Worldcrunch
In the TV show’s new season, Thailand is portrayed as a playground for white debauchery, where anything goes. Despite its obvious criticism of a certain kind of tourism, the show still reduces the country to a digestible set of iconic images for the audience, just like many Hollywood movies.
The Israeli Prime Minister appeared on French television to try to convince European audiences of his war aims. But his main weakness is his lack of vision for the “aftermath”: he has nothing to offer the Palestinians.
Updated April 28, 2024 at 11:45 a.m. Spanish actress Penélope Cruz was born on this day in 1974, in Madrid, Spain. She began her acting career in the early 1990s. Where did Penélope Cruz grow up? Penélope Cruz Sánchez grew up in Alcobendas, a town near Madrid, Spain. She grew up in a working-class family, the […]
In recent years, social interest in climatology has grown exponentially, turning meteorologists into quasi-rockstars who, thanks to technology, can interact with their audiences and provide real-time updates.
Despite turbulence in the crypto market, NFT advocates think the digital objects could revolutionize how films and television series are financed and produced.
A Ukrainian journalist considers the controversy over the shutting down of exiled, independent Russian television station TV Dozhd. Can Russians be opposed to Putin’s war and yet support the troops?
The director of the 1997 episode complained that TV executives are being “too sensitive.”
Ever since journalist Marina Ovsyannikova protested on live Russian television against the war in Ukraine, her life has changed radically. Now that includes writing for leading German daily Die Welt. In her first article, Ovsyannikova explains what drove her action, how police have targeted her and why the Kremlin’s propaganda works on so many of her fellow Russians.
It’s about multiplying choices, not vanishing time…
A new program that settles paternity disputes has become the most popular television show in Zimbabwe. Not everyone is happy.
The first season of the Netflix show Emily in Paris was a boon for some businesses in the French capital’s 5th arrondissement, where it takes place. But with production returning for Season Two, many local residents are exasperated.
Op-Ed INDIA — I don’t watch many Netflix programs, but a series recommended by my cousin has struck me like a bolt of lightning. Called How to Become a Tyrant, it presents what it calls “a playbook for absolute power.” Much of it is tongue-in-cheek, yet it’s based on the actual tactics and strategies used by Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Muammar Gaddafi, Kim Il-sung, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein. So if you take it seriously, it tells you what you must do if you aspire to be India’s tanashah. And the remarkable thing is it feels uncannily like […]
Watching the nightly news on television was a recipe for unhappiness. It’s just one lesson from two years on the road in Europe, even though the depressing headlines will follow you through other channels.
The pandemic has taken a huge toll on the Chinese film industry. But it’s the movie houses themselves that have suffered most.
Charles de Gaulle was the first world leader to truly understand the power of television, using regular presidential broadcasts as a way to circumvent French legislators, labor unions and other levers of democratic influence.
PARIS — “Previously on President Trump …” We have gotten used to following the news from the White House as we would a prime-time television drama. This week’s plot includes the long-awaited boot for Big Rex. Did he know it was coming? Who said what to whom, and when? What does it mean for Vlad? […]
CAIRO — There are “forces of evil” that control Egypt’s media outlets, according to a statement issued last week by Public Prosecutor Nabil Sadek. To protect “national security” and prevent “spreading fear throughout society,” Sadek instructed public prosecutors and regulators to monitor media outlets and arrest anyone who disseminates or broadcasts false news. However, it […]
KABUL — When a series of terrorist attacks rocked the Afghan capital late last month, killing more than 150, less than a kilometer away from worst blast, a group of women were busy preparing a morning show for the country’s only TV station run by women. Zan TV, or Women’s TV, was launched this month, dedicated to women’s voices and women’s issues. Since the end of Taliban rule in 2001, Afghanistan has gone from having just one state-owned TV station to 76 stations broadcasting across the country. But despite the proliferation of channels, women are often neglected by the Afghan […]
Innovative television programming could be challenging the dominance of youth on television in Argentina and Brazil.
