Accountable Entertainment? Constructing the Boundaries of Popular Culture

• In Event: Civic TV: International Approaches to Audience, Industry, and Policy

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes media accountability processes applied to entertainment content as a dialogue between societal groups and media organizations over the moral, political, aesthetic, and informational boundaries of such content. I explore this dialogue through the interaction between Israeli viewers who file complaints against perceived offensive entertainment content and the regulatory agency that handles these complaints, the SATR. Based on a participatory observation conducted at the SATR and a quantitative content analysis of 817 public complaints field to the SATR between 2005-2010, my results reveal a triple track model for constructing boundaries for entertainment content: the liability track of the SATR television department, which creates strong, rare and consistent boundaries; the fragile answerability track of the SATR ombudsman, which creates strict but fragile boundaries; and the thick answerability track, initiated by journalists which creates strong, rare, and inconsistent boundaries. I conclude by discussing the socio-cultural implications of the model.

Author

• Efrat Daskal, Northwestern U