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Abstract
The cultural proximity thesis states that in a world of transnational media flow, audiences continue to prefer content situated within their local frames of reference. Yet the means through which such content is distributed and accessed can also be sites for cultural proximity. This paper explores how television distribution practices can create transnational meanings through a discussion of the contemporary television series Outlander’s controversial distribution in the United Kingdom. Released in the US at the height of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the Jacobite sympathies of Outlander’s narrative were widely believed to have restricted the UK release of the series. Outlander failed to secure a distribution deal with a UK broadcaster, and was eventually released in the UK on Amazon Prime six months after its US debut. British audiences struggled to reconcile the programme’s foreign distribution with its local relevance, objecting to having to go beyond the recognized spaces of national broadcasting (for distribution and consumption) to access a culturally proximate programme (in terms of content). Watching Outlander in the UK consequently became a transnational experience: one that involved moving beyond the sanctioned boundaries of national broadcasting, and re-contesting the borderlines within the United Kingdom itself.
Acknowledgements
An initial version of this article was presented at the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies conference at the University of Reading, April 14–16, 2016. I am grateful to my fellow presenters and delegates for their generous feedback on these ideas. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Outlander is supported by a Creative Scotland fund and benefits from the UK government’s tax relief policy for high-end television productions. The production has spent approximately £40 million in Scotland across the 2013–2015 period, has commissioned 300 new roles and supported more than 2000 freelancers, and created a trainee scheme offering training and skills development to 35 individuals. See http://www.creativescotland.com/what-we-do/latest-news/archive/2016/01/outlander-wins-two-peoples-choice-awards for more information (accessed October 5, 2016).
2 Weaver, ‘Background/Briefing for PM Cameron Event’. The full email can be found at https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/111867 (accessed October 5, 2016).
3 See work on transnational adaptations (Weissmann, Transnational Television Drama; Perkins and Verevis, ‘Transnational Television Remakes’); on the format trade (Moran and Malbon, Understanding the Global TV Format; Chalaby, The Format Age); and on diasporic experiences of television (Naficy, The Making of Exile Cultures, Robins and Aksoy, ‘Whoever Looks Always Finds’).
4 Moran, New Flows in Global TV, 12–13.
5 Straubhaar, ‘Beyond Media Imperialism: Asymmetrical Interdependence and Cultural Proximity’.
6 Harrington and Bielby, ‘Flow, Home, and Media Pleasures’, 835.
7 Audiences watching television online may be: using a catch-up service for terrestrial broadcasters (which has a short window of access and may be segmented with advertisements); purchasing a digital copy of a television programme or season; or streaming content through a paid subscription service. Each of these models is associated with different meanings and practices, ensuring that the frames of reference through which the audience interacts with them – such as scheduling, branding, and commodity consumption – remain specific to the particular platform in question.
8 Bennett and Strange, ‘Introduction’, 2.
9 Lotz, The Television Will Be Revolutionized, 79.
10 Netflix US and Canada, ‘Netflix: Now Streaming Worldwide [HD]’, YouTube, January 6, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvQs89U_tV0 (accessed January 6, 2016). At the time of writing, Netflix has yet to reach four countries – mainland China, North Korea, Syria, and Crimea.
11 Meyrowitz, ‘Media and Community’, 327.
12 Ibid.
13 Jacobs, ‘The Medium in Crisis’, 506.
14 Pertierra and Turner, Locating Television, 5.
15 Morley, ‘Belongings’, 427.
16 White, ‘Flow and Other Close Encounters with Television’, 106.
17 Thompson, ‘Is There a Geography Genre on British Television?’, 57.
18 Blandford, ‘BBC Drama at the Margins’, 173.
19 Quoted in Marc Deanie, ‘Referendum Riddle Over Hit Series’ UK No-Show’, The Sun, August 14, 2014, https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1033898/referendum-riddle-over-hit-series-uk-no-show/ (accessed October 5, 2016).
20 Outlander aired in Ireland on terrestrial broadcaster RTÉ Two from October 2014; in Australia on cable channel SoHo from August 2014; in Denmark on the Viaplay streaming service from September 2014; and in Japan on Hulu Japan from August 2014. All deals were secured soon after the original August broadcast in the US.
21 British Film Commission, ‘Latest Economic Contribution report highlights success of Creative Sector Tax Reliefs’, Wednesday 25 February 2015, http://www.britishfilmcommission.org.uk/latest-economic-contribution-report-highlights-success-of-creative-sector-tax-reliefs/ (accessed October 5, 2016).
22 See, for example, Marc Deanie, ‘Referendum Riddle Over Hit Series’ UK No-Show’, The Sun, August 14, 2014, https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1033898/referendum-riddle-over-hit-series-uk-no-show/; and Katharine Trendacosta, ‘Is the UK Missing Out on Outlander Because of the Scottish Referendum?’, io9, September 18, 2014, http://io9.gizmodo.com/is-the-uk-missing-out-on-outlander-because-of-scottish-1636158008 (accessed October 5, 2016).