BERLIN — It’s been a year since German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a Palestinian refugee teen burst into tears live on national television. Reem Sahwil was 14 years old, and living on a temporary residence permit, when she was invited with others for a townhall-style public encounter with Merkel on July 15, 2015, in the […]
BEIJING — “No more homosexuality, extramarital affairs, or one-night stand content in Chinese television drama.” Thus reads a general rule published jointly this week by China’s Federation of Television Production Committee and the Chinese TV drama production Industry Association, Sina News reported. The list is extended to anything that is “against scientific spirit,” or which […]
Audiences have an insatiable desire for new series, with Netflix alone planning to release more than 30 new ones in 2016. But why are more and more going international?
The popular U.S. streaming service has finally made it into the biggest Arabic-speaking market. Some of the normal content (House of Cards, for example) is missing. But for Egyptian viewers, it’s a big step up from dubbed Turk
Singing and dancing groups from all over the world, including the choir I conducted at the time, met in Middlesbrough, northern England, for the Teesside International Eisteddfod — a folk traditions festival so prestigious it was broadcast on the BBC.
Coverage of social issues in Egypt is rarely even-handed. Instead, media outlets preach and bray, moralizing instead of taking a detached, just-the-facts approach.
-Analysis- BEIJING — There is a popular Chinese television series called “Tiger Mom: My Sweat, Your Success” that has prompted no shortage of debate in China. Indeed, discussion has even extended to Chinese people living in America, where the concept of Tiger Moms made waves after the publication of a book in by a hard-driving […]
Dave International: 8 “Lettermans’ From Around… par Worldcrunch
REYKJAVIK — “Welcome to the Bloody Gate …” The solemn announcement is made by Asthor Agustsson, a local tour guide who could easily pass for a Viking warrior. The ten tourists with Agustsson appear awestruck, walking along a path that traverses two abrupt cliffs, covered in snow, with a large frozen lake in the distance. […]
France hasn’t won the Eurovision Song Contest since 1977,when Marie Myriam moved the audience with her song “L’oiseau et l’enfant”. Nobody has been able to renew that performance in 38 years, even though France has tried extremely hard to seduce the members of the jury. The country has sent some of its biggest stars to […]
-OpEd- PARIS — Some say that television shows are to our time what serials were to 19th century literature, an inexhaustible source of entertainment and conversations. During “urbane dinners,” it has become obligatory to demonstrate knowledge of this new cultural front. “Tell me which shows you watch and I’ll tell you who you are.” Besides […]
SEOUL — Thanks to the popularity of South Korean television series in China, a wave of Chinese capital is flowing to South Korea. For the first half of this year Chinese investment to South Korea reached $70.8 million, an increase of more than 600% compared with the same period last year. Investment in real estate […]
A German series imagines the unlikely passion between the heads of state of Europe’s two continental powers. No, no: That’s not Merkel or Hollande … and certainly not Sarkozy.
Without competition in the television industry, as there is for telecommunications and banking, Chinese broadcasters have little to offer viewers and a limited revenue model for themselves.
Gossip columns and scurrilous TV shows peer into people’s private lives more every day. Not about freedom of information, they perpetuate the social complexes of the Colonial era.
Drones don’t just make news, they are beginning to cover it. Brazil street protests are an early testing ground. But for now, the entertainment press is out ahead of the pack.
Colombia marks 20 years since police killed Pablo Escobar, who helped define the nation as the global mecca of violence and drug trafficking. It’s a lot to absorb for one man in particular.
BRASÍLIA – Brazil’s indigenous people increasingly live an urban existence. Televisions, DVDs, refrigerators, gas ovens and cellphones are all consumption goods that have been integrated into the daily lives of many tribes. And the dream for young Brazilian native people: going to university. These are among the findings from a survey conducted by Datafolha and […]