InStItUtIoN rEsEaRcH: fOx Tv NeTwOrK

Type: Broadcast television network

Country: USA

Availability: National (US) also distributed in Canada, Mexico and Latin America

Founder: Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller

Owner: News Corporation

Key people: Rupert Murdoch, President

Launch date: October 9, 1986

Briefly abbreviated "FBC"

The Launch of the Fox network began in March 1985 with Rupert Murdoch’s, News Corp’s $525 million purchase of TCF Holdings

1980s- From the beginning, Fox established itself as a somewhat edgy, irreverent, youth-oriented network

1990s- Despite a few successful shows, the network did not have a significant market share until the mid-1990s when News Corp. bought more TV station groups.

2000s- Fox regained a ratings foothold with acclaimed dramas such as 24, The O.C., and House, and comedies such as Arrested Development, The Bernie Mac Show and Malcolm in the Middle.

BiBlIoGrApHy: BoOkS

Majority in the Minority Expanding the Representation of Latinos
By Brian Coyle, Jeanett Castellanos, Lee Jones

'The United States is undergoing a radical change in its demographics. It is estimated that by 2020, today's ethnic minorities will be the U.S population majority'

'It is projected that Latina/os will be the largest racial and ethnic minority group by the year 2010'

'A comprehensive review of Latina/os student representation in higher education demonstrates slow progress throughout the years'

This book relates to my independant studies as 'Sucre' plays a 'helper' figure in Prison Break. The quotes identified help to outline increased representation of ethnicities in mainstrem television and also outline Sucre's role in the series as a reflection of facts in society


Racial & Ethnic Tensions in American Communities: Poverty, Inequality, & Discrimination

'USA-today Cable News Network found that 53 percent of of black respondants said that African Americans were not fairly depicted in local television crime reports'

'Industry executives noted, however, that there has been a substantial increasein programs having minority representation in recent years'

This books links to my study as 'C-Note' plays an African American prisoner who deals with underground activities within the prison conforming to stereotype. These quotes highlight how African-American appearance in mainstream television has improved in recent years


Surviving Justice: America's wrongfully convicted and exonerated

By Lola Vollen, Dave Eggers

'Prosecutors have a constitutional duty to disclose any evidence that would be favourable to the defence, even if the defence had not requested the information. All this fails to occur, in fact, a study of the first seventy wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence found that prosecutional misconduct, in some form or another, in 34 wrongful convictions-nearly 50% of the cases'

This has close relations my text. In 'Prison Break' Lincoln, one of the main protagonists is an example of being wrongfully convicted. Furthermore, an corrupt govt. and prosecution hide information breaking constitutional requirements. The quote hightlights the situation Lincoln finds himself in.


Wrongly Convicted: Perspectives on Failed Justice

By Saundra D. (EDT) Westervelt, John A. Humphrey

'The American criminal justice system contains numerous safeguards to prevent the conviction of innocent persons. The Bill of Rights provides nineteen separate rights for the alleged criminal offender, including the right to effective legal representation and the right to be judged without regard to race or creed. Despite these safeguards, wrongful convictions persist, and the issue has reverberated in the national debate over capital punishment'


How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power

By William Upski (EDT) Wimsatt, Adrienne M. Brown, Davey D

This book links to my study as it focuses on corrupt members within the American Govt. and how to get them out of office. This is very evident in Prison Break as there is a whole foundation of corrupt govt. with a conspiracy against Lincoln Burrows.

BlOg BuDdIeS

My Blog buddy from my class is Kavita.

Kavita is looking at 'How does a Proppian analysis apply to the genre of 'Prison Break'?

• We are both studying the same text 'Prison Break', which is the main similarity between our studies
• Prison Break follows the efforts of one man attempting to free his brother from jail by breaking out, for a crime that he didn't commit.
• Kavita's questions links to mine as i'm looking at the representation of the troublesome, from ethnicities to the traditional white, male protagonist. And these representations are affected by Propp's theory as each character is asserted with certain roles which affect they way their represented. From C-note, the helper, conforming to stereotype of black males caring out the hard, manual labour
• Propp's theory can be applied to Prison Break as each character is given a role within the series:

1. The villain- The 'Company'/corrupt American govt.
2. The donor- SucreThe (magical) helper- Sucre/T-bag/Lincoln/Charles/C-note/Tweener/Abuzzi
3. The princess- Sara Tancredi (doctor)
4. The hero - Michael Scofield

SeLf-DiReCtEd ReSeArCh

CHARACTER PROFILES

http://www.fox.com/prisonbreak/bios/
This site provided the information that allowed me to build up an analysis of the different characters in Prison Break

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/09/character-profile.html
This is the link to the part of my blog where the different characters are profiled

