Geopolitical television at the (b)order

Liminality, global politics, and world-building inThe Bridge

Bibliographic Data

ID3977889
AuthorsR A Saunders (0000-0001-7457-4574, Farmingdale State College, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume20
Issue7
Pages981-1003
Publication date2019-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2017.1404122
OpenAlexW2770756343
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited50

This article interrogates the geopolitical content of the internationally popular television series Bron/Broen ('The Bridge') and its two subsequent adaptations. In my analysis of The Bridge as a global phenomenon, I make a threefold contribution to the literature of popular geopolitics and cultural geography. First, in a normative contribution intended to challenge mainstream assumptions regarding the banality of the medium of television, I situate TV-viewing within the discursive battlefield of global politics as an affective act of world-building, a phenomenon enabled by the emergence of a third phase of television (Television 3.0). Second, via a theoretical contribution, I conceive of Bridge-gazing as a form of quotidian geopolitical interaction, wherein the spectator maps their own emplacement in the world's various (b)order regimes, while also engaging with the distant politics of the series' narratives. And, third, in an empirical contribution, I provide a exegetic analysis of the three iterations of The Bridge by interrogating the three series' geopolitical interventions into pressing issues associated with unfettered globalisation, the purported victory of neoliberalism and the waning of the nation-state

Aesthetics · Art · Bridge (graph theory · Epistemology · Geopolitics · Liminality · Literature · Mainstream · Media studies · Narrative · Phenomenon · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Victory · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Rhetoric and Communication Studies