It is quite crazy to think that the information we receive from this powerful knowledge may never fully contain the truth. Those who control this knowledge have an insane amount of power.

This is a pretty bold statement considering the incident that caused the investigation was far from "everything that is good in the country".

This seems to be a common narrative for the US. The US never really stops to ask if another country even wants our help in the first place.

I feel like in many cases Americans exoticize other country's cultures if they are out of the norm. I believe this has caused more awareness about cultural appropriation in the US.

I feel like this is the case because we view reali-TV as more real than other television shows, which means we want to watch it in real time. Watching old seasons of reali-TV isn't as fun because part of the whole entertainment of these shows is talking about them with friends/family.

I'm not sure why they thought small independent producers would do well against the large producers. It is hard to compete with more heavily funded programs.

I've always wondered how shows like this make money when they're giving away so much. I suppose if ratings are high, they're bringing in quite a bit of money.

Are the unpaid videographers part of the staff? Or did they just happen to witness an event? If they're part of the staff it seems unfair to not pay them.

I felt that this was also a theme when we talked about race and television. Most of the wealthy black families seemed untouched by discrimination.

This is especially apparent in shows like The Bachelor. The confessional interviews clue viewers into who they should root for and who they want eliminated.

I would argue they also search for people with exaggerated traits of a demographic in order to boost ratings and drama.

I wonder how they select which subcultures to air. Where do they find all of these people?

Maybe, but I feel this representation is harmful. Many of these shows allow viewers to criticize the lives of "different" people.

I feel like this example is very telling of the current state of the US. We are kept in the dark about many events worldwide, even though they have many implications.

It is crazy how dead on the journalists were, while the bosses seemed to ignore important information.

I think another important gap to mention is the gap between the government and the American people. Many were unhappy with this war while the government continued full steam ahead.

This is something that still continues to be a problem. We invest more into tertiary care than into preventing health concerns in the first place, which is a major flaw in our system.

This is such a powerful example of the phenomenon Fenton describes. I am glad he kept it all these years.

This is so interesting because you would think as CBS gets more wealthy they would add more foreign correspondents, not the other way around.

It is so interesting that this could not be farther from how news works today. Most stations only think about what will get the most viewers to watch their station.

Perhaps this is why this program still exists. They learned to adapt with change and continue producing content that people enjoy.

I find this to be quite true, because many catastrophic events occur in different countries but are not presented as important as American events through our news stations. At times, it seems we are ignorant to the struggles of other countries if it does not directly affect us.

It seems that pastiche is just a meaningless joke, one that offers no deeper meaning criticizing society. I definitely feel that this is more present today, as Dr. Gill mentioned many memes are just jokes about popular culture.

This is very interesting to me - I wonder if the postmodern world contributed to stigmas against mental health. Since we don't see those anxiety and alienation concepts as much, does it lead to a reduction in acknowledgment of these emotions?

I agree that Marilyn Monroe is able to change her image exactly how she likes, but I feel that this was also possible before this era. I suppose I'm a bit puzzled as to why a portrait of Marilyn Monroe is so much different than the Mona Lisa.

It is clear the rise of technology and consumerism has led to a new era, which has been designated as post-industrial. It seems all of this new technology and ways of life have contributed to post-modernism.

I did not realize architecture played a role in postmodernism. I know Frank Lloyd Wright's works well growing up in Madison, and never knew they were criticized by this movement.

It seems television was the only media Simon could've used to make his vision a reality. If he would've kept writing for the newspaper, he may never of been able to convey the points he wanted to.

It seems Simon was writing at a more complex level than his supervisors liked. He was trying to find the truth instead of criminalizing the metal men.

I wonder how the police reacted to this article. Were they upset that Simon brought flaws to light?

I really enjoyed how the plots don't just follow law enforcement - we were able to see the effects of the drug trade on the dealers and on the users.

Even from the first episode, we see that the criminal justice system has many holes.

