old post:

• About a family going on holiday but they lose their son
• It is an example of cooperation between the BBC, STARZ (USA) and the Belgian government’s Tax Shelter scheme
• It is the BBC’s response to the success of ITV’s ‘Broadchurch’
• It written by brothers Harry and Jack Williams
• The first episode aired on October 28, 2014
• The last episode was aired November 30, 2016
• There are two series
• There are 16 episodes

CHARACTERS	the detective who has a ‘natural’ instinct for law and order Both involve female children	The Killing, The missing has the main detective as female	PROPP
NARRATIVE	the first episode often introduces a lot of different characters	difference in what happens to the child (one gets killed, one goes missing)	TODOROV
THEMES	the use of binary oppositions around familiar themes: family, community, law and order, justice.	family justice	LEVI-STRAUSS
REPRESENTATION	reactionary representations of police, family, law and order, urban/rural	representation of a stereotypical victim	SEMIOTICS
TECHNICAL CODES / LANGUAGE OF MOVING IMAGE (music, setting, props, lighting, use of camera, editing etc)	opening montage sequence that often gives clues as to the whole series – themes, locations, characters, events etc.
SETTING	a forest & a more urban area	lake

Witnesses

• A french police procedural series
•  22 November 2014
• Set Normandy, France
• Protagonists – detectives Sandra and Justin
• They investigate when bodies of murder victims that are unearthed and left for discovery in the show homes of a housing developer

Similarities and differences:

There are two series of both, suggesting that there are other programmes better than these of the same genre

Curron & Seaton – horizontal integration, relates to the idea of the same genre of tv show being showed to people. Both programmes have the same premise, what makes them better than other detective series.

“Culture is controlled by social elites…”institutions work for the benefit of themselves.” Therefore they may make a detective show like these not with Maslows hierarchy of need in mind, but simply profit, although they provide escapism for watchers.

commercial media

the missing – STARZ (USA, under lions gate entertainment)

public service broadcaster

the missing – cooperation between the BBC and the Belgian government’s Tax Shelter scheme (is a government-approved tax incentive designed to encourage the production of audiovisual works in Belgium)

horizontal integration

Relates to the idea of the same genre, similar narrative structure of tv show being showed to people. Both programs have the same premise, what makes them better or different than other detective series?

BBC, Starz, Belgian government’s Tax Shelter scheme have worked together

vertical integration

stages of production

Media concentration/Media convergence

we lack media pluralism, a healthy balance of products made by media company types