MEDIA MUTATIONS 14. Investigating Medical Drama TV Series: approaches and perspectives

Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti – DAMSLab, May 18th-19th, 2023

Media Mutations is an international conference on contemporary audiovisual media hosted by the Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna. The event has now reached its 14th edition. This year’s focus is on medical drama TV series and on different methodological approaches employed to analyze this type of audiovisual serial product.

Since its inception in 1960s, medical drama has become one of the most relevant genres on the television scene and derives its name, on one hand, from the context in which the events take place, usually the hospital; on the other, from the narrative development of medical cases, professional dynamics and sentimental relationships. The wide diffusion and the success of this genre, almost entirely due to television, has attracted the attention not only of critics and researchers in the field of media studies, but also of providers of medical devices and more generally of medical professionals. Moreover, the recent Covid period requires further investigation from this point of view into how much this has affected the representation of medical professions in television series. Although many of the most famous medical TV series, first and foremost E.R., are no longer airing, OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video allow the audience to continue enjoying them. Moreover, recent years have seen a global increase in serial productions of the medical genre. In this context, much research has investigated the narrative model of medical dramas and the role of the audience in their reception, also in relation to the pedagogical ability of these stories, which are considered a powerful medium from an educational point of view. Indeed, the popularization and the social impact of medical dramas are studied primarily for their influence on medical students and on the representation of healthcare delivered to the public. Medical dramas represent also relevant social themes and hence they have been analyzed from a bioethical perspective. On the same level, the representation of marginalized categories has acquired more and more importance and several medical TV series have been analyzed in gender studies considering for example the evolution of the depiction of diversity. Lastly, these products require the use of a specialized language and consequently, from a linguistic point of view, research on dubbing, medical terminology and textual analysis has also been prolific.

Drawing on these multi-disciplinary perspectives, the conference aims to promote discussion and share research results on medical drama TV series focusing on the different methods and approaches employed for their analysis.

Speakers include Ce.R.T.A.’s researchers Nicola Crippa and Mattia Galli, that on Thursday, 18^th May at 5.00 pm will present the paper 'A Lost Generation. The Depiction of Youth and Its Illnesses in the Italian Medical Drama and Beyond: a Case Study of Four Contemporary Series From Broadcast TV and OTT Platforms' during Panel #3.

MEDIA MUTATIONS 14 | Call for Papers
MEDIA MUTATIONS 14 | PROGRAMME