I think that the ability of the television show to resonate with so many Americans is such an important feature of the show. I did not realize that white and black Americans alike were so fond of this show, and that seems to be a stepping stone for more inclusive television.

Does this show offer people an escape? Or do they envy families that stay together if their family has not?

I think shows like The Cosby Show provided viewers with familiarity to greater minority representation on television. I don't think white audiences would've appreciated television that showed more accurate representation of black American life if these kinds of shows were not produced first.

Even if The Cosby Show isn't the most realistic, it provides almost all viewers with a family they can identify with.

I think this is an almost universal experience for television watchers. It is hard not to get involved in the characters' lives, as many of them have qualities we look up to or can relate with.

I had no idea actors getting notes addressed to their characters was a regular thing. I always assumed people wrote fan letters to the actor themselves.

I feel that this phenomenon can also numb people to things like violence. It is possible seeing news about violent events may not seem as bad if someone is a true crime fanatic, as they may have adapted to the presence of violence.

I find this very interesting because I definitely see how this applies to many people. I know people that claim to be liberal for social issues but conservative for economic issues. In theory, it may sound good, but it is nearly impossible to have both. This quote reminds me of those attitudes.

I feel that audiences of television are much more distracted now than when television was first invented. It is easy to switch on the TV while doing chores and other things instead of paying full attention.

I think this is very important. The white audience may now think race relations are great because black Americans can make it with ease to success. This is very far from the truth, but because of the effect The Cosby Show might have, it is interesting to think about the repercussions of this attitude.

I wonder if The Cosby Show was discouraging for Americans. It makes it seem like becoming rich and successful is easy from any background, which is extremely untrue in this country.

After watching Atlanta, I disagree with this. Donald Glover's television show is meant to be a comedy but also expresses social commentary about racism in short 30 minute episodes.

I find this a very interesting idea. The Huxtables are definitely well off and we don't hear much about how they got to the position they are in. It may be harmful to pretend that African-Americans are not disadvantaged, because they face many challenges white Americans do not.

I especially see this in commercials for makeup or clothing products. Women in these commercials are usually the skinniest, most beautiful, well groomed women that exist. Instead of portraying an average person, commercials sell their products by showing only the people that are considered ideal by society.

It is quite ironic that we haven't really changed much since the Bush presidency. Still 10 years later, we have another president with the boys will be boys mindset.

I feel that the Me Too movement began to unmask this sentiment. By bringing to light the fact there is still so much that needs to be done to make men and women equal, we were forced to stop pretending that a workplace treats both men and women equally.

This reminds me of the new movie out, Hustlers, where the female strippers take advantage of male customers. It seems that similar themes are still used in media today about sex work.**

Were more boys truly dropping out of high school proportional to population growth, or was this woman simply looking at numbers? Also, can she prove that feminism directly caused these numbers to increase, or is this just a correlation?

I always thought of our society as a consumerist society. I never realized that there used to be a caste of sorts, those that were consumers and those that were not. I didn't realize the shift to an almost complete consumerist society happened this late.

I think this is referring to a degree in "MRS.", or in another sense a degree in being a housewife. It is interesting they decided to include this euphemism.

It is easy to notice this when watching soap operas. It seems to be the same patterns of love, sex, and drama over and over again. To someone that is not distracted while watching a soap opera, I can imagine it would seem quite boring.

Why is their focus on working women and not all women? If they refuse the notion of being feminist, why are they only targeting the women who are going to work? It seems a bit contradictory to me.

These roles still appear in advertisements and television shows today. It is interesting that many shows still show women cooking and doing chores while their husband is relaxing in front of the television.

I view television much like these women did - I watch it while doing laundry, getting ready for the day, or while doing busywork. I think it is interesting many people view television like I do today because it is similar to back then.

These hostesses must've been cast very carefully and very specifically. I wonder how they ended up choosing Francis over Evie.

I didn't realize these types of shows existed. I wonder how this differs from radio, then, since radio only uses sound.

