This doctoral thesis studies a cycle of British film and television fictions produced in the years 2005-2011 and set retrospectively in the 1980s. In its identification and in-depth textual and contextual analysis of what it terms the ‘Eighties Cycle’, it offers a significant contribution to British film and television scholarship. It examines eighties-set productions as members of a sub-genre of British recent-past period dramas begging unique consideration outside of comparisons to British ‘heritage’ dramas, to contemporary social dramas or to actual history. It shows that incentives for depicting the eighties are wide-ranging; consequently, it situates productions within their cultural and industrial contexts, exploring how these dictate which eighties codes are cited and how they are textually used. The Introduction delineates the Eighties Cycle, establishes the project’s academic and historical basis and outlines its approach. Chapter 1 situates the work within the academic fields that inform it, briefly surveying histories and socio-cultural studies before examining and assessing existing scholarship on Eighties Cycle productions alongside critical literature on 1980s, 90s and contemporary British film and television; nostalgia and retro; modern media, history and memory; British and American period screen fiction; and transmedia storytelling. Chapter 2 considers how a selection of productions employing ‘the eighties’ as a visual and audio style invoke and assign meaning to commonly recognised aesthetic codes according to their targeted audiences and/or intended messages. Chapter 3 investigates semi-autobiographical dramas that bear the mark of remembering, from the vantage point of the present, a time of fast expansions and shifts in the global media landscape. Chapter 4 explores how historical fictions locate historical knowledge in the decade’s refraction through modern media and reconstruct, deconstruct or ironise these mediations to meet particular cultural or industrial demands. Chapter 5 identifies two spin-offs that exploit shifts toward transmedia production and distribution by using eighties iconography as the set pieces for an immersive fantasy world, considering how and why their source texts are adapted and what this implies for past representation. Finally, the Conclusion reviews the project’s findings and briefly considers possible factors for the cycle’s deceleration and transformation after 2011. Ultimately, this project sees the Eighties Cycle as a by-product of shifts in Britain toward advanced globalisation and new mediation that have facilitated access to domestic and international mediated recent pasts. These productions operate within a distinct recent-past period screen fiction mode, engaging audiences equipped with comprehensive notions of the eighties as circulated in media. Meaning is produced in how these notions are structured; sometimes they are lauded, sometimes parodied, sometimes criticised or ironised, and sometimes they are simply cited for the sheer pleasure of recall.

The diploma thesis named Gender Stereotypes in Contemporary British Period Drama. The Comparative Analysis of Downton Abbey and Mr Selfridge compares the marks of gender stereotypes and conservative principles in British period drama series. The analysis of their clash with progress in society and technology during the first two decades of the 20th century is performed on the method of qualitative content analysis of two examples of popular contemporary British costume drama Downton Abbey and Mr Selfridge. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on the concept regarding history in film. The main category of research is the work with female characters and their social roles in Edwardian Britain which is characterized by unprecedented social change. The objective of the thesis is to analyze the way a female character reflects stereotypes and conservative principles that are usually believed to be characteristic features of period drama series. Additional objective is to examine how the 21st century society is mirrored in manipulation with stereotypes and social values in the series. The content analysis is based on the three criteria most interconnected wih position and social change of women of that era. These refer to property and proprietorship, sexuality, and emancipation of women in...

This study focuses on how taste can be perceived visually between two families in the first season of Netflix’s Bridgerton (2020) with a focus on costume, color and taste. Through the use of qualitative, comparative and semiotic methods, taken from a contemporary Western perspective, screenshots from two separate scenes will be analyzed to examine how the families convey a difference in taste and class based on theory by; Beverley Skeggs, Maria Sturken & Lisa Cartwright, Pierre Bourdieu and Gunther Kress & Theo Van Leeuwen. The results convey that taste and class is perceived depending on how the families’ costumes, focusing on color and fabric, work together with each other. One family shows a consistent use of color and fabric that portray a sense of unity, while the other family focuses on displaying individuality and personality traits through their costumes. Additionally, visual parallels are drawn between Bridgerton and the 2015 adaptation of Cinderella, particularly in how the costumes of Cinderella and her stepfamily may subconsciously influence the audience's interpretation of the characters in Bridgerton. This paper includes a design documentation after page 38 with the name “Mångfald i illustrationer” that is a fictional project in the form of an image bank for the organization Bris. The purpose was to create new illustrations for their website under the section "Vanliga ämnen" that were relatable to the target audience; teenagers between the ages of 13-18. The result is twelve illustrations that can be used in various ways in relation to the section "Vanliga ämnen", that feel inviting and contemporary for the target audience.