REVIEW

http://www.metacritic.com/tv/shows/prisonbreak
This site provided me with a review of Prison Break from New York Times TV critic Linda Stasi

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/09/review.html
This is the link to the my blog where the review is in it's entire

OTHER TEXTS: THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawshank_Redemption
This site provided with me with background information on The Shawshank Redemption as this is a text directly related to Prison Break

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-texts-shawshank-redemption.html
This is the link to my blog to background information of 'The Shawshank Redemption'

VLADIMIR PROPP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propp
This site provided with me substantial information on Russian genre-theorist Vladimir Propp. Propp identified different character roles

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/09/theorists-vladimir-propp.html
This is a link to my blog to view Vladimir Propp's theory

WIDER CONTEXT: REPRESENTATION OF LATINOS

http://icsdev.soe.umich.edu/confur/stories/reader/fall/ody$9f4e66bbfe551476a07ab3ed2d99c9ce
This site provided me with information on the typical representations of Latinos

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/09/wider-context-representation-of.html
This is a link to 'Representations of Latinos' on my blog

WIDER CONTEXT: REPRESENTATIONS OF AFRICAN/AMERICANS

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/ac3/ena8.shtml
This site provided me with information on the representations of African/Americans

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/09/wider-context-representations-of.html
This is a link to representations of African/Americans on my blog

DIRECTOR: PAUL SCHEURING

http://www.worldscreen.com/interviewscurrent.php?filename=scheuring406.htm
This site provided me with very detailed and informative information on Prison Break from director Paul Scheuring

http://prisonbreak-rajan.blogspot.com/2006/10/director-paul-scheuring.html
This is a link to the Paul Scheuring interview on my blog

OTHER USEFUL LINKS USED

http://icsdev.soe.umich.edu/confur/stories/reader/fall/ody$9f4e66bbfe551476a07ab3ed2d99c9ce (This article relates to the representation of Latinos in the media. This relates to my text as 'Sucre' plays a leading role, challenging typical stereotypes)

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/imageslatinos.html (Films featuring Latino stars, shows how times have changed)

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/imagesafam.html#hollywood (Films featuring Arfrican American stars, shows how times have changed)

http://www.wowessays.com/dbase/ac3/ena8.shtml (Essay outling the representation of African Americans in the media and how this is changed. Relates to my text as 'C-Note' plays a leading role both conforming and challenging stereotypes)

http://www.mediaknowall.com/race.html (race/representations and stereotypes)

http://archive.salon.com/news/col/crouch/2000/04/19/images/index.html?CP=SAL&DN=110 (Interesting article about the representation of black people in the media, claiming there is now equality which challenges most modern theories)

http://mediaknowall.com/alevel.html (Website designed for A-Level media students with loads of info on representation from age to gender)

http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/resources/GenderMedia/index.html (focuses on gender, race and ethnicity in the media)

PrIsOn BrEaK & ThE sHaWsHaNk ReDeMpTiOn

This video from you tube, showsthe remarkable similarities between Prison Break and The Shawshank Redemption

It reinforces the idea that Scheurings series is an adaptation of Frank Darabont's film. The similarities range from the characters and their roles inside the prison, to the actual escape and methods to go about it.

DirEcToR: PaUl SchEuRiNg

Paul Scheuring is a writer and director for movies and television shows. His work includes the 2003 film A Man Apart and, more notably, the creation of the television drama Prison Break.

Prison Break, a drama series about an engineer who commits a crime solely so that he can help his brother break out of prison, was rejected for almost two years before a pickup by FOX. Now it's a hugely popular series delivering solid numbers in the U.S., the show has gone on to post high ratings in markets like Australia and the U.K.

WS: What was the inspiration for the series?

SCHEURING: The real idea came from a woman I was working with at the time, who had an idea about a guy committing a crime and being put into prison to start a prison break, that was pretty much all she provided. I thought it was an intriguing idea, but very stupid for a human being to do. No one wants to go to prison unless they have to. So, there were two ideas to go forward with the story. The first was there had to be a situation that presented no other recourse, so that’s where the idea of the condemned brother who was wrongly convicted came in. And then, the second piece was that the protagonist had to be absolutely certain that he could pull this off.

WS: How long did it take for FOX to air the series?

SCHEURING: For television, it was an extraordinarily long time. It was about a year from the time I wrote the script to the time we shot the pilot, and about another five months before we were picked up to go to series. In total, from the time the script was written to the time the first episode aired, it was about 20 months.

WS: Why do you think it took so long?

SCHEURING: Obviously, it’s an unorthodox show, and this was before Lost, so the only thing out there like it was 24. I told FOX what the larger story was and they initially saw it as a ten-episode mini-series. At that point they went to look for a big marquee name to present this mini-series, and that’s when we got Steven Spielberg involved. But he fell out to do War of the Worlds, so for the next three or four months we were in the process of looking for another big name. And that’s when Lost actually had its big numbers, and suddenly two or three days later, we had it greenlit for a series, not ten episodes.