I'm sure by this they mean children are taught to do chores like set the table and do the dishes. However, I'm not sure there's a way to do chores that wouldn't reproduce the economy and society. There are always clothes to be washed, food to be made, and other cleaning tasks.

Is he saying it is the devil casting these messages? Or that humans can only produce evil content when producing television? I am a bit confused by this phrase.

I wonder to what effect these messages actually affect the viewers. Do viewers really change their ways based off of fictional television series?

I can agree that crime drama TV shows harden people to the reality of crimes. In many instances, finding out about a murder is a sad thing, but it is normalized by the presence of these television shows.

A lot of television shows draw on the audience's ability to empathize with the characters. Many times, this is an effective way to have the audience become more invested in the television show, which leads to financial gain for the network.

I have definitely noticed this happen in short sitcoms or series that have about 20 minute long episodes. The beginning scene almost always sets up the problem for the rest of the episode.

I don't think television dulls children. I would argue it opens up their imagination to more possibilities. There are so many children's shows about different adventures that are so far from reality.

I find it interesting that he speaks so negatively of television and recommends people go to the cinema instead. I find movies and television similar in a sense they are both provided for entertainment purposes. It surprises me Adorno contrasts them so much.

How is this any different than reading books? I feel I get just as attached to characters in novels as I do to television characters. I wonder what Adorno thinks about fiction writing in relation to these concepts.

This is a pretty cynical passage. I think in a lot of ways, television doesn't resemble everyday life and exposes people to new and creative ideas and plots.

I was surprised to see him reference Freud. I wonder if he was one of the first people to apply Freudian theory to media studies.

I intend this annotation for the sentence starting with "Just as it... is not the world", but it won't let me highlight. I wonder what Adorno would think about the excessive use of social media and television today. Even during working hours, people expose themselves to the culture industry.

I have never thought about political and social polarization in recent years in relation to the evolution of cable and streaming television. It makes a lot of sense, since we don't really have one mass communication service people turn to for all of their news. Now, people can choose what kind of political show to watch.

I find this comment interesting because if I ever turn off the sound of television and watch with closed captioning, it doesn't really alter the plot or the dialogue of the show. I would argue television is a more visual experience.

This analogy can also be applied now: 30 years later, television streaming services forced cable television into a subordinate role. I wonder where the next 30 years will take us?

I did not realize the US had censored radio. The notion of the government controlling broadcasting is not something I usually associate with America, and I find it fascinating that at one point the government wanted to control free speech to this extent.

This is an interesting concept, especially because I feel that it is true during this day and age. In history class, we are far more moved listening to a Martin Luther King Jr. speech than we are learning about a different activist whose work is not recorded visually or audibly.

I feel that this mission has strayed in modern times. I wonder why there isn't as much education in the Disney parks as there seemed to be back then. Perhaps there was more financial interest in making the parks fun and showy than educational?

To me, this almost seems contradictory to Disney's goal in creating cinema - to make magic come alive. I am surprised to hear that he gave away techniques that would in turn make the magic of his cinema become more realistic.

It seems ABC set the precedent for modern television with this strategy. So many television shows now appear weekly, and have become a part of viewer's weekly routines. They clearly had the right idea in the mid-20th century.

This is such an interesting concept to me, because I always assumed it was Disney's films that led to the construction of Disneyland/Disneyworld. I think it is very interesting to see how television connected all of the dots for the Disney empire and sparked the massive phenomenon it is today.

It seems that Walt Disney always had the same mission in mind - to create magic for people young and old. Like my peers, I was not aware of this television show.

It is interesting to note how expensive televisions were when they first came out. It makes sense because it was such an amazing new technology. But nowadays, one can purchase a television for under $200, which is just a fraction of a working-class annual wage.

I am a bit confused by this statement. Why does the author believe Williams's statement is outdated? After he makes this statement, I couldn't gather much evidence to support this claim from the rest of his writing.

