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Mediating the Past and Historicizing the Present: The HBO Series Chernobyl (2019) and Its Transnational Audience Responses on IMDb

Xu, Wei LU (2023) FIMT09 20232
Film Studies
Abstract
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put the vulnerability of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant under the spotlight. Meanwhile, the remembrance and reflection of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 has been ongoing in different media among which the HBO mini-series Chernobyl (2019) stands out and resonates transnationally. The existing analysis on Chernobyl mainly focuses on how the streaming series provides authentic depiction of a historical event and takes part in shaping the cultural memory of the Chernobyl disaster. However, the variety of audience responses to the series is scholarly omitted. The thesis takes Chernobyl and its IMDb user reviews as a focal point. This case study aims to discuss the audience reception and interpretation... (More)
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put the vulnerability of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant under the spotlight. Meanwhile, the remembrance and reflection of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 has been ongoing in different media among which the HBO mini-series Chernobyl (2019) stands out and resonates transnationally. The existing analysis on Chernobyl mainly focuses on how the streaming series provides authentic depiction of a historical event and takes part in shaping the cultural memory of the Chernobyl disaster. However, the variety of audience responses to the series is scholarly omitted. The thesis takes Chernobyl and its IMDb user reviews as a focal point. This case study aims to discuss the audience reception and interpretation in contemporary cultural dynamics of mediated memories, collective memory, personal memory, and media. Through close reading of selected reviews from May 2019 to January 2023, this research presents how audiences emotionally and critically engage with the series in the process of contextualization, decontextualization, and recontextualization. This study contributes to previous research on the social-cultural contexts in which audiences interpret a mediated historical event on screen as well as a transnational approach to understand how such a disaster is remembered and reflected in the digital age. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Xu, Wei LU
supervisor
organization
course
FIMT09 20232
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Chernobyl, nuclear disaster, audience research, media and memories, cultural memory, television drama and history
language
English
additional info
For any further information, feel free to contact the author at anita.xuwei@outlook.com
id
9142455
date added to LUP
2023-12-21 15:39:29
date last changed
2023-12-21 15:39:29
@misc{9142455,
  abstract     = {{The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put the vulnerability of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant under the spotlight. Meanwhile, the remembrance and reflection of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 has been ongoing in different media among which the HBO mini-series Chernobyl (2019) stands out and resonates transnationally. The existing analysis on Chernobyl mainly focuses on how the streaming series provides authentic depiction of a historical event and takes part in shaping the cultural memory of the Chernobyl disaster. However, the variety of audience responses to the series is scholarly omitted. The thesis takes Chernobyl and its IMDb user reviews as a focal point. This case study aims to discuss the audience reception and interpretation in contemporary cultural dynamics of mediated memories, collective memory, personal memory, and media. Through close reading of selected reviews from May 2019 to January 2023, this research presents how audiences emotionally and critically engage with the series in the process of contextualization, decontextualization, and recontextualization. This study contributes to previous research on the social-cultural contexts in which audiences interpret a mediated historical event on screen as well as a transnational approach to understand how such a disaster is remembered and reflected in the digital age.}},
  author       = {{Xu, Wei}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Mediating the Past and Historicizing the Present: The HBO Series Chernobyl (2019) and Its Transnational Audience Responses on IMDb}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}