23 Deanie, ‘Referendum Riddle’.
24 Ibid.
25 See https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/ for the full database (accessed October 5, 2016).
26 Weaver, ‘Background/Briefing for PM Cameron Event’.
27 See, for example, Marissa Martinelli, ‘How Outlander Keeps Getting Tangled Up in Real-Life U.K. Politics’, Browbeat: Slate’s Culture Blog, July 14 2016. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/07/14/outlander_s_season_2_finale_and_the_scottish_independence_debate.html (accessed September 2016).
28 Johnny Caldwell, ‘Star Trek predicts a united Ireland’, BBC News, April 14 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6553307.stm (accessed October 5, 2016).
29 Hilmes, Network Nations: A Transnational History of British and American Broadcasting, 2.
30 By ‘dominant frameworks’, I am referring to the experience of watching television provided by British broadcasters (whether live, recorded, or online), which continues to be the main way British audiences access television. The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board found that, out of the twenty-seven million households in the UK, up to twenty million have access to terrestrial television, and half of those households only have access to terrestrial television. UK Television Landscape Report, 27.
31 Perkins and Verevis, ‘Transnational Television Remakes’, 677.
32 Katie Young, ‘4 Things to Know About VPN Users’, GlobalWebIndex, February 2, 2016. http://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/4-things-to-know-about-vpn-users (accessed October 5, 2016).
33 See ‘China Blocks Virtual Private Network Use’, BBC News, January 26, 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30982198 (accessed October 5, 2016).
34 Jason Murdock, ‘Putin’s “Snooping” Bill Claims First Victim as Major VPN Ceases Service in Russia’, International Business Times, July 12, 2016. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/russian-vpn-service-closed-without-notice-after-putins-snooping-bill-passed-1570269 (accessed October 5, 2016).
35 Jason Mander, ‘29% of VPN users accessing Netflix’, GlobalWebIndex, January 12, 2015. http://www.globalwebindex.net/blog/29-of-vpn-users-accessing-netflix (accessed October 5, 2016).
36 Elise Dalley, ‘Bypassing Geo-blocked Sites’, Choice, last modified August 13, 2014. https://www.choice.com.au/electronics-and-technology/internet/internet-privacy-and-safety/articles/bypass-geo-blocking (accessed October 5, 2016).
37 Jennifer Townsend, ‘Non-US Outlander Fans: To VPN or Not to VPN?’, Outlanderfan.com, August 2, 2014. http://outlanderfan.com/2014/08/02/non-us-outlander-fans-to-vpn-or-not-to-vpn/ (accessed October 5, 2016).
38 Ong, Flexible Citizenship, 4.
39 Ibid., 6.
40 Trimble, ‘The Future of Cybertravel’, 569.
41 Meyrowitz, The Rise of Glocality’, 27.
42 For more on locative media, see Wilken and Goggin (eds.), Locative Media and Mobile Technology and Place.
43 See, for example, Larissa Hjorth’s work on locative media in various South Korean cities in Hjorth, ‘Locating the Visual’ and Hjorth, ‘Intimate Cartographies of the Visual’.
44 Appadurai, Modernity at Large, 4.
45 Harrington and Bielby, ‘Flow, Home, and Media Pleasures’, 835.
46 Naficy, ‘Introduction - Framing Exile’, 3.
47 @AmazonVideoUK, February 26, 2015. https://twitter.com/AmazonVideoUK/status/570885741192093696 (accessed October 5, 2016).
48 Angela Sasso, quoted in Katrina Tweedie, ‘Outlander Fans Disappointed that Amazon Prime is Named Show’s UK Broadcaster’, Scotland Now, last modified February 11, 2015. http://www.scotlandnow.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/outlander-fans-disappointed-amazon-prime-5139306 (accessed October 5, 2016).
49 Volcic and Andrejevic, ‘Introduction’, 6.
50 I have chosen not to identify commenters by name in this paper, but all responses are publicly accessible online. See @AuthorDianaGabaldon, February 27, 2015. https://www.facebook.com/AuthorDianaGabaldon/posts/865053226870848 (accessed July 2016).
51 @AmazonVideoUK, May 25, 2015. https://twitter.com/AmazonVideoUK/status/602769405974544385 (accessed October 5, 2016).
52 Tweedie, ‘Outlander Fans Disappointed’.
53 Ofcom, Connected Nations 2015, 16 (accessed October 5, 2016).
54 Caughie, ‘Scottish Television’, 115.
55 Stenhouse, ‘Not Made in Scotland’, 171.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Zoë Shacklock
Zoë Shacklock is a PhD candidate in the Department of Film and Television Studies at The University of Warwick. Her research explores the role of kinaesthesia in contemporary serial television, focusing on questions of embodied affect, identity, and empathy. She has been published on Game of Thrones and Orphan Black.