Media Across Borders

What happened when the UK TV series The Office was adapted for French audiences as Le Bureau? Or when Vishal Bhardwaj adapted Othello in the Bollywood musical Omkara? Or when the Tomb Raider video game had to be altered significantly for the Japanese market?

The Media Across Borders research network explores the myriad ways in which media content is translated and adapted across cultural borders. The network will bring together academic scholars and industry professionals, with the objective to deepen understanding of these processes of media content adaptation and to consider the broader significance of cultural translation within the creative industries. It will take up its work with two one-day workshops focused on the ways in which the film, television and video game industries adapt content for a variety of national contexts and media platforms. The two workshops will be followed by an international conference, aimed at widening the debate to include more media and to open up the network to a broader range of participants.

The research development network aims to model a new approach to the translation of ideas from one culture to another, defined above all in terms of language and locality (national, regional, local), but also taking into account fan cultures and different genre and media cultures with their distinct historically developed conventions. The network seeks to reveal and understand the cultural particularities of the various adaptations while simultaneously noting what is shared. Taking a holistic and anti-reductionist approach, the network will pay close attention to the diverse and complex ways in which media content travels the globe and is appropriated locally by producers, marketing teams and fan audiences. Drawing on international academic expertise, the network aims to offer a fresh perspective on contemporary digital media that looks beyond the national context to consider global popular culture and the transnational implications of media content adaptation.

Interest in media adaptation, both in the media industries and in academia, is growing: Articles in trade journals, and seminars concerned with the franchising of media content at major industry events have increased manifold in recent years. New technologies and the ongoing consolidation in the media industries have led to an enormous growth in the exchange of cultural artefacts across borders, particularly in the form of franchised media content sold for adaptation. In our digitalized, globalized world innovative and audience-drawing media productions are 'discovered' ever more quickly and reworked on a growing scale for worldwide distribution and consumption.

Given the central importance of the international market to the creative industries, our research has the potential to build a productive dialogue between industry and the academy. Locally adapted television formats, including shows such as Big Brother, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? and Deal or No Deal, generated global revenues of EUR 9.3bn between 2006 and 2008. More than a third of this money went to British production companies (Jäger and Behrens, The Frapa Report, 2009). A large scale analysis of German and US television schedules revealed that over 30% of primetime programming of the large national networks consisted of formatted programming (Esser, 2010). The mobile and home video game sectors are worth more than $100 billion (PWC, 2011), and global industry trends suggest the localisation business will continue to increase.

Building on these events, this network will evolve into an ongoing international forum for the exploration of the intricacies of content adaptation and the potential benefits and limitations it can have in both economic and cultural terms.

The impact of the Media Across Borders research development network can be gauged in economic and societal terms. In particular it aims to benefit the creative industries, for which the adaptation of media content has become a daily business, by
1. Aiming to enhance the knowledge and skills of companies and organisations involved in the adaptation business through workshops; establishing a growing and lasting research network; developing a toolkit for the translation and adaptation of media content that will be made freely available on the network's website; offering other valuable material and links on the website; and through the grant holders' offer to participate in industry events and trade publications.
2. Helping to enhance the efficiency, performance and sustainability of businesses involved in media adaptation. Findings, where applied by companies, should help both media production and translation companies to adapt media content more successfully. This will increase company revenues and achieve long-term sustainability.
3. Contributing toward wealth creation and economic prosperity in the UK. For the British creative industries this research is of particular relevance. As an industry strand of strategic importance to the country, the British media industries are already in a good position: The UK is historically strong in international trade; has the advantage of the global dominance of the English language; the country has a mature media industry, the biggest in the world as a portion of GDP, directly employing 1.1 million people; a large creative talent pool and a good reputation; and a well-developed distribution infrastructure. In recent years Britain has developed into one of the world's most advanced digital TV markets and the world's most successful exporter of franchised television programmes, including Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor. As a result it accounted for over 33% of global revenues from the format business in 2008 (Jäger and Behrens, The Frapa Report, 2009) and has produced some major production and distribution companies operating at the international level (e.g. All3Media, Fremantle). In the video games sector it has been successful with original new Intellectual Property for games such as Fable, Little Big Planet, SingStar and Buzz. Supporting these areas of new strengths will enhance business revenue and innovative capacity and lead to the further creation and growth of companies and jobs.

Overall, the network thus hopes to produce substantial economic benefits for those stakeholders within the UK that have an interest in capacities of cultural translation and adaptation and are looking for skills gaps in this area to be filled.

In the academic field, the network hopes to have economic impact by
1. Increasing chances to attract R&D investment from global business after the successful dissemination of the initial network findings.
2. Generating revenue through the training of people for the translation and adaptation profession. For example, Roehampton University's MA in Audiovisual Translation is already popular amongst professionals, and evening seminars attract large numbers of both academics and practitioners. In addition, staff and students have generated revenue with translation and subtitling projects over the past four years.

Finally, the research development network will have societal impact in that it
1. Advances our understanding of cultural differences and similarities as well as problems of translation and cultural appropriation.
2. Helps policy makers with interest in culture, the creative industries and the media to build on the findings in regard to both cross-cultural and national (or regional and local) concerns.
3. Improve international relations through advanced understanding of cultural differences and similarities and enhanced skills in translation and cultural adaptation.