Sounds like this will be an interesting collection when it's finished:
Call for Papers
Between Reality and Fiction on Canadian
Television
Historically in Canada, the focus of television studies has been on its
role as a technology of public policy and nation building. Studies
focus on either the public mandate or political economy of Canadian
television. Little work examines the content of Canadian television and
how it functions in everyday life in Canada. Our collection aims to
fill a sizable gap in scholarship about Canadian television content.
In his book Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1974), Raymond
Williams noted that television produces hybrid forms- from the blurring
of domestic and public spheres to the blending of current events and
drama. Canadian television has been a particularly fertile realm for
such hybridization. According to David Hogarth in Documentary
Television in Canada (2002), that is because much of Canadian cultural
funding is traditionally allocated to current events programming, as
well as education and other public services. Given this funding
climate, media professionals weave their dramas and other creative
projects somewhere between reality and fiction. The resulting hybrid
realism that seems so much a part of Canadian television is something
this collection wishes to explore.
We invite proposals for scholarly articles that are case studies,
either historical or contemporary, of programs made for broadcast on
Canadian television. We welcome cases from English-, French- and other
language programming. We encourage a broad range of approaches
including textual analyses, audience/reception studies, and studies of
the conditions for creativity.
The topic-between reality and fiction on Canadian television- invites
cases that could include but are not limited to:
… Historical Costume Dramas
… Docudrama/Drama-docs/Re-enactments
… Real Crime Shows
… Popular Genres in News Narrative or Documentary
… Mockumentary/Parody
… Reality Television
… Lifestyle and Travel Shows
Please email abstracts of 500 words and a brief biography (in English)
to Dr. Zoë Druick, School of
Communication, Simon Fraser University (druick@sfu.ca) and Patsy Kotsopoulos, Film Studies Program,
University of British Columbia.
Deadline: November 30, 2004
—
Dr. Zoë Druick
Assistant Professor
School of Communication
RCB 6228
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC
V5A 1S6
Phone: 604-291-5398
Fax: 604-291-4024