WS: Do you have this entire first season planned out, or do you modify things as you go along?

SCHEURING: We just finished the scripts for the first season, and we stayed largely true to the original template that I had. Before I even wrote the pilot, I needed to know where all the story lines went for every character, and the conspiracy of the escape, and so I followed all of those up for two seasons. You know, people were asking me, deep into season two and season three... can this show exist without the prison? I assured them that if Michael Scofield is still sitting around Fox River in the middle of season two, saying, ‘I have the perfect plan,’ I think the audience will roll their eyes. So the escape’s coming.


WS: Were you surprised by how well the show has been received, both in the U.S. and around the world?

SCHEURING: Absolutely. When we conceived the show, we were pretty confident in the story, we knew we had something very special on our hands. But I was very doubtful. This is network television, and this is not HBO, this is not a movie. Do people want to come every Monday night to watch a show about prison? It’s one of those things where you do the best you can and then scratch your head and say, Is anybody going to even show up and watch this? So, yes, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. It’s been very, very nice.

WS: There’s been a lot of talk about your protagonist Michael Scofield’s tattoo. How did that idea come about?

SCHEURING: The blueprints of the prison had to be complex enough that you would need to bring them into the prison, and obviously you go into the prison with nothing but your naked body, so the only way you could really do it is if you had it encoded into a tattoo. And we wanted the tattoo to be an allegory. The surface images of the ascension of devils on the left arm and the ascension of the angels on the right say that Scofield is an antihero. He’s doing something wrong to do something right. And that’s one of the bigger themes of the show that no one is completely good or completely bad.

WS: What kind of research did you do into prison life?

SCHEURING: I did a lot of different things, looking at prisons, scouting them. But there were two big resources for me personally. One was reading a lot of books written by the incarcerated to get a first-hand, man-on-the-ground feel for the prison, particularly the parlance, you really learn the language. Prison lexicon is such a unique language. And there are a lot of resources online, like prisontalk.com; it just humanises the whole thing.

WS: Are there any particular producers or shows that have inspired you?

SCHEURING: I can’t say television shows, because in all honesty, I don’t watch serialized drama on television. I probably would if I got HBO at home, but I don’t. But in terms of something that might be relevant to this show, some of my favorite films are Cool Hand Luke, The Great Escape, The Shawshank Redemption. There was just a coolness to the characters, a grace under pressure in this very absurd world of prison.

1st EvEr EpIsOde

First 10 mins of Prison Break's first episode, 'pilot'

pRiSoN bReAk TiTlE sEqUeNcE

PrIsOn BrEaK SeAsOn 2 TrAiLeR

PrIsOn BrEaK SeRiEs 2

Full episode 2, 'Otis', from the second series of Prison Break

kEyWoRdS

PROTAGONIST
The leading character or hero in a film with whom the audience can identify and from whose point of view the action is positioned, often set in binary opposition against the antagonist.

Michael acts as the protagonist in 'Prison Break', as the focus centres around him and his audacious plan to break his brother out of prison

BLAXPLOITATION FILM
Film of the 1960s and 1970s in which black actors featured in principle roles usually associated with whites. The films were original in being directed primarily at audiences and, although seen as exploitive, were in fact part of a changing attitude toward back characters and the representation of black culture.

African American characters in ‘Prison Break’ are central to the whites and Michael in order to for the escape to go ahead, from C-Note acting as a helper and his associates providing Michael with useful tools

GENRE THEORY
An explanation of the role played by genre in differentiating media texts and aligning audiences. Genre theorists consider the relationship between audiences, media texts and media producers and the ways in which genres, particularly in film, can be used by producers to target specific audience groups, with predictable expectations of audience members and responses.

In will look into the relationship between the genre theory and representation of the characters and if there are any links from prior decades

SERIES
A television or radio narrative that presents self-contained weekly episodes, using a recurring set of characters.

Prison Break has filmic qualities but is actually a series devloped into 2 parts. The fact the show is a series has allowed each character to be presented differently and has allowed the audience to identify with each character and the ways they're represented

PRIME TIME
7:30pm - 10:30pm, the period of time with the largest number of television viewers and, on commercial channels, the perios of time when most advertising revenue is earned.

Prison Break is screen during 'prime-time' hours both in the US and abroad thus attracting and appealing a wider target audience

STEREOTYPE
The social classification of a group of prople by identifying common characteristics and universally applying them in an often oversimplified and generalised way, such that the classification represents value judgements and the assumptions about the groups concerned.

In Prison Break, characters and ethnic minorities are stereptyped thus forcing them to be represented in particular ways. For example, T-Bag acts a vehicle for rascism and discrimination against the 'blacks'

SOCIAL REALISM
The representation of characters and issues in film and television drama in such a way as to raise serious underlying social and political issues.

