This volume looks at a range of texts and practices that address race and its relationship with television. It explores television policy and the management of race, how transnationalism can diminish racial diversity, historical questions of representation, the myth of a multicultural England and more.

Introduction – Sarita Malik and Darrell M. Newton1 A little Brit different? BBC America and transnational constructs of Britishness – Darrell M. Newton2 Scheduling race – Anamik Saha3 Reframing the 1950s: race and representation in recent British television – James Burton4 Black British drama, losses and gains: the case of Shoot the Messenger – Sarita Malik5 The iconic ghetto on British television: Black representation and Top Boy – Kehinde Andrews6 Whiteness, normativity and the ongoing racial Other: imperial fictions: Doctor Who, post-racial slavery and other liberal humanist fantasies – Susana Loza7 Myth of a multicultural England in BBC’s Luther – Nicole M. Jackson8 Framing The Fosters: jokes, racism and Black and Asian voices in British comedy television – Gavin SchafferIndex

Through contextual and textual analyses, Adjusting the contrast: British television and constructs of race explores a range of texts and practices that address the ongoing phenomenon of race and its relationship to television. Essays by British and American media scholars focus on how race is framed within this ‘new’ age of television; replete with digital services, streaming and on-demand downloads. Among other issues, chapters explore television policy and the management of race; how transnationalism may diminish racial diversity; historical questions of representation; the myth of a multicultural England via current programming, and more. The book also seeks to examine how television constructs Britishness through whiteness and continued constructs of normativity. It includes analyses of programmes such as Doctor Who, Shoot the Messenger, Desi DNA, Survivors and Top Boy, as well as the broadcast policies that helped to create them, and cultural production in the 'new age' of television. Other essays include a look at the 1950s and how they are reframed on contemporary television screens through Call the Midwife; the continuing myth of a multicultural England on Luther; and how comedies such as Till Death Us Do Part and Mind Your Language framed enigmatic racial tensions as laughing matters. Through a critical analysis of literature and new empirical research, cultures of production are deconstructed as public service remits, sometimes through the work of minority producers, continue to produce programming rife with racialised tropes. Whilst efforts have been put into diverse portrayals on screen, there remain significant problems with the stories being told.

‘Adjusting the Contrast makes a meaningful intervention into the whiteness that historically characterises much of UK television studies […]with this rigorous, engaging and eclectic collection, Malik, Newton and their contributors play an important part in the ongoing project to decolonise British television studies.’Hannah Hamad, Critical Studies in Television: The International Journal of Television Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2018)