interrogation of gender and subjectivity in 21st century science fiction television, via the framework of acclaimed and newly emerging series. Utilising a methodological approach that involves detailed textual analysis informed by social and cultural theory, I situate my case study series within the socio-cultural context of 21st century America. As such, this thesis covers a broad range of current representations that speak to how constructions of gender and subjectivity within a contemporary US cultural context are currently being worked through. Foregrounding an engagement with a particularly fraught period of American history via the female body, I argue that the protagonists my case study series present offer a positive intervention in previous estimations of how the female body has been utilised in film and television. As such, this thesis considers the implications of this particular context upon how these protagonists are represented by these newly emerging series.

The subject of this thesis is the role of television programme Saturday Night Live (or SNL) in launching the careers of a significant number of Hollywood film stars over the last three decades. Started in 1975, SNL is a 90-minute comedy variety show broadcast live by the American television network NBC. Since its inception, it has employed regular casts of performers to present comic sketches. Several cast members, including John Belushi, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal and Adam Sandler, have converted their exposure on the show into film stardom. In exploring the nature of SNL stars' appeal to Hollywood's filmmakers and audiences, the thesis primarily engages in two areas of debate. Firstly, it seeks to continue historicising what has been termed the "comedian comedy tradition" in Hollywood film. It has been noted that the Hollywood film industry has repeatedly turned to comic performers from other media with already well-defined, popular extra-fictional personas for use as star attractions. Certain consistencies have been found in the industry's approach to converting comedians' appeals for presentation within narrative fiction. However, approaches are also affected by historically specific industrial and social factors. I argue that the stars of SNL were instrumental to the development of a new variant of the comedian comedy tradition. Secondly, I suggest that the most important factor in explaining the nature of SNL's influence is shifts in social and cultural values in America since the 1960s. The personas of SNL stars I examine reflect trends in American public opinion connected to generational change. SNL has now employed cast members from across the baby boom generation (those born between 1943 and 1964) and Generation X (1965 to 1982). To consider the impact of generational factors, my analysis is centred around two case studies, the careers of Bill Murray and Adam Sandler.

Over the five year period 2005-2010 the crime drama became one of the most produced genres on American prime-time television and also one of the most routinely ignored academically. This particular cyclical genre influx was notable for the resurgence and reformulating of the amateur sleuth; this time remerging as the gifted police consultant, a figure capable of insights that the police could not manage. I term these new shows ‘consultant procedurals’. Consequently, the genre moved away from dealing with the ills of society and instead focused on the mystery of crime. Refocusing the genre gave rise to new issues. Questions are raised about how knowledge is gained and who has the right to it. With the individual consultant spearheading criminal investigation, without official standing, the genre is re-inflected with issues around legitimacy and power. The genre also reengages with age-old questions about the role gender plays in the performance of investigation. With the aim of answering these questions one of the jobs of this thesis is to find a way of analysing genre that accounts for both its larger cyclical, shifting nature and its simultaneously rigid construction of particular conventions. Building on the work of Jason Mittell this thesis sets out to engage with the way genres manage to lay claim to diversity while maintaining an ineffable quality of recognisability. In order to do this the thesis in the main is a case study of six different shows from across the genre: Bones, Lie to Me, The Mentalist, Psych, Ghost Whisperer and Medium. Through narrative textual analysis of both the shows and their ancillary and para-texts a case is made for additions to Mittell’s work. I posit a theory based on a continuum of graduated articulation. This is a way of mapping conventions prevalent in a genre without reducing them to a selection of identical aesthetic or narrative tropes. As part of this the method re-centralises narrative in the understanding of television genre.

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