This can be applied to my study because there are many issues that occur in Prison Break which reflect and aim to portray reality from life behind bars, to corruption within the system

ScEnE aNaLySiS

The scene i analysed is from episode 4, 'Cute Poison' from series 1. In this scene, T-bag the Paedophilic maniac is pressurising Michael into fighting in an race riot between the Whites and Black, as Michael wants something back from T-Bag that he stole, which is instrumental to the escape plan. This scene acts as a vehicle for stereotypes and assumptions.

• The Scene begins with a high-angle shot of T-Bag highlighting his power and authority in jail as he is seen as the main catalyst to the white supremacist movement.
• The camera then focuses on Michael, with a long-angel medium shot signifying his low status role in the prison as he's a new inmate and is genrally preyed on by fellow inmates
• The camera then cuts to an shot of both T-Bag and Michael talking with T-Bag's associates behind him, once again identifying his power and authority, with Michael alone, isolated and vulnerable

• The mise-en-scene throughout the scene is typical of a prison. The scene is shot inside the prison's grounds with cell's in the background's and other inmates socialising, visible
• The lighting is low-key to reflect the dull and sombre mood of prison and to highlight that Michael finds himself in a dark and awkward situation, he's having to potentially fight a race riot where he has no intentions and just wants to free his brother
• The sound is diegetic to emphasise the importance of the scene. All that can be heard is the dialogue between the two characters

• In this scene, Michael is represented as they new inmate typically preyed upon by fellow prisoners. He represents innocence and vulnerability in the sense that he is wrongly being victimsed because he's 'new boy on the block' so to speak.
• T-Bag represents the Paedophilic maniac driven by power and authority in order to satisfy his needs in jail. He is also shown to be an inconsiderate racist, eager to inflict punishment on 'blacks' because of their skin colour.
• Furthermore, black african american are represented as menaces to society as T-Bag creates negative stereotypes in order to persuade Michael to fight.

• Propp's theory can be identified in this scene as Michael is seen as the hero, forced to overcome obstacles in order to achieve his overall aim. T-Bag can be viewed as they villain, wrongly preying on inamates in order to satisfy his ego

• In this scene, issues of race and the difference between right and wrong. The representation of the troublesome can be viewed at different angles, from Michael being caught in the middle of a sticky situation to T-Bag, a stereotypical inmate eager to stamp his authority on prison life.

KeYwOrDs

FAMILY VALUES (pg. 56)
'Traditional conservative beliefs associated with mainstream political and religious views of society. Family Values are often represented as being under threat'

Michael purposely gets himself in order to free his brother Lincoln. It's his family values that force him to believe Lincoln's innocent and attempt to free him

FIVE (pg.59)
'Independant commercial terrestrial television station'

Prison Break is aired at 10pm every Monday on channel 5 in the UK.

HYBRID (pg. 76)
'A cross between one film genre and another'

Prison Break can be considered to be an thriller/action drama series with elements of soap

MISE-EN-SCENE (pg. 96)
'The arrangement by a film-maker of everything that is to be included in a shot or frame'

The mise-en-scene in Priosn Break is very realistic, and reminiscent of a Prison. Everything from the location, to the clothing and set-up inside is carefully thought of to make the series fantasy yet believable.

MULTI-CULTURALISM (pg. 99)
'Increasing cultural diversity of western societies'

In Prison Break, the characters are from all different ethnic backgrounds and walks of life. You have yout typical middle-class American in Michael, but you also have 'Black Americans' represented in C-Note, 'Hispanic' males in Sucre and Russians with 'Abruzzi'

RUPERT MURDOCH (pg. 100)
'Chairman of the News Corporation and one of the most powerful figures in the media world'

Prison Break is produced and aired in the US by the FOX TV network which is owned by Rupert Murdoch

NON-LINEAR NARRATIVE (pg. 105)
'The narrative is not sequenced in chronological order'

In Prison break, there is references to the past with flashbacks and episodes which flashback to the past to help explain the narrative as the series begins with an enigma as Michael is put in prison

PROPP (pg. 119)
'Vladimir Propp was a Russian structuralist/theorist who analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest elements.Propp's theory discovered that there are ONLY 8 broad character types'

In Prison Break, their are different characters roles as identified by Propp. The villain- The 'Company'/corrupt American govt. The donor- Sucre. The (magical) helper- Sucre/T-bag/Lincoln/Charles/C-note/Tweener/Abuzzi. The princess- Sara Tancredi (doctor). The hero - Michael Scofield

RACISM (pg. 125)
'Practises and behaviour involving social and economic discrimination'

In Prison Break there is racial tension and riots between the 'blacks' and 'whites'