I still believe talk shows appear to be live on the air, but I think sitcoms are losing the "live" factor. Many sitcoms I watched when I was younger had a live studio audience, but now sitcoms are mostly produced without an audience. I wonder what led to this change.

I thought using a dictionary definition was cheesy at first, but I'm glad he categorized the definition. He uses the dictionary definition as an example of the technical way of describing television.

I wonder why this is the case. Why don't we have mass use of radio when we have many other mass communication forms? Why doesn't any other country have mass use of radio?

I think it is interesting that Williams explains the history of many different elements of technology. By doing so, he shows just how complex this invention was, and what previous inventions were necessary to create the television.

This is interesting because I think this is still true today for people that don't study cultural studies. Before taking this class, I didn't think much about how society has impacted technology, and mostly thought of technology as fun new stand alone inventions that didn't have much interaction with other aspects of culture.

I think what Williams is getting at here is that technology isn't always a cause that effects things like culture, technology, or psychology. All of these things interact together, and effect each other. There is not simply a few cause and effect relationships that can describe technology.

It is interesting to see the variety of shows in b, c and f. It seems non-cohesive in the fact that each program is quite different than the next in many instances. This is rare to find in today's world because we have very specific channels dedicated to specific topics and themes.

This often happens at the beginning of American television, when there is a recap of the last episode's events. They take the most dramatic and relevant to the new episode's events and draw the audience in. Additionally, this happens at the end of many television shows now. A preview for the next episode is shown, which leaves the audience wanting more and waiting for the next episode to come out.

I feel that this is a very important idea, so I think it's wise to unpack this sentence a bit. I think what he is saying is that television has multiple different options - it is unlike a book or a film that has one title and one story. Television not only has a lineup of shows that progress from one to the next, it also has multiple channels you can switch to for new content. However, like a book and a movie, television is accessible similarly, in a single dimension.

For some reason it won't let me highlight the first sentence of this page, but I would like to examine the sentence starting with "Thus Type A". I find it interesting that he believes public and general interest are too abstract of definitions. It makes sense, because so many different people watch television and it can be difficult to direct a show towards all of the general public. The general public is a very broad term, and I think that is what he is referring too when he says the definition is abstract and passive.

I'm interested to know if ideology varies in different parts of America. Since most of America gets the same access to television, are there certain things tailored to different parts of the country to allow for different social formations in different places?

I agree with this statement because most often than not, the ideas presented on television are aligned with the "rulers" or the producers of television that are usually upper middle class. I would say that lower class ideas are not represented hardly at all in television.

I wonder if classical Marxism was historically common to use to explain advertisements within television. It seems this paper will provide many alternatives that are more suited to modern television practices. Also, this excerpt made me laugh a bit, because it makes me think that in a communist society, there is no room for fun or pleasure.

It seems that the "extratextual" relations in this instance relates to the consumers that deal with cold and flu symptoms. They explain the intertextual message is the doctor explaining he is an actor. These two references work together to convince the consumer to buy a product.

A paradigm seems similar in meaning to a synonym, the difference being synonyms are similar words and paradigms being similar signs (which in some instances are words).

I actually just read an excerpt from Barthes' Mythologies. In it, he describes wine and milk. However, he assigns a much deeper meaning to the two words that explains the culture and politics of France at the time he wrote it. I found this fascinating because he explained a very complex and profound topic through connotation and deduction.

I had never thought of signs having such deeper meaning before. It is so intriguing that there is so much deeper meaning surrounding society and cultural upbringing that lead to the meanings of signs. It also leads to questions of how the English language developed, and how people started establishing connections between words/signs and meaning.

This is a very interesting concept because all words we know have been assigned meaning based on our culture and how we have learned these words. I also think it is interesting, then, that some words have multiple meaning. Why didn't we just use new words to assign new meanings?

Even from the semiotics intro videos, I can tell the vocabulary will by difficult. It will take a lot of practice to identify something as an icon vs. symbol vs. index, but I am hopeful once I get the hang of it, it will become easier.