Invaders, Launchpads and Hybrids: The Importance of Transmediality in British Science Fiction Film in the 1950s

With its origins in the trick films of the 1890s and early 1900s, British science fiction film has a long history. While Things to Come (1936) is often identified as significant for being written by H.G.Wells, one of the fathers of science fiction as a genre, the importance of the interactions between media in the development of British science fiction film are often set aside. This chapter examines the importance of broadcast media to film-making in Britain, focusing on the 1950s as a period often valourised in writings about American science fiction, to the detriment of other national expressions of the genre. This period is key to the development of the genre in Britain, however, with the establishment of television as a popular medium incorporating the development of domestic science fiction television alongside the import of American products, together with the spread of the very term ‘science fiction’ through books, pulps and comics as well as radio, television and cinema. It was also the time of a backlash against the perceived threat of American soft cultural power embodied in the attractive shine of science fiction with its promise of a bright technological future. In particular, this chapter examines the significance of the relationship between the BBC television and radio services and the film production company Hammer, which was responsible for multiple adaptations of BBC properties, including a number of science fiction texts. The Hammer adaptation of the television serial The Quatermass Experiment proved to be the first major success for the company, moving it towards its most famous identity as producer of horror texts, though often horror with an underlying scientific element, as with their successful series of Frankenstein films. This chapter thus argues that the interaction between film and broadcast media in relation to science fiction was crucial at this historical juncture, not only in helping promote the identities of filmmakers like Hammer, but also in supporting the identity of the BBC and its properties, and in acting as a nexus for the then current debates on taste and national identity.

Vulnerability and robustness of SME supply chains: An empirical study of risk and disturbance management of fresh food processors in a developing market

The aim of this paper is to analyse vulnerability and robustness of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) supply chains and to consider contextual factors that might influence the success of their disturbance management: Risky product and business environment. By using an exploratory case study it is shown how these contextual factors attribute vulnerability sources, contribute to the robustness of a company’s performance and supply chain vulnerability, as well as how a company seeks to manage internal and external vulnerability sources. The exploratory case is based on a fresh food supply chain of a manufacturing SME operating in a developing market.
Case findings suggest that fresh food supply chains of a manufacturing SME in developing markets are prone to disruptions of their logistics and production processes due to ‘riskiness’ of fresh food products, the ‘riskiness’ of developing markets, as well as ‘riskiness’ of SMEs themselves. However, this does not necessarily indicate the vulnerability of an SME and its entire supply chain. Findings indicate that SMEs can be very successful in disturbance management by selective use of redesign strategies that aim to prevent or reduce the impact of disturbances. More precise, it is likely that an SME can achieve robust performance by employing preventive redesign strategies in managing disturbances that result from internal, company related vulnerability sources, while impact reduction strategies are likely to contribute to robust performance of an SME if used to manage disturbances that result from internal, supply chain related vulnerability sources, as well as external vulnerability sources.