Life Goes On, and Sometimes It Doesn’t: A Comparative Study of Medical Drama in the U.S., Great Britain, and Germany

Emergency Room, Chicago Hope; Dr. Bruckner, Alphateam - is there anything else on television? Hospital drama fills a large part of the regular television schedules and the reasons for the boom of doctor and hospital series are complex. Changes in international television programming, the mixing of television genres, cross-cultural intertextuality, changing reception processes and social developments ask for flexible analyses open to addition and change. The differences between German, British and American productions are used as valuable bases for identification and differentiation of cultures that have emerged in a mass-produced popular product. Content Analysis as well as the inter-disciplinary approach of Cultural Studies form the methodological basis for this synchronistic and diachronistic, intra-and intercultural comparison that makes the social implications and ideological bases of these series visible. Contents: The Genre of Medical Drama - The Development of Hospital Drama in Great Britain, U.S.A. and Germany - Distribution of Medical Cases - Discourse Analysis: Social Critique - Culture-specific Value Systems - Power Structures - Taboo Topics - Humour.